I walked through the city feeling different, a new sense of pride swelling within me. News of my success would spread quickly, but it wasn't just about how others viewed me now. I truly felt different. I had gone toe to toe with Lance and very nearly beaten him. For the first time, I had done something to be genuinely proud of.

I pushed away thoughts of the powers Lance could gain the next day, with an entire enviable day with the suit to practice and meditate. I wondered if Mario was stacking the deck, if Lance had already been deemed the rightful owner of the Griidsuit and if maybe the priesthood was trying to ensure the best candidate got the part. I surprised myself with my response to that. There was a version of me that would have responded with a feeling of inevitability, defeat, hopelessness, but not the me that had left the arena that day. This new me, be it a new or temporary version, responded with anger and determination. The Griidsuit was mine! I felt in my guts that it had chosen me.

As I passed from the outer sector to the next, where the streets became nicer and passersby more finely dressed, I felt a surge of ownership. Walking in my own body, without the suit, I felt a pang of being lesser. Life was grey without the sensory inputs of the suit. My flesh and bone body was frail and pointless. I wondered if the others felt like that. Many saw becoming a Griidlord as a blessing and a curse. Griidlords rarely left their suits once they donned them. The strange Order field of the suit did something to the biology and extended youth and life, and it was a hard thing for someone to take the suit off and know that the moments outside of it were aging you many times faster. Common folk often felt like Griidlords were trapped in their suits, only removing them for carnal moments with another, and even then sometimes not completely taking them off.

But as I walked, feeling my own muscles contracting and moving me forward, I wondered if there was another reason Griidlords lived in their suits. If it hurt to become a mortal, even for a few fleeting moments of having their flesh pressed against another's, in the suit you were a god. The sensation of being in the suit, the power, the enhanced senses—it all made life outside of it seem dull and meaningless.

In the suit you were a God.

As I passed into the inner zone of the city, pausing to allow a courier on an electric scooter to whiz past me, I thought about something I hadn't considered in days. Each day had been such a whirlwind and had left me so dispirited and honestly so exhausted that my ability to think had been badly compromised. Today, finishing early and reveling in my victory, or at least near victory, I found my thoughts able to wander in a way they hadn't been able to do for days. And where my thoughts landed was on my level.

When I had told Morningstar that the suit informed me I was level 8, he had flatly disbelieved me, told me I was mistaken, said that to be a 0.8 would be an achievement. But when I checked the suit again, it confirmed that I was indeed level 8. If my classmates were all struggling to achieve a level of 1, and I was eight times that, why were they better than me? Why was this such a struggle? Why was the only way for me to succeed to steal time in the suit in the woods to develop my powers? If I was level 8, shouldn't I have been dominating them like ants? It didn't make sense to me.

I walked up the flowered path to my father's door. It was the middle of the day, and at least this time, I could expect some peace. Father would be at work somewhere, organizing a caravan, doing a deal with a Griidlord of this city or some other to use their Footfield to propel goods at speeds only possible under such powers. Or maybe he would be in the tower, lobbying or deal-making with the highest lords of the land.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The door opened before I could reach it, Harold standing there with his usual inscrutable expression. "Young master, welcome home," he said with a slight bow. "Congratulations on your performance today."

I was proud of myself. I imagined my father's delight. He had put no small emphasis on my need to place better, and even if Lance had squeezed me from the top spot, today I had finished second and my sudden emergence had to be the talk of the town. In a strange way, Harold's approval of me meant more than my father's. Father was a distant statue that sometimes deigned to come to life in my world, and at times I hated my need to please him. Harold, though, had been part of my life since my earliest memories, and despite his professionally detached manner, he had been the warmest presence in my childhood.

I said, "Thank you, Harold. I should have known news would come before me. I have plans today; I want to rest and eat, and then I intend to depart again. I have training to attend to."

I saw him hesitate, as though trying to find a way to tell me that my plans were dust in the breeze. Hesitating, I asked, "How exactly did you find out about the results of today's matches?"

Harold hesitated a moment longer, he longed to tell me I could retire to my room, devour some calories, nap even, but it was not to be. He said, "We have a guest, your father has a visitor."

I was crestfallen. I said, "Father is home, but it's hardly past noon."

Harold said, "It's a very important visitor, your father wouldn't have missed him."

My spirits lifted, hopes raised. I said, "Morningstar?"

Harold glumly shook his head. "This way, young master." He stepped aside for me to enter. I did so with trepidation, peering into the foyer, vacant. I stepped forward and heard voices in the parlor. I looked back at Harold, my eyes pleading with him to tell me that I could avoid whatever this was and go to my room. He just barely shook his head, then cast his eyes toward the parlor, the motion clearly an instruction. I moved to the parlor.

There was a stranger there, his back to me, talking animatedly with my father. Father was fixed on the man, giving him an attention and even a deference that he reserved for no one, not even Morningstar. I peered at the stranger's back, recognizing the robes but unable to imagine who this might be. Father saw me, and his face lit up. I hated myself for the blaze of pleasure this gave me; this was the same man who had drunkenly abused me so recently, the man whose love seemed contingent on my successes and efforts, who had gambled our futures for his pride. Yet, as his face beamed at me, I felt a surge of contentment, and I hated it. He smiled so broadly, raising his glass to me in a toast, and said, "Tiberius, my victorious son! You took your time, but you proclaimed yourself today! Look who you've drawn to our midst with your efforts!"

As he spoke, the other man turned, and my heart skipped a beat. It was Baron Baltizar.

At this point, you probably have a good idea that the realm was controlled by nobles, with the rest of us fitting into the good old clichés of hardworking peasants supporting the hierarchy. But you may have wondered about the government. Boston was just a tiny corner of the vast expanse of the continent. There were, at the time, 31 other independent principalities. It was a time between empires; the City of Angels was rumored to be the strongest agency in the land, but they didn't hold the dominance that previous entities had held, like the Empires of Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Dallas, San Francisco. It was a time of strange peace but also trepidation, with many cities vying to command the world.

Each city had a different means of government. Cincinnati was led by its Sword, as some others were. Pittsburgh had a strange meeting of the Clans that assigned a chief, but their Sword also reigned in a sense. In Green Bay, it was the people who spoke, almost directly without representatives, though they had a Voice, an elected figure, that expressed the decisions of their Athenian democracy. In Boston, it was a council of nobles that governed, and a Supreme Lord was chosen each time there was a Choosing. On that day, the Supreme Lord was Baltizar. This meant that in the parlor of my father's house, I was looking on a man who in another land, like New York, might have been called a king.