There it was—the siren call of his freedom from the game. Justin wanted to sit as a wave of dizziness swept over him. He couldn’t think of anything to say beyond a strangled, “Oh.”
He looked at Tina and she smiled.
“It seems like you’re ready,” she said. “Is it time?”
Callie and Dexi were in close-headed conversation. Both seemed upset and Justin turned and moved to the window. He looked out at the city and the bustling streets and heard the arena crowd singing above him. The thought wouldn’t leave him. He could go home. Right now.
“Tina.”
She appeared at his side. “Yes?”
“I may be ready,” he said, “but there are a couple more things I want to do. I’ve tried to get out of here so much that I’ve…I haven’t taken time to say goodbye. If I leave now, I’ll never see Lyle again, or Kural, or…Zaara.” He looked away so she wouldn’t see the flush in his cheeks.
His friend said nothing.
“We agreed to do this as a team, though,” he said. “And I know that if I stay, I’ll make you spend more time here, too.”
“Wait—Justin.” She looked confused. “What are you talking about?”
“If we walk away now,” he said with a grin, “those two won’t ever get what’s coming to them. Fuck a draw—I want a rematch.”
Tina looked at them with wide eyes. “Oh.” Her jaw set. “Let’s do it.”
He turned to look at the Master of Ceremonies. “We’ve decided we’re not satisfied with a draw.”
The Twins both stood. Dexi leaned on Callie but he still managed to look intimidating.
“You don’t want to make enemies of us,” he told them.
“Oh, please,” Justin said. “If you only want people to applaud everything you do, start a reality TV show or something.”
“Huh?” the man asked.
He shook his head. “My point is this—they didn’t win. It was a bad setup and things went sideways. Tayr lost fair and square, but neither we nor the Twins won. A draw? That’s a shitty ending to all of this. Do you think that crowd will go home happy? No. They’re here to see if the Twins finally get taken down a peg or two, and a draw isn’t the way to do that.” He stepped closer to Jaco. “We want a rematch. Us and the Twins.”
The official stared at him. “I…allowing teams to appeal decisions would be a very unwise strategy.”
“Uh-huh. But you’re not, are you? No one won, you said so yourself. Your rules allowed deadly damage and you stopped the match before either team could win. You denied those people out there a winner. If you want to make this right, you’ll give them one.”
The Master of Ceremonies looked from one team to the other. “This is highly irregular.”
“You don’t say,” Tina said dryly. “Look, you’re the MC so you literally make the rules. Let’s do it again and this time, you do your part right.”
“What does that mean?” Callie hissed. “Do you want them to give you an advantage?”
“Last time, it seems like they gave you an advantage,” she said. “No magic wielders on Tayr, one on our team, and two on yours? So be grateful we’re not asking for a forfeit from you for your lack of control—or your attempted murder.”
Justin stared at the Master of Ceremonies, who swayed worriedly, his frown intense.
At last, the man nodded. “I will announce it. Come with me.” He looked at all of them and made a small gesture. Magical barriers sprang up around the two teams and faded to invisibility, and his magic bar went grey again. “Not that I don’t trust you,” the official said with a raised eyebrow.
The four contestants and Jaco appeared on the dais to the sudden sound of cheering. The man waited while people scrambled to their seats and crowded the railing.
“A unique situation has come to pass,” the Master of Ceremonies said. “Each team had one player incapacitated—and, in the interests of our contestants, we paused the match to allow Justin, of Sephith’s Bane, to be revived by our chief healer.”
“Liar,” Tina muttered.
“As the match was halted and no clear winner had been declared, we have decided to stage a rematch between these two teams,” he continued. “This will be the conclusion of Season Twelve and will feature treasures from before the founding of Insea.”
He raised his hands and the crowd cheered, and he was still smiling when he turned to the contestants.
“Rest,” he told them. “Seek out healers of your own, if you can. I anticipate a…spirited match tomorrow, don’t you?”
Justin looked at Callie and Dexi and saw death in their eyes. “Yes,” he agreed. “I do.”
Zaara was in her room, studying a book that had come by courier the day before, when her mother knocked on her door.
“Zaara?”
“Yes?” She took care to shut the book before she opened the door as she didn’t want her to see arcane rituals and worry.
“A messenger came with a letter for you,” the woman said.
“Oh?”
“Zaara…he says you’re summoned to the city.” She twisted her hands together in anxiety. “To Insea. Promise me you won’t enter that tournament.”
“Er…” Given what she knew about what was happening, she wasn’t sure she could promise that. “Let’s see what he wants.”
“He’s gone.” Her mother hesitated, slid her hand into her pocket, and withdrew a scroll. It was tied with a deep blue ribbon, the kind of thing nobles had in abundance but people outside the city rarely saw. “Zaara, promise me you’ll be safe.”
“Of course I’ll be safe,” she told her. “No running off anymore. I promised you and I promised Father.” She held her mother’s gaze until the other woman smiled. “Now, let’s see what this is.” She opened the letter and scanned it. At the bottom was a complex rune she had never seen before and another slip of paper held a different rune.
She read the letter again from start to finish. While she had known this was coming, it still hurt to see it. She nodded and rolled the letter again.
“It wasn’t a summons,” she said, unconcerned that she lied through her teeth. “It’s only an invitation, if ever I come to Insea. Someone heard about Sephith. So you see? There’s no reason to worry.”
Her mother looked warily at her for a moment but nodded. “Very well, then.” She looked past her daughter at the candle. “It’s late, my love. You should turn in.”
“You’re probably right.” Zaara forced a smile and hugged her. “I’ll sleep now. Thank you for bringing me the letter, Mother.”
When the woman had left, she shut the door to her room quietly and carefully. She changed her clothes and blew the candle out. Alone in the darkness, she slipped the tiny piece of paper into one pocket, held the letter, and said the words of the spell.
Zaara barely blinked, but between one moment and the next, her room faded around her and she stood on a street of golden stone that glistened faintly in the moonlight. Nearby were the sounds of music and chatter, and she stepped out of the shadows in front of a crowded inn.
She was still trying to work up the courage to go in when a figure emerged, did a double-take, and stopped dead in his tracks.
“Zaara?” Lyle asked.
She smiled. “I heard…I heard Justin was leaving soon.”
“Leaving?” The dwarf frowned. “I hadn’t heard anything about that.”
“I had a letter from him,” she said. “It gave me a way to teleport here.”
“Huh.” He shook his head. “Well, I’m headin’ to his inn. Come with me!”
“Uh, Jacob?” Nick stared at the screen, his expression one of concern.
“Yeah?” Jacob shoved off and let his chair roll to his partner’s desk. “Look, if it’s the voice glitch in the barmaid at Riverbend, I don’t know how to fix it.”
“I—wait. What have you been doing talking to barmaids?” He raised an eyebrow at his friend.
“Nothing.” The man cleared his throat hastily. “So, what di
d you say was the problem?”
“Well, you know how we met after the TV crew had gone and went over the logs?”
“Yep.”
“And how we saw that Justin didn’t want to leave until he wrapped up all his unfinished business?”
“Yep.”
“And then we decided I would go into the game and find a way to get Zaara to Insea?”
“Yep.”
Nick looked at Jacob. He was fairly sure he could say anything right now and get the same response. He briefly considered what he could ask that would be the funniest but realized he’d missed the moment. His friend stared expectantly at him.
A raise, dammit. He should have asked for a raise.
Next time.
“Well, I went into the game,” he said. “And I brought Zaara up and her asset…isn’t in Riverbend anymore.”
“Oh?” His friend suddenly looked cagey.
He narrowed his eyes. “Why do you look weird?”
“No reason. Nothing. It’s fine. So what’s wrong? Do you need me to, uh…take care of it?”
“No,” he said slowly. “No, I don’t. Because it’s already taken care of. She used a teleportation spell she received from a messenger, which brought her to Lyle…who’s taking her to see Justin.”
“Oh.” Jacob smiled.
“And I don’t know where the messenger came from,” Nick said.
“Right. Well, I’m sure Amber took care of it.”
“Amber has been gone all afternoon.”
“Maybe…I took care of it?” Jacob tried. “And then forgot? That’s probably it. I haven’t been sleeping much. Or DuBois—”
“Jacob, what’s going on?” he demanded.
His friend sank his head into his hands. “Um. Okay. Look, I’ll talk to you and Amber about it over dinner. We…might have a problem. Come on.” He locked both their computers and ushered him toward the door. “We shouldn’t talk about it here.”
In the servers nearby, the AI hummed quietly to itself. It gave Justin a ton of crap but it was pleased that he would get to say goodbye to Zaara. He would be happy, of course, but there was more to it than that. After all, he could leave but it would have Zaara around forever. It didn’t want her to be sad that whole time.
Cut off from the rest of Diatek’s servers, it didn’t know that in her office several stories above, Anna Price was seated in her chair, deep in thought as she stared at the security footage of the now-empty PIVOT desks.
Chapter Eighty-One
The inn where Justin was staying was crowded with people trying to catch a glimpse of him. Zaara looked around as Lyle pushed brusquely through the crowd. She noticed that he was limping but there was no opportunity to ask about it over the din.
The innkeeper and his wife were clearly having the time of their lives. They filled orders with cheerful abandon and called greetings to regulars and new visitors alike. She could only imagine how their coffers would overflow by tomorrow.
At the back of the inn, a burly guard stared belligerently at all newcomers. He recognized Lyle but gave Zaara a dubious look until her companion beckoned her through. The crowd made a disappointed noise and shouted questions after them, some of them quite intimate. She blushed a fiery red.
“How are we supposed to know which of those he’d prefer?” she asked in an undertone.
He guffawed. “I’d bet we can rule out a few right off the bat.”
She grinned at him. “Are you well, my friend?”
“Ah.” He grimaced. “I was injured. The teams are getting desperate an’ they’ll do anything they can to knock their competitors out. I took an arrow to the knee, I did. I used to be an adventurer too, but not anymore…”
The dwarf was still muttering when he led her out onto the terrace.
Zaara stopped dead. There was more food there than she thought she’d eaten in her entire life, along with a profusion of flowers, enchantments, and gifts. Fairy lights drifted overhead. Of her friend, there was no sign beyond faint noises.
“Justin?” she called.
“Back here!” he yelled. The scraping noise of a chair on the floor was immediately followed by his head popping into view. “Zaara! I thought that was you. Come sit. Help me with the food.”
“I don’t think any one person can help you with this much food,” she said dryly. “Or any two people—Lyle’s with me.” She clambered over a pile of boxed gifts into an open space filled with couches and a firepit. He held his arms out to greet her.
“Justin.” She hugged him and they both looked around when Lyle tumbled over the pile of presents. “I’m glad to see you again before you go.”
“How did you know? Some mage trick?” He laughed self-consciously. “I intended to send a letter. I didn’t know how to get in touch before I went.”
“I thought you’d sent the rune,” Zaara said slowly. She shook her head. “It was probably Kural and he forgot to let me know. He persuaded the Master of Ceremonies to offer you the key as your prize, you know.”
“Yes, they mentioned it would be a dwarven artifact.” He smiled at her. “Zaara…Lyle…I’ll miss you both so much.”
“Ye can visit, can’t ye?” the dwarf demanded. “Yer mother can, so…”
“That’s true, but I worry that…well, never mind.” Justin sat on one of the couches. “Eat, please.”
“Again, I don’t think we’ll make a substantial difference,” she said. She piled her plate with meats and cheese, slices of melon and bread, and some kind of chutney made of a deep-red berry. “So, tell me about you. Tell me about the tournament.”
Justin grimaced as he told her about the Twins and their stranglehold on the event. Lyle chimed in once in a while to mention the matches he’d seen and the stories he’d heard. The Twins were revered in certain parts of Insea and feared as well.
“They’ve trained their whole lives for something like this,” the dwarf explained. “I heard their parents are merchants and wanted them to guard the caravans. It’s well paying work and it’d mean their caravans would always be secure. That’s why they were trained in everything—all weapons, magic, whatever.”
“And then they had the chance to compete for prizes like these,” Justin said thoughtfully. “And they’ve trained together their whole lives so they know what the other one is thinking. That explains so much.”
Zaara, layering cheese and meat on a slice of bread, did not speak immediately. She took a bite and considered what she’d heard. “I wonder what really drives them,” she said finally. “If one of them took a killing shot, there are two things to consider—either they like to kill, or they want to win for a larger purpose.”
“A little of both,” said a new voice.
Everyone turned to look, but Justin’s face was a particular spectacle. He looked like he wanted to drop his plate and run away screaming.
She noticed the woman she’d watched in the Arena. Surprisingly short in person, she was dark-haired and dark-eyed and wore a simple robe. She nodded to Zaara as she came to sit on the same couch.
“I’m Tina. Are you Zaara? Lyle and Justin speak of you often.”
“Yes.” She tried to wipe chutney off her hands and failed utterly. “I, um…”
“Not to worry. Keep eating.” Tina looked at Justin and smiled. “Do you want to hear what I learned?”
“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Yes, of course. That would be good.”
“The Twins,” she said and drew the word out for effect, “are convinced that a treasure of inestimable power lies at the end of this quest, which will give them the strength to become gods. Apparently, they were sought out by a…well, he calls himself a prophet. He has told them that they are prophesied to rule the entire world—if only they’re willing to prove themselves worthy.”
“Jesus leaping Christ.” Justin put his head in his hands. “So they’re deadly and crazy to boot. What now?”
The shawarma joint Jacob found nearby was dirty, noisy, and too full of an ever-shi
fting assortment of patrons to be bugged. Jacob waited, tapped his toes nervously as his two partners ordered, and explained what was going on in one tense sentence.
They both froze with their sandwiches partway to their mouths. Amber’s eyes were wide. Nick looked like he wanted to throw up.
“Aware?” Amber rasped finally. “It’s becoming…aware? Are yousure, Jacob? You’re not simply messing with us, right?”
“I wish I were messing with you.” He shook his head. “Because this is a wrench in the works that no one needed.”
“Or is it?” she asked him. She put her sandwich down and looked seriously at him. “We talked about Justin adapting the game to his needs and seeking out what would inspire him to wake up, but what if the game was also adapting to him? There have been story twists we never encountered when we played it, and they’ve shown up at very convenient times.”
“Okay, but that’s even worse.” He shook his head. “If it can choose to help, then it can choose not to help.”
“Yes,” Amber agreed, “but so far, it has chosen to help.”
“Amber is right,” Nick said.
“What makes you say that?” Jacob stared in turns at his most pessimistic friend and his most optimistic one. “Because I’ve never seen you two agree on something like this before.”
“Exactly,” the other man said. “Amber is the one who could find the reverse of a silver lining in anything.” He saw her look and hastened to add, “No, no, it’s one of the things that makes us a great engineering team. We’re all good at engineering, and I dream up crazy things no one’s done before and you find the ways things could go wrong. Remember that time I struck off on my own and my project literally exploded during finals presentation week?”
She snickered and took a sip of her coke. “That was funny. I have to admit, it was even funnier when mine didn’t even turn on.”
Too Young to Die Page 61