Though Rogers had seemed completely arrogant when the fight began, now I can see a flicker of true terror in his eyes.
That surprises the hell out of me, because in my head, I imagine a man like Rogers doesn’t even know what fear is, let alone has the capacity to express it.
I can tell John wants to communicate with me, but I can also tell that he simply doesn’t have the resources to try. There’s so much sweat slicking down his brow and his body’s so rigid as it’s held against the throne that I know he’s using every single mental and physical resource he has to pay attention to the fight.
I won’t distract him.
No, I’ll help him.
That promise settles deep in my heart and does something to me. It ignites the memory of what he told me when we were in the rose garden. That he would never let me go free. That even though that was my one deepest desire and he seemed happy to give me everything I wanted, he wouldn’t be able to do that. Because fundamentally, I can save more pieces than anyone else. And doesn’t that mean I have a responsibility?
Once upon a time, I hated the word responsibility. Responsibility is a word other people use to keep you trapped. Responsibility takes away your faculty of choice. It locks you to the spot. It means you can’t be dynamic, means you can’t do what you want. It means you essentially start to live for others and lose yourself. Right? Yeah, well that’s a hell of a bratty thing to think. Because ever since my powers started to form in full and I gave myself the responsibility of going out every night to protect the populace of Rival City, my view on that word changed. Because there’s a terrible downside to not accepting responsibility. When you have the power to save someone but you don’t use it, you become an instrument of their death. Okay, maybe you don’t pull the trigger. Maybe you don’t deliver the final blow, but you can’t absolve yourself, either. And the guilt of not saving someone when you can sticks way worse than any other.
The more I fight, the better I get at it. The more I fight, the more I connect to John, too. It’s not just that I’m starting to predict what he’s doing, it’s almost... it’s almost as if I’m somehow suggesting moves to him without bothering to speak them out loud. It’s like we’re one entity but moving in two bodies.
It’s exhilarating but terrifying at the same time.
Rogers is sweating now. Looks like a pig in a sauna. He’s rocked all the way forward in his throne, his hands clamped around the armrests so hard, I swear his white knuckles will snap free from his tendons and ricochet through the room like bullets.
I don’t know how fights like this end. Especially not a fight as frenetic as this one. Though John has fought Spencer on my behalf on two occasions now, I know for a fact it’s never ended in a complete rout, as both parties have walked away. And yet, I equally know that this fight can’t afford to end that way. Rogers is not a man who’ll walk away from anything. Plus, I really need to appreciate one fact, don’t I? While both men are absolutely fighting for me, they’re probably fighting for the gameboard, too.
I... did something to it when I bled on it – activated it somehow. If John walks away now, he’s only going to allow Rogers to claim this gameboard, and that’s going to be terrible.
So I give it everything. My swords are spinning around me, and magic buffets off me. I don’t allow myself to feel fatigue for a second.
But Rogers is desperate.
He’s also obviously been holding back.
I hear him make the strangest noise as he suddenly lets his head jolt back and slam into the headrest of his throne. It makes this aching cracking noise like bone being pulverized under a hammer.
It’s way more than enough to get my attention, and I find myself landing with a thump and quickly angling my head toward him.
I see him allow his eyes to roll into the back of his head.
Then... Christ, something forms behind him.
This... collection of shadows. They’re dancing there, right behind his back, collecting like smoke being sucked through a vent.
“Shit. No. You need to get away. Get back. You have no chance,” John begins.
I don’t get back. I kind of stand there, mesmerized by the feel of whatever the hell is forming past Rogers’ shoulders.
It’s familiar, and yet darkly wrong at the same time. Yeah, I know darkly wrong doesn’t sound like a thing, but open your heart and try to imagine it, and you’ll experience exactly what I’m seeing now.
It’s like Rogers has trawled something up from the depths of the deepest ocean. Or maybe from the depths of space itself. Something that should never be seen, let alone interact with the living.
I take a gasp as it finally forms.
I’m expecting some kind of monster. Some huge grotesque form. It’s not what I get. I get a woman made out of shadow. She has the unmistakable form of a human. And though she’s naked, it’s a technicality, as her body isn’t made of flesh but instead constituted by those dark clouds.
I gasp again.
There’s something... deeply, deeply familiar about her energy. I don’t know her or anything – I just—
“You had the imprint of a queen?” John says, voice shaking. There’s fear in it. True fear. Not for him though, is it? It’s for his pieces and me.
Even if I had the inclination to run away, I wouldn’t have the time anymore.
Rogers looks right at me as he swipes his hand to the side. The shadowy female figure who has formed suddenly darts into the game. She leaps high, spinning several times in the air, completely unaffected by gravity until she lands with a massive, echoing thump. Though the gameboard usually doesn’t allow impacts to spread, this time it does, possibly intentionally. For as the shadowy woman lands, everybody standing on the board is knocked off their feet. And that includes me.
I shift to the side and roll, but immediately she attacks.
“You need to escape,” John begs me. I’ve never heard him speak with more emotion.
The imprint of a queen.
Those words echo and roll around my head, almost like thunder over an empty plain.
Back when the horse attacked me, he explained what happened to the pieces I’ve defeated over the years. Rather than lose them completely, apparently, an imprint of them became stored in my magical aura, there for any king who claims me.
And that’s what this shadowy woman is, right? An imprint of a defeated queen.
Technically, if I were able to acquire her myself, I’d be able to learn all her moves.
But that is a big damn technicality.
Because as she attacks, she’s unlike anything I’ve ever faced.
I jerk to the side, bringing my spinning swords up, letting my magic sink into them. The woman’s quicker.
The next thing I know, without her moving through the space between, she appears right beside me. I see a flash of her foot. It’s charged with dark magic, black flames leaping over the skin and sinking back into the rising smoke-covered form that is her body.
She swipes the foot toward my head. I can’t buck back. It strikes me across the jaw. It’s way more than enough to see me strike the floor and roll several meters. But before I can jump back to my feet, she’s upon me again.
I can hear John screaming my name. He’s desperate. The kind of desperate that tells me I have minutes, if not seconds.
Maybe if I was at full power, this shadow of a queen would have no chance. Or even then again, considering the massive gaps in my knowledge, maybe I’d have no chance, even if I was glowing with magic.
But I can’t let those two thoughts derail me. Because the queen herself derails me with another vicious kick to my side.
It impacts my torso, knocking the breath right out of me as I spin, strike the floor, and roll another 20 m.
My whole body is aching now. Feels like I’ve been attacked by a drill.
Though I want to jump to my feet and know I have to, I can barely force my sweaty hands to gain purchase on the floor.
She’s upon
me again. I see her foot slice toward my face.
I know John’s trying to defend me. I can feel he’s changing his pieces, giving them orders to surround me. But at the same time, Rogers isn’t taking a backseat. He’s keeping John’s pieces occupied. And that means one thing. I’m on my own.
She kicks me again.
It’s no ordinary kick. It’s not just coming from her magical strength. It’s undermining in every way. Almost as if whenever her foot comes in contact with my skin, it does something to my body.
I can’t think, though. Don’t have the time to try to figure this out.
She kicks me again, and I roll even further. And this time, I can’t even reach my hands up to lock them on the floor.
I’m rocking backward and forward, using all my energy to breathe through my bruised and cracked ribs.
I feel power and hear the unmistakable crackling sound of the magic escaping over her body as she lands beside me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her foot. She brings it up. Right in front of my face.
I know what she’s going to do. Drive it down against my head and knock me out, this time for good. I know that. That goddamn knowledge expands through my head like a bomb. It shakes up the very last of my power.
Come on, I tell myself. Come on, I beg myself harder. It’s now or never.
“Do it,” Rogers screams. His voice is what finally ignites that last fire inside of me.
The voice of a twisted, broken man. No, worse than that, a king. Someone who, through circumstance alone, has more power than everyone else. Someone who wields that power against others, to take away not just their choice, but their freedom.
I have no idea how many people Rogers has harmed over the years. But I know for a fact that with me, he’ll only hurt more.
And I will not allow that to happen.
I don’t have the time to reach a hand up and grab the shadow queen’s leg.
I don’t bother to, either.
I’m still connected to my swords, even though both of them have been kicked right out of my hands.
And now, I let my attention pulse into them freely. I even close my eyes.
But it’s not in surrender.
I connect to my swords. I twist around, and I send them plunging into the gameboard.
I let all of my energy flow into the blades. And that energy doesn’t just come from my magic. It comes from what’s beneath that. It’s not even my desire to free myself and finally take hold of my destiny. It’s way, way deeper than that. It’s my desire to end not just this game, but all games.
This world is wrong, and though I want to free myself from it, it’s a far more noble desire to free others first.
I’ve never really had a purpose in life. Sure, over the last several years, that purpose has been twisted into surviving. But even beyond that, I’ve never been one of those people who knew how they wanted to help others. I didn’t have the strength and stamina to be a doctor, and I didn’t have the smarts to be a scientist. I wasn’t brave enough to be a police officer or a fireman.
I just wasn’t cut from that caliber.
But that was me then.
And you know what? This is me now.
As my swords sink into the gameboard, I don’t let it control me. I don’t let it eagerly soak up the last offering of my magic so it can knock me out and acquire me.
I focus right past it on the world around. The world that’s usurped and destroyed by the game.
And that world... I swear it floods into me. For just a second. And it gives me a power that isn’t mine. That’s way beyond that of a queen.
The shadow queen’s leg finally impacts my face, but before she can break my nose and rearrange my skull, sending enough magic slamming into my brain to not just knock me out but to put me into a coma, she’s thrown from her feet.
Because the gameboard cracks. Not completely. It isn’t destroyed, but it is injured.
Rogers screams. It’s twisted, all guttural, like someone has hands around his throat. It’s animalistic, too. But... it almost doesn’t come from him. Not his fear, not his desperation. Something beyond him. Maybe whatever side of the man is the real king.
“You can’t destroy the board completely, but attack again. I know you’re injured, I know you want to fall unconscious – but attack once more. It’s the only way to end this. Break one more square. Make sure it’s black,” John splutters.
I hear his voice just as I threaten to slip into unconsciousness. Sure, I managed to save myself from the brunt of the shadow queen’s power, but I underestimated just how much force it would take to attack the board. And now... now John wants me to attack again.
As I slip into unconsciousness, that thought is almost enough to laugh out loud at.
He wants me to attack again? How? I don’t think I’ve ever felt more tired. It’s like... I want to return to the earth or something. Almost as if I’m getting ready to die.
But then I hear Rogers scream again. I know what it means.
It’s the cry of a desperate man who’s getting ready to sacrifice everything as long as he can claim what he wants. The scream of a man who doesn’t care how much he has to destroy as long as the world conforms to his will.
... I’m suddenly struck by the fact that maybe without magic Rogers would’ve been a normal man. Okay, not normal, but he wouldn’t have been able to witness the destructive capacity of a singular will. And without that capacity, maybe he would’ve changed.
But the magic won’t let him change. His role as a king and the gameboards he’s acquired will never let him abandon them.
They’re like viruses. Parasites his mind will never be able to shake.
No hope for him.
No hope.
For to give him hope is to take it away from everyone else.
I was never someone who believed in the natural order of things. I was never someone who took much comfort in nature at all. All that life and death. All that needless destruction. And as for the cycle of birth and rebirth – it’s nothing more than a myth to make people comfortable about their otherwise fragile and useless lives.
But I feel it now. The nature beyond the game, the lines and energies of the earth. The fact they alone have tried to help me.
And right now, they want to help me one last time.
It’s hell. It’s pain incarnate, but I open one eye.
I see the shadow queen pick herself up. She whirls on her foot. The move isn’t as fast as before, and I think I can see a massive crack has formed up her stomach and along her throat. She’s standing, and now she’s running, and now she’s leaping.
She’s getting ready to end this.
Rogers is screaming at the top of his lungs.
John is bent forward in his throne, almost unconscious, just holding on.
And me?
The Last Queen?
I do it.
I shove forward, get to my knees, blast my arms out wide, and call to my swords.
They jerk up out of the gameboard where they’d been sunk up to their hilts.
They twist in the air. As they do, they gather magic. Not just from me, but from the rock above the gameboard, from the dirt below, from the earth in every direction.
There’s just a split second of silence and stillness as everyone stares at them, appreciating what’s just about to happen.
I close my eyes, sweep my hands down, and let my swords sink into the gameboard.
There’s a crack. Massive. Doesn’t just sound like a mountain being sliced in two, but like a thousand backs breaking under some impossible weight.
The queen launches herself at me, but she doesn’t reach me. She stops in the air, midway, her smoky foot right by my face.
I have time to look into her eyes.
I expect to see an enemy. I see nothing more than a picture. A picture of what I could have one day been.
Then she cracks. She doesn’t fall into dust and scatter by my feet. She just returns to
the shadows.
That cannot be said for Rogers.
He has time to scream. Then I feel the gameboard itself turn on him. It’s not just Rowley’s pieces. It’s almost as if the gameboard has finally appreciated that the only way it can survive is if it joins John. Like I said, parasite.
A turncoat who will align with whatever force ensures it will survive.
I stagger to my feet. I turn.
It’s just in time to see Rowley deliver the last blow.
Every single one of Rogers’ pieces falls.
And Rogers himself?
He has just enough time to make eye contact with me. Then his throne starts to crack.
He’s no longer held against it, and he can finally reach a hand toward me. His fingers spread with such desperation, such need as they angle toward me, that I almost want to reach a hand toward him. I don’t.
I turn my back on him.
I don’t see as he dies. But I hear as his throne explodes, feel as magic ricochets through the room and sinks down into the board. And the board greedily accepts it.
Suddenly there’s silence. It’s so starkly different to the sounds of horrifying magical war that were filling the cavern before.
It’s so still, it almost fools me into thinking this is over.
But how can it be over when it’s just begun?
I hear a noise and without even turning, I know what it is.
John’s been released from his throne.
I hear the creak of his bones, the hard, fatigued panting of his breath as he pulls himself to his feet.
Then one thump as he takes a step toward me. Then another and another.
I don’t turn to stare at him, and nor do I rush to his side to help him.
I just wait.
Then a second later, I feel it. His hand flattens against my shoulder. Is it warm? Of course it’s warm. This kind of heat you can’t even imagine. It’s not a heat you’ll ever fear could burn you. Just the opposite – melt you.
I want to shiver, but I stifle the move.
I still won’t look at him, and fortunately, he makes no move to turn me around.
“It’s not over,” he says, voice low, so tired, I wonder how long he has before he conks out.
The Last Queen Book Three Page 15
