The whole room shakes one final time, then finally becomes still. Rock dust filters down, and I get the impending sense that we are about to be crushed.
Spencer claps his hands on his knees and sighs.
Then he turns his attention back to John. “Now,” he says as he shifts down, grabs up the blade, and looms over John once more. “It’s time for this game to end.”
“You don’t get to decide when the game ends – it does,” John says.
Just as Spencer reaches him, John acts.
He breaks the pole holding him in place. Don’t ask me how he does it. He yanks his arms forward, and somehow he gathers the strength to completely snap it in place. The sound of it echoes through the room.
Michael is the first to react, and he throws himself forward, magic charging over his fist.
But just before he can reach John, something happens.
The square beneath Michael reacts. It becomes electrified, then, in an instant, it sends up tendrils of almost indistinguishable, transparent smoke. They latch around Michael’s magic, and they absorb it.
Michael comes to a skidding stop. “What?” he demands as he stares down at his hands.
John is still on his feet. He’s managed to completely break through his chains. Now he backs away, behind me.
Though I can tell all he wants to do is rush toward me, he keeps his wary attention on Spencer instead. “You have no idea what you’ve done, do you?”
“I have every idea what I’m about to do,” Spencer blares as he attempts to run toward John once more. But just as his foot strikes against another one of those magical squares, more of that invisible energy snakes up. It entangles the magical blade in his hand and pulls it from him.
As soon as the blade strikes the board, it’s completely obliterated. The energy of the board simply absorbs it, eating it like it’s an animal feasting on a carcass.
True fear now stops Spencer in place. “What the hell is going on here?” he spits.
“That knowledge you wanted from me,” John growls as he keeps his hands held up in a defensive position but does not cast a single spell, “is this. You cannot use the original board. In calling it, it will simply feed on you and all your players.”
“Impossible. This board will help me to win the game forever.”
“The game cannot be won forever. It is in control. You are not. And it will never allow one player to succeed in totality. All it cares about is controlling us. And now you have called the original board, it will gleefully accept your power.”
“Impossible,” Spencer says. But he doesn’t thrust forward. He doesn’t act. He simply stares in horror at the gameboard beneath his feet.
It gives John time to turn. To face me.
And I face him.
He looks right into my eyes, and the anger that should be there isn’t. “Get out of here. I’ll hold it off.”
I don’t move.
I stare.
Then I shake my head.
“There’s nothing you can do. You can’t destroy the game. It can only destroy you.”
I keep staring. And once more, I shake my head.
I should give in to John’s superior knowledge, shouldn’t I? After all, he obviously had the knowledge to appreciate what would happen when the original board was called. But I don’t.
I can’t.
I hold onto what Matrexia told me.
And I turn.
I face the game.
Spencer suddenly makes a swiping motion with his hand, and from the door on the opposite side of the room, five pawns rush in. They are electrified with magic as he directs them at John, but they don’t get the chance to do anything else. As soon as magic crackles over their forms and they start to attack, the squares beneath them just consume them. There’s nothing they can do. There’s nowhere they can run. The game’s power and greed are complete.
So this is it, ha?
Chaos.
The end.
The end I’ve been reaching for; the end I’ve been sacrificing for. The end I’ve been imagining with all my soul.
It’s here.
As John pleads with me to leave once more, I don’t.
I stand my ground.
Because this will be my final match one way or another.
Chapter 9
Though Spencer throws more pieces onto the board, they are always absorbed. And every time he does, the chaos grows.
It is now abundantly clear that he is no longer in control. The game is.
And the game is getting greedy.
I can feel it. It wants me. More than any other player on this board, it wants to break into my soul and break me apart.
Maybe it knows. Maybe it possesses the intelligence to realize what I have planned. Maybe it would have kept me around as a player, maybe it wouldn’t have absorbed my magic, but now I want to destroy it, it only has one choice, doesn’t it?
John has given up on telling me to leave. It’s obvious he appreciates I will stand my ground. Or maybe I won’t. Because the gameboard suddenly lurches. It’s a violent move, made to throw us all around like dolls. And it’s made to prove that not a single one of us is in control.
I can feel something start to build. It’s directed at me. I sense desire, greed. A sense of predatorial hunger locking on me.
But it doesn’t get the chance to attack.
Matrexia stands there. She turns. She faces me. All her elegance drops away. All her power. Everything I thought separated her from me. It all falls until I swear I’m staring at a reflection of myself.
Or at least a reflection of what I could have been.
She says nothing. She doesn’t have to. I know she can feel the same thing that I can.
She opens her lips. She mouths two words. “Good luck.”
And she turns.
Just as the chaos builds and sinks into the board with an unholy crack like a spine being shattered by a brick, she throws herself forward. Somehow, she can predict what the original board will do, because just as it sends a spike of magic right toward me, Matrexia leaps forward and lets it collect her in the chest.
She is easily the strongest queen I have ever encountered. It doesn’t matter. As the magic strikes her, it forces her back. She slams against the board, and as soon as her body impacts it, the squares light up. They glow.
Matrexia has the time to reach a hand up to me. “Destroy it. If anyone can do it, it’s you. Don’t follow it. Destroy it.”
With that, magic leaps up from the square beneath her and plunges into her back. It racks her form until she shakes like a convulsing patient.
I gasp in horrified terror as I watch magic sink into her body and start to break her down.
“What the hell is happening? What’s going on? Are you controlling the board?” Spencer spits wildly at John.
John stairs in aghast horror as Matrexia is torn apart. He opens his lips, his shaking lips. “You fool. Neither of us is in control anymore. Neither of us was ever in control. We were only ever brought here to feed it.”
“I am in control,” Spencer spits, but his voice shakes. So damn badly I can barely pick it up.
I can’t tear my gaze off Matrexia until she is completely ripped apart and her magic sinks into the board.
It glows, more chaotic power spilling from it and filling the room.
“We have to get out of here,” Michael growls at Spencer. “We have to end the ceremony.”
Spencer stares at me. “Do something. Protect me,” he spits.
I have the time to look into his eyes. Then the game lurches once more.
I’m pushed backward. So is Spencer. He is thrown toward one of the crackling squares.
Michael lurches in front of Spencer. Just as that section of the game board twists, he puts his body between it and Spencer. The electrified black square jerks toward him, slams against his chest, and pins him to the ground.
The unmistakable sound of crushed bone and flesh echoes out.
Spencer’s eyes blast wide as he lurches forward, as he gets down to his knee, as he uses a charge of magic to try to lift the board. But it doesn’t help no matter how much magic he pushes into it. The square will not lift.
Somehow Michael isn’t quite dead. Yet. He finds the last strength of his form to reach a hand out to Spencer.
Spencer doesn’t accept it. He simply kneels there and stares in horror.
Around us, the board continues to shake.
“You’ve lost control,” John spits from behind me. “You need to end this ceremony. Now, before this spell absorbs everything.”
“It’s already too late,” I whisper.
I know I’m right. Because nature knows I’m right. Chaos. It’s everywhere. Flooding in from every direction. But it’s not true chaos. It has too much of an edge for that. As I push my mind into it, I recognize one impossibly strong emotion. Greed.
It’s coming from the original board, isn’t it? It’s the game. The intelligence behind it. The very originating force.
It’s flooding into this room, feasting on people’s power, and it will not stop until it has pulled us all apart.
It started with Matrexia, then Michael. Then?
I feel something from underneath me.
I know what it is. And I know what’s going to happen next.
I have time to turn. Time to stare at John. Time to allow my gaze to lock on his. And time, hopefully, for all those un-said things to spread between us. I don’t have the breath to tell him I’m sorry. And I don’t get the chance.
The square beneath me electrifies.
Something pulses up from it.
“Move,” John spits.
He can’t hope to reach me in time. There’s no point. There’s nowhere to run.
I half close my eyes. I don’t leap up. I don’t try to dodge. I’m not that stupid. The chaos is everywhere. If I leap into the air, it will simply get me there. I could try to run for the door, but it would follow.
So I stand my ground, close my eyes, and feel it reach up.
It is greed embodied. And as magic cascades through the square beneath me, catches around my ankles with the grip of a thousand hands, and starts climbing my body, I am taken by how abhorrent it is. It is a stain on reality. A mark against nature herself.
As it climbs me and wraps around my body, it sinks into my magic with all the electric greed of a predator clasping hold of their prey.
John screams at me. Maybe Spencer does, too. It doesn’t matter. As the magic encases me and starts to pull me apart, I get drawn into it.
“No,” John screams at me, louder now. So loud I swear he is using his full magic to be heard.
He’s down on his knees, blood practically splashing down from the wound in his chest. That doesn’t matter. He reaches a hand toward me.
I can feel him start to cast a spell. Though I can’t pull myself away from the magic encasing me, something suddenly rushes out of John, cascades over the board, reaches my feet, and grows up me.
It’s armor. Some kind of carapace. And it feels exactly as if John has just reached me and wrapped his own arms around my middle.
It’s enough to cut out the pain. Enough to stop me from screaming until my lungs pop.
And yet, it can’t cut out the force of the spell.
Spencer has stopped screaming. He has stopped trying to fight, too. He’s just down on his hands and knees, shaking, giving in to his fear as his body is racked with terror.
There’s nothing he can do to save me. Even if there was something he could do, I doubt he would try. He knows I’m lost.
And maybe I am lost, because despite the protection spell John has cast, I can still feel that light wheedling in until I swear it’s millions of little scalpels trying to cut back my flesh.
I’m forced to close my eyes.
Then I see that light. The same light I saw during the warp spell. It opens out in front of me. It’s all around me. There’s nowhere I can go to get away from it.
And it’s forcing me to follow it.
I think I hear John screaming my name. He can’t reach me, though. The board continues to shake, the chaos filling the room as rock dust scatters down from above.
I can’t open my eyes. I can’t turn away. The light leads me forward.
As it does, I think I appreciate one fact. I was always going to go this way, wasn’t I? I played right into the game’s hands, didn’t I? It always wanted to cast this spell on me. It always wanted to break me apart and steal my magic.
In other words?
I’ve lost the game.
But just before I can completely give in and surrender to my fate, that question rises in my mind. The same question I’ve been grappling with since I joined Spencer. What is the game?
Control. In every respect. From people’s lives, to people’s destinies, to people’s power. The game takes them, takes the best of them, and when it’s done with them, spits them out.
It is a parasite in every way.
In every way.
I keep hold of that thought, never letting it go as my mind expands through the darkness.
Back on the game board, I can feel myself being pulled apart.
I can feel the remnants of the spell John cast on me finally breaking.
And the sound of that armored cocoon shattering is like listening to every single one of my bones being broken, never to repair themselves again.
But my mind still functions. I’m still aware of my eyes, still aware of the light behind them.
It’s getting closer. Though I stop pushing toward it, it is now pushing toward me. With all its might.
I’m aware of its intelligence, of its force. And more than anything, its sheer desire.
The reason I’m aware of its desire is I recognize it. Deep down in my soul. It’s the same damn desire that’s been pushing me on ever since I found out I had powers. The same desire that saw me clean the city streets of pawns before I even knew what they were. The same desire that saw me protect John, that threw me into Spencer’s arms, and that pushed me to this point.
It’s the desire for power.
I would never have called myself a megalomaniac. I wasn’t some kind of crazy practitioner who sought power for power’s sake, like Senator Rogers. I was never somebody who wanted to impose her will on the world regardless of what the world wanted.
And yet I sought out power. Because I wanted to survive.
And this? The light? The intelligence behind the game?
It’s the same, isn’t it?
It wants to survive. It needs to. There’s a desire right at the deepest part of its soul that is pushing it on. That is willing it to continue to live no matter the costs.
In a game, you play to win.
In the game of life? You play to survive. Another second, another minute, another day. More time. You always need more time.
But at some point, for all of us, that time will run out. It doesn’t matter how much power we have sought to save ourselves. It doesn’t matter how much we’ve won.
At the end of the day?
At the end of the day, all that matters is those we’ve left behind and the changes we have made in their lives.
Regardless of the number of people I’ve saved in this twisted game, at the end of the day, I was only ever trying to get by.
But before I can conclude that I’m the same as that light, something stops me.
My memory of John. Just as the cocoon he cast around me cracks entirely, and my body is ravaged by the magic attempting to pull it apart, I realize that we are the same.
It takes an ordinary man to do what he can to survive an extraordinary situation. It takes a great man to try to change that situation for others, even if it will cost him his life.
You can get by, you can strive ahead, or you can stop and help others.
Others will try to tell you that the constructs and rules of life will stop you from truly helping others. The rules will stop you from tru
ly making a change. And if you believe that, they’ll be right. If you accept those rules, they will craft your future.
But if you reject them?
All this time, I’ve been looking for a way to fight the game. I’ve been looking for the location of the rules, but I’ve been doing so externally. As my mind is broken down and all my beliefs and memories are smashed together as my body is drawn apart, I finally see it.
It’s in my head, you see. In the head of every single player. The spell to keep us locked against this game is not in the water and earth and sky.
It’s in our minds.
That’s what that path is. The path that is attempting to lead me forward, that’s trying to bleed me of my last power so that it can survive.
I’ve finally located it.
I stare at the light in my mind.
Do I have magic anymore? Technically. I can’t access it here. Can I access my body? Can I kick and punch and fight?
No.
But I have something far more important. Knowledge.
I’ve finally realized the rules for what they are. A limiting path in my own head.
As I think that, something happens to the light. It twists. As that conclusion rushes through me, I open myself up to nature. As I appreciate that the rules of this twisted game are nothing more than a set of unnatural, manufactured rules in my mind, a tunnel opens up. Not a path of light – not the singular track that the game has been trying to pull me down so that it can break up my magic. I’m beyond that. I’ve gone far, far beyond it and reached out to eternity.
Eternity is the real future. For it is a future that is endlessly open. It is a future where, if you get rid of the rules holding you in place and keeping you playing someone else’s game, you get to live in the real world, where anything is possible.
I hold onto that knowledge.
I don’t have hands. I don’t have anything to grasp. That doesn’t matter.
Because that scrap of pure magic inside me that the game is trying to tear from my soul is still here.
And I use it. I throw it at the rules in my mind. I ignore the constraints of the game, rushing past them, pushing them to the side.
The Last Queen Book Five Page 14
