Heir Apparent (30 page)

I could feel the dragon stop moving.

I slitted one eye open a crack. Brightness nearly blinded me, and I shut that eye quickly, sure the dragon had tricked me into looking just as it was shooting flame out of its mouth.

But I didn't feel anything, heat or fizziness, and now my people were cheering, which I was fairly certain they wouldn't do if I was about to become a flame-broiled McNugget.

I peeked again.

That wasn't fire; that was the glint of sun off gold.

A lot of gold.

The dragon had turned into gold, a victim of my Midas touch.

Then began the rescue operation. With grappling hooks and small pikes, my guards were scaling the dragon's body to help get me loose of the golden statue's grip. It took a lot of undignified squirming and leg pulling and calls to suck in my stomach, but finally I popped free. Luckily, Captain Penrod had a good hold on me, or I would have dropped a hundred feet to the ground.

I took the crown off and handed it to Grimbold. His men were cheering like crazy. "Be careful with this," I warned.

He gave a look at the huge golden dragon perched on our battlements and said, "You been doing good."

"I been doing lucky," I corrected him.

People were coming up and giving me congratulatory slaps on the arms or rubbing my head for luck. Kenric gave me a hug, which was better than either. Even Andreanna had a kind word for me. She said: "I never thought we'd see
you
again."

I thought of how I'd set off with such low expectations with Uldemar...

"Uldemar!" I said. I searched for him in the crowd, but he was right beside me, and he took my arm, saying, "Well done, Princess!"

"You were injured," I said.

Putting his hand to his rear end he said, "Mosdy in dignity."

Sir Deming, standing below in the courtyard, cupped his hand to his mouth and yelled up, "Why don't we take the celebration inside, where there isn't so much danger of someone taking a flying leap off the battlements?"

It sounded like fine advice to me.

"Head for the Great Hall," Deming shouted.

So I did, with my people clustering just as close about me as the ghosts used to do.

In the Great Hall, the tables were heaped with all sorts of delicious-looking food, including a huge cake shaped like the castle. The smell of roasting meat, of fresh peaches, of just-baked bread—it would have been irresistible even if I wasn't half starved.

"What's all this?" I asked.

"Your coronation feast," Kenric told me. He indicated the throne at the head of the room—presumably they'd put the second one in storage—and I saw a crown waiting for me on the velvet seat.

Queen Andreanna sidled up to me and said, "And you're late—what a surprise."

But she didn't have time to waste belittling me. She caught sight of Grimbold, who'd somehow or other gotten hold of a satin pillow and was walking around with the pillow on his arm, displaying his newly recovered crown, so that he looked like a hairy ring bearer at a giant's wedding feast. "Grimbold," Andreanna said with enough enthusiasm to indicate she'd been waiting all her life to greet him. She caught hold of his arm and looked into his eyes with newly established fascination. As she led him away, I heard her saying, "What a lovely crown! You know, my deceased husband never told me..."

I waved to Orielle and Wulfgar across the room. Orielle waved back, but Wulfgar had his attention captured by Abas, who was demonstrating one-armed push-ups.

Xenos came up to me, but only long enough to say, "Remember, those are
my
boots."

I wiped my brow with my sleeve and realized how dirty, hot, and tired I truly was. I blew loose the hair that was sticking to my forehead. "Should I change into something more regal?" I asked Kenric. A three-hour soak would have been nice, but I didn't know how long I had.

"Whatever you want." Kenric handed me a goblet. "You look hot."

"I don't really like mead," I said.

"I remembered. This is honey water."

It was overly sweet, but at least it was wet.

Sister Mary Ursula, wearing the most extravagant—and ridiculous—dress I'd ever seen, said, "I am One with happy endings," before the crowd carried her away.

In fact, the crowd, noisy and jostling, was beginning to get on my nerves, making me feel claustrophobic.

"Maybe," I told Kenric, "I should sit down."

I took two steps before my knees gave out. Fireworks seemed to be going off behind my eyeballs, the sound exploding inside my skull.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
How could I have accepted a drink from someone who had already poisoned me once?

Kenric knelt down beside me.

"How could you?" I asked, my voice a weak and raw whisper.

"What?" he asked.

"What did I do wrong?" I demanded. "Didn't I do everything I was supposed to? I can't go through all this again."

"You didn't do anything wrong," Kenric said, which I took to mean that my choices as would-be king were fine with him—he just wanted to be king himself "I don't understand what you're saying."

It wasn't fair. I'd lived the entire three days. I'd saved the kingdom from barbarians, peasants, and dragon. And I had no idea what to do differently next time. If there was a next time. I winced against the sparks going off in my brain. "I trusted you. How could you poison me?"

Kenric protested, "I didn't."

To my embarrassment, I found that tears were leaking out of my eyes and rolling down the sides of my face.

"
Janine,
" Kenric said, enunciating each word slowly and carefully, "
I did not poison you.
"

If Kenric hadn't poisoned me, maybe this wasn't game death. Maybe this was, finally, the long-anticipated brain overload. That would explain the fireworks.

I was aware that Kenric was holding me, cradling my head, while the crowd had pulled back to give me room.

I could barely get my mouth to work. "I don't know what to do," I said, aware that I sounded as though I had a mouthful of oatmeal.

"Give my mother the ring," Kenric said.

How did he know about the ring?

I saw Andreanna hovering with the crowd. I managed to get the piece of twine showing, and Kenric slipped it over my head. "Andreanna, take the ring," I mumbled.

Andreanna took the ring.

"Tell her to treat you fairly and not to incite her sons to rebel against you," Kenric told me.

"Treat me fairly..."—I licked my parched lips, and Kenric brushed my hair off my cheeks while I got up the energy to finish—"and don't incite your sons to rebel against me."

While Andreanna nodded, Kenric said, "Ask for the crown."

"Crown," I echoed.

Kenric forced me to sit up a bit more, and Sir Deming placed the crown on my head. "Long live King Janine," Deming proclaimed.

The world dissolved in a shower of glitters.

Despite the special effects, I knew I hadn't gotten out of the game because I could feel that Kenric was still holding me.

On the other hand I was suddenly also feeling much better—I wasn't burning with fever, my head didn't ache, and the internal fireworks had stopped.

I could also smell popcorn, which struck me—in a vague, detached way—as odd.

Something, however, nearly ripped the skin off my head at my temples, and off either side of my neck, and off various other sites on my body.

"Got it," a female voice announced.

I opened my eyes and saw that the Rasmussem receptionist was leaning over me, holding a bunch of wires with suction cups at their ends—the wires that had formerly connected me to the Rasmussem computer.

"Are you here, too?" I asked, thinking that somehow she had gotten sucked into the game. But then I realized I was in one of the rooms at Rasmussem, lying on a total immersion couch.

"Welcome back, honey," the receptionist said.

How could they make it so real? It was over, but I could still feel Kenric's gentle arms around me. The sensation was so vivid, I had to turn to look.

And there was Kenric, still holding me. "Yikes," I said, but without much energy because I was incredibly tired.

The guy holding me smiled—same glorious smile—but his hair was shorter, and he was wearing jeans and a
R
A
S
M
U
S
S
E
M
G
A
M
I
N
G
C
E
N
T
E
R
shirt. He was also the source of the popcorn aroma. He lowered my head back onto the couch's pillow.

"Tell me you're not Kenric," I said.

"I'm not Kenric," the guy said obligingly. "I'm Nigel Rasmussem"

"No, you're not." I was confused, but I wasn't
that
confused. "I've seen Nigel Rasmussem. He's a short, round guy with glasses."

"That's my uncle David. I used his image to talk to you because I thought he'd look more credible to you. I used
my
physical appearance for Kenric."

"You certainly did." I considered for a few moments, then said, "But you can't be more than..."

I hesitated, and he supplied, "Sixteen."

Sixteen.
Rasmussem Enterprises had been around for two years, which meant he had started his company when he was no older than I was now. I will probably
not
be starting my own company in the coming months. "So what are you?" I asked: "Some kind of computer genius?"

He said, "You gotta do
something
when your parents saddle you with a name like Nigel."

"Wow," I said. "And you came here because I was in trouble?"

Nigel Rasmussem shook his head. "Rochester, New York, is world headquarters for Rasmussem Enterprises. My parents regulate how much time I can spend with computers, so I work here after school and on weekends." He added—though I guessed it a moment before he said it—"At the concession stand."

The receptionist said, "Sit her up."

At first I resented her speaking as though I was totally helpless—but I
was
totally helpless. Nigel did most of the work of getting me to a sitting position.

The receptionist handed me a cup of water. "You're fine," she assured me. "You might be a bit disoriented at first, but that will pass."

"It wasn't like this the other times I played," I said, worried despite her calming words.

"The other times you played, there would have been a cooldown period between the game stimulus and the waking state."

"Are you sure?" I asked. This was, after all, the woman who compared games to soups.

"That's what they pay me for."

I was reassured until she started speaking to someone who wasn't there, rattling off a bunch of numbers and techno-jargon, then ending with, "Signing off, unless you say otherwise."

Another voice said, "You're fine." Then I heard a dial tone.

The receptionist leaned over and touched something on the wall behind me, and the speaker went off.

"Do you want to rest a bit, honey?" she asked. "I can dim the lights and put on some soft music. We called your grandmother, and she should be here soon. And, of course, there'll be a media circus waiting outside. So I really recommend the rest now."

"Yes, please," I said. Then, maybe begging just a little, I asked Nigel, "Could you stay a bit?"

He pulled over a chair, while the receptionist dimmed the lights, put on the music, and then pulled the door shut behind her.

I asked, "She's a technician here?"

"Actually, a total immersion technologist—as well as an emergency medical technician. Do you want to talk about what happened, or do you want to sleep?"

"Both," I admitted.

"We'll compromise," he said. "Lie down. Close your eyes."

I did.

"May I?" Nigel had leaned over and was holding my hand.

Yes! Yes! Yes!
I wanted to shout, but I managed a refined, "Mmmm."

Nigel spoke in a quiet, soothing voice. "You were in the game for eighty-seven minutes, which normally would have been totally safe, except for the damage the CPOC people did. They're going to get their asses fried for endangering the welfare of a minor. But you did fine. You did more than fine. You did"—was that admiration in his voice?—"you did things in that game that I didn't think could be done."

"Mmmm," I said again, pleased though I hardly knew the guy. Then his words sank in. My eyes flew open and I almost managed to sit up. "You were watching me?" I demanded.

"Giannine," he said, "there were technicians on both coasts and in England, Japan, and Ukraine following your readouts."

Horrified, I asked, "You could tell what I was thinking?"

Sounding just as horrified, he answered, "No, of course not. That's not the way the equipment works. Reading someone's thoughts?" He said it so contemptuously, I had to believe he was speaking the truth. "We couldn't even see or hear
you.
We were getting a steady stream of biofeedback statistics and data on how the characters and setting were changing, which let us interpret what you were doing. Sort of like watching a solar eclipse, which you can't do with your bare eyes, so you cast an image with a lens, and that's what you see—a reflection."

"I'll take your word for it," I said. "What do you mean I did things other people didn't do? Wasn't I playing right?"

"Of course, you were playing right. You were just making unusual choices."

I was getting irritated. All right, he was gorgeous and a sixteen-year-old genius who was CEO of his own multinational company, but that didn't give him the right to mock me. "Well, my choices made sense to me at the time."

"I didn't say they didn't make sense," he answered defensively.

I settled back down on the couch and closed my eyes once more, wondering if it was too rude to tell him I'd changed my mind and that he could go now and tend his concession booth.