It was ten minutes before Luna stopped crying, cradled in Milly’s lap with her tears seeping into Milly’s gown.
“I need your help,” Luna finally whispered, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her hoodie.
“I know,” Milly said gently. “You didn’t give me that sub-class for no reason. What do you need?”
Luna hesitated for a moment, then reached up and grabbed Milly’s glasses again. She placed her two index fingers against the lenses, and they began to glow with a bright white light. The light was absorbed into the lenses, and then Luna handed them back to Milly.
“Well, just like the sub-class said. I need you to be my inquisitor. My eyes and ears where I cannot see. If the puppet master is out there, they are hiding in my blind spots. The greater my blind spots, the more influence they will have upon the Contest. But if you can explore those places I cannot see, we can slow down the spread of the bugs. Buy us time, until we find this puppet master,” Luna said, but her voice was laced with guilt.
“It’s okay, Luna. Tell me,” Milly prompted.
“It will… it will be dangerous. I have no idea what you will find along the way. There will be blind spots that are harmless, and there will be those that are far above your current abilities. You may even find the puppet master itself and… and I don’t think you are strong enough to defeat them.”
“I understand, Luna,” Milly replied. “But, if Oracle was correct, as long as this puppet master is out there, we can’t win the God Contest. This isn’t your fault. You’ve doing everything you can to give us a fighting chance. Your mom and dad would be proud of you.”
Luna gave Milly a sweet smile. “They built me to be an adaptive AI, so I am adapting.”
Luna leaped off Milly’s lap excitedly. “Now, the program I added to mom’s glasses lets you see the blind spots I’ve identified when you look at a map. Any map. You’ll be the only one who can see their location. It will also send me back information on what you saw, so I can work at this end to fix the bug. So, don’t lose those glasses.”
“I won’t, Luna,” Milly laughed, throwing up her hands in mock protest. “Inquisitor’s promise. How did you give me that subclass, anyway? I’m not level thirty yet. You said such favoritism can cause the Nexus to reject the contest. Wasn’t that a big risk?”
“I… I know. But I couldn’t just let you walk into danger at your current power level. You… you almost died against Red Fang! Milly, I don’t want you to die,” Luna answered with a note of panic. “I kept it small and didn’t change your level, so I don’t think the Nexus noticed. At the rate you are growing, you’d be eligible for it in a month anyways. Just… don’t go drawing attention to it.”
“I’m not complaining,” Milly said. “It made those other wolves easier.”
Luna stared doubtfully at Milly’s bandaged arm.
“Well, not easy,” Milly clarified. “Just… not as hard as the last ones.”
“Just… please be careful. You’re the only… friend, I have.”
Milly smiled and pulled Luna into another hug, and they sat like that for the next hour. Milly told her about her adventures, even though Luna had watched them all on the monitors. And Luna told Milly about how her bedroom had grown bigger, and that she now had a blanket and pillow and even a toothbrush, even though she had no need of the latter. Milly listened attentively, as if Luna were actually a little six-year-old girl and Milly were her mother. The thought made Milly smile.
Luna asked awkward questions about Calista. About whether Milly loved her, whether they would get married, and, if so, when they would have babies. The questions of a curious six-year-old child without a filter. Milly had no answers for the first one. She’d been unconscious for about half the length of her relationship with Calista, though she thought that maybe she did. And she didn’t even know where to start explaining the final question, so when Luna started to yawn Milly took the opportunity to change the topic.
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“You haven’t slept in days, little Luna. I think it is time for you get some sleep,” Milly announced in a voice that invited no debate.
“I don’t want you to go,” Luna mumbled into Milly’s arm. “I’m all alone here.”
“I’ll come back to visit again. And with the full moon pendant and the upgrade to my glasses, we’ll never be that far apart,” Milly said, comforting the child.
Luna got up and walked to the doorway into her room, her hands clutching the hoodie once more. “Thank you, Milly. I couldn’t do this without you. I’ll try to help you, in whatever little ways I can.”
“Well, I don’t suppose you can tell me where the next Arena is?” Milly asked, only half joking. “We need to clear it before the event timer hits zero back at the Castle of Glass.”
Luna’s smile faded in an instant. “Milly, you know… I… I can’t. I’m not supposed to…”
Milly saw Luna’s eyes flicker for a moment, towards the top left monitor. Milly followed her gaze, and her heart sank.
The monitor displayed the lake where the Gathering was taking place. Milly saw Calista and Rain laughing as they shoved cotton candy into their mouths.
The news ticker that scrolled along the bottom of the monitor chilled Milly to her core.
The Arena of Protection
Time Until Commencement: 6 hours, 34 minutes, 19 seconds
Active Participants: Milly Brown, Rain Desjarlais, Calista Gale
Anticipated Participant: Xavier Holloway
They did not have to find the Arena. Rain and Calista were in the middle of it.
Milly looked back at Luna, who was staring at the floor.
“I’m… I’m sorry, Milly,” she whispered, fighting back tears. “I… I don’t have a choice. I still have a job to do.”
Three minutes later, Milly was racing across the prairie night at full speed, desperate to find Calista and Rain.
Because in the morning, they would be fighting for their lives.
* * *
Xavier Holloway sat beside the fire while Passiflora slept, curled up in the blanket Xavier had reluctantly provided. She had tried to run a dozen times that first day, but she had learned she could not escape. Xavier was simply too fast and too strong.
“God, I hate escort missions,” he whispered to himself as he stared into the flames. Passiflora stirred in her sleep but did not wake. She was exhausted, and she was always crying. Xavier had to carry her on his shoulders most of the way here since she was so damn slow. He was looking forward to being rid of her when they finally reached their destination in the morning.
“This ‘Gathering’ had better be worth it,” Xavier mumbled, speaking to the Ring of Cizen resting in his palm. But Cizen was dormant and did not answer him.
He always felt weak when the ring was dormant. Its power at those times was a trickle rather than a torrent. The ring elevated emotions such as anger and desire, which were emotions he was comfortable with. Emotions that had lived inside him for as long as he could remember. Emotions that helped him survive in these wilds. And it would numb weak emotions, such as compassion, sadness, loss, and guilt.
But when the ring was dormant, his emotions would return to normal, and he would start to contemplate the hollowness that lay growing inside him. He would ask himself if it had really been necessary to kill Passiflora’s tribe. He would wonder if he should have waited for Milly after the Arena of Choice and apologized so they had stayed friends. He questioned if he would be able to dream again without the screams of the dead echoing in his mind.
In those moments of weakness, he wanted to abandon the Ring of Cizen. Toss it in the fire, hurl it off a cliff, or throw it into the depths of the ocean. Yet with every day that passed, the more he knew he never would. He needed the ring. It was like a drug, giving him the fortitude to survive this Contest.
Xavier felt the Ring of Cizen activate, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He placed it on his finger without hesitation. The ring numbed his unwelcome emotions and he felt confident once again. He remembered that these fairies were simply bags of experience waiting to be collected, and that Milly and her friends had been the ones who betrayed him. He did not need them. He did not need anyone. He was better off alone. All he needed was the ring, and the power it would help him acquire.
“Get up, girl. You have rested long enough,” Xavier spat, his anger returned. He threw an ember from the fire on the ground next to her face, and Passiflora scrambled backwards so that her hair did not catch fire. “We’re traveling tonight. I want to be at this Gathering by sunrise, so I can finally be rid of you.”
Xavier kicked dirt onto the fire to put it out, hauled Passiflora onto his shoulders, and started running across the plains.