He raised both his hands. “I give up!”
What kind of trick was this? I fired again. Two blades this time. He gestured again. This time the blade barely budged, and it nearly got him. His eyes were shadowed; though maybe it was just that the kohl on his eyes had smeared. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or scared. Either way he was about to attack.
He dipped below the surface, and I followed his swimming toward the shore, firing blades one after another and spreading ripples in the blood-tinted water.
He surfaced again, his pale hands shaking. “Wait, wait, wait!”
“For your health to refill?” I pressed the button on my wrist to switch from blades to flame. “I don’t think so.”
“Don’t kill me okay?” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I can help you.”
I aimed my flame shooter. “I don’t believe you.”
“That’s not even the hard-to-believe part.”
I sparked the oils.
He yelped and ducked under the surface. My flames created steam as they evaporated the surface of the water. I’d boil him out.
But it’d also make my hair frizz.
I turned off the flames and went back to my blades.
“Please, please, please,” he said as he breached the water, treading low. “Okay, okay. I give up. Don’t kill me.”
His acting was a little over the top, but there was something that felt sincere. But Andrew had seemed sincere too. I pointed my wrist.
He closed his eyes and sunk below the surface. He spat out water. “Please. I can’t believe I’m going to die because I can’t talk to a girl.”
“It’s not…” I inhaled. I didn’t want to break character, but he seemed so honestly scared. I didn’t want him to think he was actually dying. “You’ll be okay,” I whispered. “You’ll just wake up at Stonebright.”
He didn’t open his eyes, he just muttered under his breath.
They could edit that part out.
I rearmed, but he didn’t move to fight back. I fired.
The dagger hit him between the ribs.
He dipped below the water. His health was already low, but the blade dropped the health lower.
He didn’t fight back, but miserable red eyes met mine. “Please. It’s part of my game condition to turn on my friends.” He spat out blood. “Let me help you. I’ll do anything. Just please don’t kill me.”
I raised my palm again. He didn’t fight back.
How was I supposed to work with someone who wouldn’t participate?
The crafting ability in my stats lit up. More tailoring skills must have unlocked.
I guess having a Devout wouldn’t be so bad.
I mimed firing, and he winced. But I didn’t shoot. Instead, I reached for his arm. His health was too low. I might kill him just from the flight back to my castle. I pulled him up until our noses touched and then turned my head slightly so the hibisi tea would drip down onto his bloody mouth.
“You are now the property of the Savak queen,” I hissed, trying to cover this breach in character action with very on-character words. “You try anything, and I will kill you. No lies, no tricks, and in fact, no words. I don’t trust you, and I will kill you to win this game.”
I clipped him to my Wingship. Before we left, his loyalty colors had turned red.
Though maybe that was all the blood.
I had a final battle scene to prepare for, and a nearly dead new ally to get costumed.
It was almost time for places.
26
RYO
The docks were in ruins. Flames had scorched the shore; the docks themselves barely kept floating. And all along the dark pebbled shore, bodies wrapped in stark-white clothes lay like keys on a piano. Even with how fast we could travel, we’d missed the last stand against the Savak queen.
“We should go,” I said. I didn’t move.
And Dagney didn’t either. “How can we leave their bodies staked through like this?” She ran her fingers through her tangled hair. “I know it’s not real, but…”
“It’s real enough.”
We helped lift their bodies off the stakes, and Dagney helped wrap them. The Kneult offered us hibisi for the effort, a jar of brewed blossom tea, with stronger healing properties than chewing the leaves on their own.
Then they led us to the bodies from our own kingdom.
General Franciv, Lord Reginal, Sir Tomlinson. The queen.
And my father.
All lay wrapped in white fabric, on the edge of the ocean they believed was a god called Mother. Funny, I called the god of this world Mother too.
We didn’t tell them our names, so they couldn’t know we knew them. They couldn’t know that this side quest meant more to me than the vague promise of treasure at the end of it.
And now they’d arranged a way for the ocean they called Mother to welcome our dead back home. They carried their bodies over our shoulders to boats made of paper. Some boats were thick and finely crafted, some barely covered the water.
The council’s boats were gifts from the Kneult. My father’s boat seemed almost holy, marked with dripping candles. Dagney and I carried the council members’ bodies, one by one by one. We pushed them into the waves, watching the paper disintegrate slowly. The paper boats lasted a small distance into the ocean, until the bodies sunk under the glistening water.
It was heavy, hard work, until there was only one body left. He was already wrapped, and he wasn’t my father, not really. I’d already buried my father.
So thank you, Mom, for making me live through this twice.
The lapping waves pushed against my legs, my father’s weight heavy over my shoulder. Dagney carried him too, strong and steady. I felt as flimsy as a fishing line with no lure, no anchor. The waves could knock me over, and they tried, they tried. We lowered him onto the boat made of money and then we pushed him out.
The lapping waves carried me forward without my permission. My memories wanted to follow him out there, to watch him sink until the darkness sealed him away forever.
Dagney held my arm. The sunset sent streaks of orange and red across the brutal sea. Their families mourned them with wails and songs and tears of grief, quiet echoes of my feelings, like my grief was outside me, dressed in white, singing a mourning song. The Kneult lowered Marcus’s and Isabel’s bodies into their boats. Marcus’s name was too close to my father’s, and when his family wailed out his name and sang hymns of grief, it echoed a reminder of the moment I’d watched my father’s casket lowered into the earth.
I couldn’t face those memories.
But I missed them too. They’d started to fade into the years since I’d lived them. In a small way, it was a gift to get them back, to remember the smell of leaves and upturned earth, and the moment when my father disappeared. One moment I said goodbye to his casket, and the next it was covered by dirt.
When my father died, there’d been a short paragraph listed in the news. He was called Nao Takagi’s husband. There’d been no grand list of achievements, nothing to share how proud I’d always been of him. It didn’t list the way he always pulled over when he saw someone stranded with a stalled car. It didn’t show the way he paid the bills on time, or cut his sandwiches into triangles, or ate mayonnaise with a spoon, or his Mickey Mouse impressions. No obituary listed the way he listened without judgment, or the way his attention made me feel like I was royalty.
And then he was gone, and the world didn’t change at all with his absence. The stock market wasn’t affected. The buses didn’t slow. My father meant nothing to the world.
But he meant the world to me.
How cruel a gift for my mother to make me live through this again.
Dagney wrapped her arm around my back. Standing steady. Strong.
We should get out of the water, but we didn’t move.
Isabel’s boat had been covered in flowers, and the pale yellow blossoms floated in the glittering water marking the last place we saw them.
The sky was broken, and Grig was out there alone, and we had a game to win. But we knew as soon as we left, the scene here would end. As soon as we left, no one here would mourn Isabel or Marcus. The Kneult would go back to hibernation, and the bodies would stay in the water until the diseased sky swallowed the last of their bones.
Dagney moved first. She wiped her eyes on my shirt. “We need to find Grigfen. I can’t let this happen to him.”
“Where is he?”
She closed her eyes. Then she pointed across the harbor toward the Island of the Savak.
I swallowed.
The wailing song finished; the mourners traded for Marcus and Isabel’s belongings, trading with memories, not money. A pair of boots traded to a boy about my age for a brief tale about a hunt, a shaving kit to a little girl for a story about how Marcus had taught her how to read. But did that mean the real Marcus liked to go hunting, or taught his little sister how to read? They traded Isabel’s paintbrushes for a story about a kindness to a friend, and they gave her small dog to a woman who looked like her mother who stood and couldn’t say anything at all.
When they brought out Isabel’s armor, they brought it to Dagney. “For your help carrying the bodies, we’d like to give you this armor.”
Dagney inhaled, her eyes tabulating the stats of the armor, and then for a moment, she dropped her eyes. “Thank you.”
They turned to me. “And you, Prince Ryo. Yes, we know who you are. We honor your father’s service, and the duty you’ve performed today. We offer you the armor of Marcus, and your father’s sword.”
“What about my mother?” I said, frustrated the queen wasn’t honored. “I lost her too.”
The truth of my statement tore my throat ragged. I missed my dad every second of my life, but I knew he didn’t choose to leave.
I lost my mom the day my dad died. And every night she didn’t come home, every time she heard me cry and didn’t check on me, every time I grieved my dad on my own, was her choice.
They couldn’t just forget that loss.
We could have grieved him together. Instead she made this worthless game that was trying to kill me, and then forced me to relive my grief as realistically as possible.
What was wrong with her?
Dagney cleared her throat. “Thank you for your trade.” Attention turned to Dagney, like a weight pulled off my shoulders. “We’ll be leaving now.”
The game paused like it was waiting for me to say more, but I just stared into their computerized faces and waited for them to move on. I wasn’t going to take my words back. I’d just found them.
They handed me the king’s sword, and I leveled up. Light shone from the sword in my hand, brighter than this harsh sun, highlighting the shimmering silver and the bronze handle.
I wasn’t just a hunter now. I was my father’s son.
And we were going to win this game for him.
Dagney had leveled up too, her health full, her cheeks glowing.
I held up the breastplate. Marcus had worn this, earned it over his time in the game. His thickly plated armor had maxed-out protection and speed. The thick silver armor didn’t match the outfit I wore underneath, but he’d worked so hard for this. It was an honor to wear this before the final battle. I’d carry him on my shoulders as a thank-you.
Isabel’s armor fit small on Dagney, leaving vulnerabilities at her side. The Axes of Creation and Destruction formed an X behind her back. She put on a helmet, the helm shadowing her eyes. I crossed to her and pulled off her helmet.
I wasn’t ready to not see her eyes.
I gave her a kiss, soft and brief.
“For luck?” she asked. Her bottom lip tucked behind her teeth.
“Because I wanted to kiss you. You’re not a rabbit’s foot.”
She grabbed my collar and pulled me down for another kiss.
And when she moved back, she smiled. “And don’t you forget it.”
I rested my forehead against hers.
“You were really brave,” she said. “You okay?”
“We don’t have time for okay.” I put on a smile. “We have a queen to see.”
We could do this.
Dagney was only at level twenty-one. I was nineteen. I’d have preferred to be at least above level fifty before we went against the queen of the Savak. I’d have preferred to have an army at my side, mechanicals at my flank, weapons buffed.
All I had was Dagney. She grinned at me and my muscles relaxed. They didn’t stand a chance.
“The Island of the Savak is mostly mountain, and if I mistime it, we might end up encased in rock, so I’m going to take small steps. I’m aiming for that ship.” She pointed to the horizon, where a fishing vessel sailed toward the Island of the Savak. “They might not take kindly to stowaways, so whatever happens I’m not going to stop walking. Hopefully there will be another ship beyond it, but if we land in the water, hold your breath, and hold on tight to me.”
I tucked my fingers into the straps of her armor. Electricity drew us closer as she stepped toward a rocking boat. Sailors shouted at our arrival, but she stepped again, to a wrecked boat, covered in ashes. The wreckage dipped under our weight, seawater soaking up to my knees. There was nowhere else to step except the sea. The Savak were beyond the horizon, but I couldn’t see their island. All I could see were waves.
Our eyes met and we took deep breaths. She studied my expression and gave a small nod.
Then she stepped right into the deep water.
The ocean tore at us. There was nowhere to step in the deep swirling sea. Dagney’s eyes widened, her nostrils flaring under water. I threw myself forward and dragged her by her waist, pushing her legs forward. Light shifted around us as the next step landed, still underwater, ankles deep in demanding sand. The dirt swirled around us, sucking me down. Dagney held my armor tight and stepped off my knee. We shot forward again, deeper under the surface, the light of the sky so distant I couldn’t see anything other than swirling black shadows and sharp circling fins.
Bubbles escaped her mouth, and my lungs ached. Her eyes widened in fear and I didn’t pause to look at whatever creature she saw. I pushed her forward again. The drag tore at my grip, the ocean prying her nearly out of my hands. But she didn’t quit. Not until we stood on the pebbled shore, ocean water to our shoulders, the water jostling us forward.
I coughed seawater until I could breathe without the rattle of salt in my lungs.
Dagney exhaled sharply, her soaked hair plastered to her face. “Disengage boots!” she shouted.
Both of us breathed out labored breaths.
We’d made it to the Island of the Savak.
27
GRIGFEN
When the world went back into focus, I kicked my bare feet against the ground and brought my legs into my chest. The agony in my ribs, sharp and stinging, blurred my vision. I could only take shallow breaths.
But I was alive, I hadn’t broken my promise to Bluebird. Not yet.
A shadow loomed over me. I skidded backward, something metal and hard digging into my shoulder blades. A firm hand steadied me and something cold brushed my lips. Bitter drink quenched my dry tongue and slid down my clenched throat. Light followed that tea, awakening nerve endings. My broken ribs were still tender, but crusted over like the tea had grown armor inside me. Hibisi. Someone had brewed those blossoms. My eyes cracked open.
“Needs honey,” I croaked.
A bloke in a horned golden mask knelt in front of me, holding a glass jar. His body was painted in Devani symbols, his bare chest was wrapped in a metal harness, and behind him were skeletal wings—gold and spindly, creaking under a pair of gears. An orange player indicator floated over his head.
At least it wasn’t McKenna. “Thanks for the healing. I’m Grigfen314.”
“ShadowscapeXI,” his voice low rumbled, “but I go by Andrew here.” I dropped my chin to my chest. I’d played Ashcraft with him before. He was
quick and sometimes impatient, or short tempered with a loss, but he was alive and I was alive, and I was not picky on mates.
Darkness still coated my vision. It seemed even the sky had turned into shadow. “Where’s McKenna?”
The cold marbled floor, covered in a mosaic tile, led to a filigree railing. We were on a rooftop, the open sky the only ceiling on the tallest tower of the castle. The twin moons left a highlight on the water.
“Shhh!” He shot a look behind us. The haze of loyalty around his shoulders was a mix of orange and red. “She’s crafting. It’s best to let her work.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice.
I stumbled to my feet, my balance top heavy. Golden bars strapped to my bare chest, a glistening clear stone right over my heart. Spindly golden wings grew from my back, heavy and sharp. These wings were not made for flapping.
My shirtless body had been painted in kohl. I looked like a drawn skeleton. Shaky lines traced over my bones and across my ribs. From the itch on my cheek and under my eyes, my face had been painted as well. I touched my nose and black kohl smeared onto my fingers.
It was, in a word, chilly.
I was grateful I was still wearing my trousers.
The cut in my side had been healed but my ribs ached. How long had I been unconscious?
The crown slid down my forehead. In the skill section of my stats, the words Equip Crown of Visions? highlighted.
I glanced around. A swarm of Wingships darkened the broken red sky above me, each one armed and watching the harbor, while a trio of zomoks flew around a hovering Wingship at the center that tossed oranges and whistled out commands. The jagged mountain peaks seemed low compared to this tower.
If not now, when?
Equip crown.
Electric shock rocked down my spine. The crown straightened itself on top of my head, as if by magic. A flicker. A flash, like a spurting video, and then the vision showed me Queen McKenna pressing a jewel bracelet like she’d clicked a button. I heard gears tick behind me, and then the sharp wings bolted to my back swung upward, through my ribs, and the bloodstained tips crisscrossed through my chest. McKenna let go of the button and smiled at me as my vision shadowed to black.
Glitch Kingdom Page 22
