Glitch Kingdom

by Sheena Boekweg

  I brushed her shoulder with my own. “Do you feel better now?”

  “A little. I may think of a postscript.”

  I faced Bluebird. “What’s gone wrong?”

  Dagney sighed. “I’ve told you, the—”

  I held up a hand. “No. There’s something new. Out with it.”

  Bluebird drew a shaky breath. “Five of the twelve players are dead.”

  Grig pressed his fist into his mouth and swore.

  Dagney narrowed her eyes. “Five? Which five?”

  Bluebird rattled off a list of names I didn’t know, but which seemed somehow familiar. “And Ryo is next.”

  I swallowed. I definitely recognized that name.

  “What can we do?” Dagney asked.

  “He needs to drink the seer water. Players who have the game vision seem to be doing the best. The doctors think the game vision helps your brains realize the pain isn’t real. Psychosomatic or something. The competition is over. It doesn’t matter who wins. Once someone claims the victory, everyone is freed, no matter where they are on the game map or what side they are on. So long as they survive.”

  They glanced at me with faces lined with worry. But it didn’t matter one fig. “We’ve discussed this. I’m not going to drink.”

  “Shut up.” Dagney clenched her fists and faced me like I was her opponent.

  I held out my hands. “Now, don’t—”

  She lunged for me and tackled me to the ground. Both her knees pressed against my shoulders.

  This was unfair. “Not that I don’t enjoy—”

  She grabbed at my necklace.

  I reached for her wrists. “Dagney, stop. People can see us.”

  Her loose hair brushed my face as she pulled our hands toward her neck. “You are going to drink this seer water if I have to pour it into your mouth.”

  I let go of her hands and lifted her under her legs and rolled her onto her back. See how she liked that.

  She pinched my arms.

  Ow. “Grigfen, help me.”

  I grabbed Dagney’s wrists, but it was like she was made of snakes. She would not stop squirming.

  Grig stayed at Bluebird’s side. “You need to go before you get sucked in.”

  Bluebird watched us with mild curiosity. “I’m safe. Just win the game and come find me.”

  The disloyalty. He barely glanced my way, and meanwhile Dagney elbowed me in the stomach and she rolled me onto my back again.

  I really should not be enjoying this. “Grigfen, honestly. Tell your sister—” She punched my jaw and I swore.

  “YOU NEED TO DRINK.” She ripped my necklace and broke the chain.

  I shoved her off me. But now she had the seer water, and I swear she’d turned into a rabid animal.

  And I still liked her. Oh lost saints, was I in trouble.

  Bluebird turned to me. “Your mother says to drink the seer water, Ryo.”

  I rubbed my jaw. “You’ve spoken to my mother?”

  “She has a message from your father.” Bluebird’s face turned silver for a moment, like she’d leaned back out of her own face. “The sultan of the three moons says it’s time.” She scrunched her nose and turned toward empty air. “Are you sure? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  But it did to me. My father used to tell me stories before I fell asleep as a child, and the sultan of the three moons was one of his favorite characters. No one else knew that name except my parents.

  The message was true.

  I sat up and held out my hand. “All right, I’ll drink.”

  Dagney cocked her head to the side, her eyes narrowed like she didn’t trust me.

  “What, like it was so hard to change my mind? Give me the seer water.”

  She held it to her chest. “Don’t dump it.”

  I offered my hand once more and she placed it in my palm. My instincts still rebelled at drinking. My father had told me not to drink until I was ready, and what if abiding by his instructions was the only thing that had kept me alive? However, I’d seen too many miracles, and I’d followed Dagney and Grig’s lead long enough that I had to conclude they were telling the truth. And I knew my father’s message was from him, so none of my doubts or confusion mattered.

  I had to be ready. I had to be enough.

  I popped the top of the glass sphere and downed the contents.

  Dagney’s stubborn eyes were the last thing I saw as the darkness swallowed me whole.

  * * *

  I woke from the cut scene and brushed the dirt from my new armor. I couldn’t look at them. I couldn’t look at the false sky or my mother’s idiotic game.

  I marched into the forest and sliced a digitally rendered tree into as many chunks as I could cut. Then I dropped my sword and fell to the ground. My hands pressed over my eyes, my breathing heavy.

  Every memory I’d had before I drank the seer water was true. To a point.

  I’d gone camping with my dad like I’d remembered. I’d trained, not for tournaments, but for football games. I’d been surrounded by adoring fans who viewed my worth through my mother’s accomplishments. I was still a spoiled rich kid who desperately wanted to make my father proud. There was just one massive detail my mom forgot to mention.

  My father was dead.

  My dad had died from a stroke three days after my twelfth birthday. But in this world, he was still alive. King Vinton had my dad’s face, my dad’s voice. We ate his favorite foods. The sky was his favorite color; this whole world was a place my father had invented and shared with me one bedtime story at a time. He invented the Savak and their magic spring that told the future. He told me stories of the Kneult, who traded their way to power, and a story of a good king and his pious but twisted brother, who plotted to kill him and take over his kingdom.

  I thought my mother wasn’t listening. Her whole life was her ridiculous job, and after my dad died, she threw herself into her work and this game, like she’d forgotten she’d even had a son.

  My mother had recreated the world my dad had invented. And now it was killing me.

  In the last … I didn’t remember how many days, I’d been tortured and jailed, and lost my life over and over again. But the worst moment in the game was this one. When I no longer had a dad to make proud.

  I wiped my wet cheeks. A branch snapped behind me. I grabbed my sword and turned to face it.

  Dagney held a branch. “R … Ryo? Are you okay?”

  I lowered my sword. It took me a moment, but I could remember her. From before. Same angry green eyes, thick dark hair, her real curves made of all things soft. But this beautiful girl was small consolation for losing my dad all over again, or this torture my mom had put us through.

  This wasn’t real. I wasn’t this handsome prince from my dad’s stories. Lives were at stake, people were watching our every move, and we didn’t need any kind of distraction if we were going to win.

  And I was the next to go. If I pushed this further, it would only hurt her if I reached my game over.

  I lifted my jaw. “Why do you care? I don’t even know you.”

  Her jaw trembled as she looked way. She clenched her fists. “Seriously?”

  I lowered my voice. “It’s a game. It isn’t real. So any feelings or connection between us was a lie anyway.”

  “Because you remember who I really am now? Not going to flirt with a fat girl?” There was a challenge in her glare.

  It nearly broke me. She had no idea how beautiful I thought she was. “You’re ridiculous.”

  She glared. “You’re such an—”

  “I’m dying. Maybe give me a second to process before you make this all about you.”

  That shut her up.

  Part of me wanted to apologize. Put on the flirtatious mask I wore around school, and used as the prince. I could play the part and make her smile again. Make her want me again. But then a fresh wave of grief curdled in my stomach and made my arms hang heavy. My dad was dead, and this world made of his stories wasn’t going
to bring him back.

  She took a step closer. “What’s going on with you?”

  I pinched my lips so they wouldn’t tremble. “I’m not sure I want to go home.”

  I closed my eyes. I hadn’t meant to say something so honest. I wanted to rage, to insult her, to do something cruel in order to make her walk away. It was better for both of us. She didn’t need my damage.

  Before this game I was so good at putting up walls. Why did they always crumble around her? Why did the expressions on her face make me want to tell her all my secrets?

  Dagney marched forward, her face pink. “You might not want out—but the rest of us do. Grig needs to get back to Bluebird, and there are six other players stuck in this hellscape who don’t deserve to die.” She brushed her hair behind an ear. “Stop being such a baby and pull your weight. And if you want, once we’re out of this game, we never have to talk to each other again. That’s fine by me.”

  She stalked out of the woods and I growled after her.

  That did not go the way I wanted.

  I punched the air, shook my fingers through my hair, and tucked away my grief. Then I picked up the sword I’d dropped. I had to play the dutiful son.

  I knew how this story ended.

  17

  DAGNEY

  My eyes burned with tears and that pissed me off. I stomped out of those woods and away from that jerk. I did not look back at him. Not once. I didn’t replay him slashing trees and damaging his sword, or the way he held his head in his hands like he couldn’t hold his head up for one more second, and I did not worry about the anguish in his eyes. That would be foolish, and I was not a fool.

  When we emerged from the trees, Grig stood with his arms folded and his shadowed eyes careful. Pumpkin floated over his shoulder.

  The mechanical squeaked its gyroscope and floated to Ryo’s side.

  Screw him. “Whirligig half price. I’ll sell it for parts if it means a higher profit.”

  The peddler squeaked in excitement, and I ripped the drawers open, searching for anything, everything. I’d outtrade this peddler; I’d prove I was … I wouldn’t let anyone make me feel small.

  I was not nothing.

  I glared at the peddlers so they would leave me alone and then took stock of the items I’d trade for that Whirligig: five rolls of cheese, plenty of bandages, Ryo’s ridiculous clothes, twelve weapons, and twenty-seven hibisi blossoms. With Ryo now a full player, I’d stay back and play as a healer. Then I wouldn’t have to talk to him except for emergencies.

  Grig touched a cheese, and I ripped it from his hands and tucked it into my bag. “I’m gonna miss the thing,” Grig admitted.

  “Don’t get attached,” I said through barred teeth. “It’s only pixels.”

  “You all right, sis?” Grig nudged my arm. “You two’ve been bickering since I knew you, but that didn’t sound like banter.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Funny, that’s what Ryo said.”

  “Well, Ryo says a lot of things and most of them are lies.”

  Grig sighed and crossed back toward Ryo. Grigfen took him aside and they talked in quiet whispers. He put his arm on Ryo’s shoulder, and when he let him be, Grig’s loyalty still shone vibrant purple.

  My hands unclenched.

  What was wrong with me? I’d yelled at him, called him names, tackled him, and tried to force him to drink something he said he didn’t want to drink, and now I was pissed because he wanted to walk away from me?

  I was like a barbed wire fence. It made no sense for me to be mad that he would let go.

  I folded a bandage and watched him. He pressed his hand to his chest. “Sun’s greeting, travelers! I thank you for your fair trading, and I ask in our lost saints’ name for more. It is not for me that I do ask, but for our people, our roads, and for our king. The Savak queen has threatened, but we do not cower. Here, in this clearing, beneath this warm sky, is where we turn the fight to her. This is where the rebellion starts.” Their loyalty shifted purple. “This is where the tides turn. Who is with me?”

  The peddlers shouted in unison.

  He was actually good at this now. He called those peddlers to arm and left them smiling and proud to follow behind us.

  “How’d you know what to say?” Grig asked.

  “My game vision has an etiquette manual. There is very little I don’t know,” Ryo said, pushing his hair out of his eyes. I sighed. Great. Ryo’s special ability was to know everything and then mansplain it back to us.

  That wouldn’t get annoying at all.

  “Clearly the NPCs have pixels for brains,” I muttered.

  After I packed what I could carry, the peddlers got ready to leave with us.

  “Which way, Dagney?” Ryo called. He rode a white horse, because of course he did.

  I found my horse. “Don’t bite me, horse.” A peddler put a stool out and I climbed onto a leather saddle. I closed my eyes. Find Traveling Boots.

  The arrow spun. “Northeast. Here.” I handed Grig and Ryo hibisi blossoms. “In case we come across anything.”

  “And we’re likely to,” Grig said.

  Ryo nudged his horse and took off, stopping at every sign of life to recruit people to our cause. He kept collecting loyal people, but not one of us shone as bright a purple as Ryo himself. Before he was kind of this cute little obnoxious puppy I had to protect.

  Now he was assembling an army.

  By the time we settled in a camp for the night, he’d acquired servants, a militia of untrained farmers, and a massive violet silk tent I would not enter if someone paid me. It was rolled up at the back of a servant’s horse.

  We had almost reached the King’s Crypt when a shadow raced across the moons.

  “What was that?” I pulled on my reins. The horse stopped beneath me.

  “Not dead. That’s all I know,” Grig said.

  Ryo squinted at the sky. “A zomok. A flying creature that prefers fresh oranges mixed with salmon, and is loyal to its masters if trained from a hatchling.”

  Another shadow flashed past. How many of these things were there?

  “So like a pet dragon,” Grigfen said.

  “No, dragons are not trainable.”

  The smell of oranges and the flapping of wings almost masked the whiff of copper and rust, and the whirl of a Savak Wingship.

  But nothing could mask the soundtrack changing into heavy drumming. I stopped my horse. I hated when the battle music came on, but I didn’t see any enemies.

  “To cover!” I shouted.

  The caravan behind us pulled toward the trees, and parents shoved their children under wagons. I searched the night’s sky. There, near the smaller of the two moons, three Savak Wingships flew in formation. A Wingship carried a single person. Armor, weapon, and transportation in one. Sleek silver wings twice the length of a human were strapped to warriors dressed in Savak red, and the ends of the wings were razor sharp, like they flew with swords for hands. The detail to their costume was awesome, but much cooler at, like, a distance.

  Grigfen summoned a mist around us, hopefully blocking us from their view.

  The Wingship at the front hovered overhead for a full second—no player indicator over her head, only a collection of pixels flying through a damaged sky. She whistled at the zomok then dived straight for us. The zomok dived with her, but its wings were faster.

  Before the Wingship reached us, talons ripped at a servant’s shoulders. Right behind Ryo. This silver dragon-like thing lifted him from his horse with a roar, his legs kicking at the air. I clenched the hilt of my sword. The zomok took half the servant, and dropped the rest.

  Grigfen shot ghostlight at the beast and Ryo lifted his sword high and let out a battle cry.

  The Savak knew where we were now, and Ryo just drew their attention.

  He needed more than a healer.

  A Savak dropped an anchor. I ran forward.

  Ryo shouted, “For my father!” Every farmer he’d acquired charged at my side.
They ran with pitchforks and tin swords, huffing like they weren’t trained to run full-out like this. I wasn’t either, but these silver boots had plus twenty stamina.

  I yanked the rope anchor as hard as I could.

  You want to come down? Here, I’ll help.

  I jumped and used my body weight to pull. The Wingship lost air and crashed to the ground about fifteen feet away from me.

  Yes! I did that. The NPC farmers rushed the downed Savak, striking her wings with their low-level weapons. She stood, her wings folded over her like a shield. Then she twisted in a sharp spin, the wings cutting through those farmers’ bodies.

  I slowed. My breath caught in my throat. They were NPCs. That’s all. A child cried from under the wagon, her voice raw with grief as she called out to her lost father.

  The zomok circling above us sniffed the air.

  There wasn’t time to grieve for fallen fictions.

  Grig conjured a mishmash of animal bones into a vaguely human shape. He shoved forward, and the bone creatures rushed over the Savak Wingship. Hitting her again. Again. A cry of pain coming from within the wings.

  Two more anchors dropped around Grig. The Savak flattened their wings and they tried to stop his assault on their ally. Feather-shaped blades shot from their wings, cutting through him, dropping his health like nobody’s business.

  “Heal! Heal!” I shouted, rushing toward him. “Grig, heal now!”

  “I’m a little busy at the moment.” He shot a wave of ghostwind that sent a Savak ship flying.

  “Check your stats!”

  The other Savak lifted his arm and aimed the tip of his wings at Grig.

  But he aimed at the wrong girl’s brother.

  I pulled out my battle-axe and took off running. I jumped on a wagon, ran across a horse’s back, and thrust myself up, up to the Savak Wingship who aimed at my brother. I wrapped my fingers around his harness and stabbed right into his neck. Then I threw my weight backward.

  We crashed to the ground with a thud I’m sure I felt in my real body on a different world.