Wind whistled past, stinging against the cuts on Ted’s face as he flew down past marble floor after marble floor. He had to reach the control room, had to get inside and gain access before the Emperor could stop him.

  Steel walls came into view—the penultimate floor. Ted swooped down to the final floor, heading for the gray sliding door to the depths below. Upon his approach it slid open, a gaping maw into the belly of the beast.

  He hit the ground running and bounded down the narrow staircase beyond two steps at a time. Halfway down, he leaped into the air and took flight once more, hurtling into the corridor without even glancing down.

  Granite walls flashed by.

  Putrid copper hit his nose and tongue, and a corpse passed under him.

  He kept going, flying into the dark, towards the speck of light in the fog ahead. The daylight orb at the end of the tunnel broke through the fog, and the silvery door straight out of a science fiction show drew closer and closer.

  This was it, what they’d paid such a high price to reach. Ted jolted to a halt just shy of the door and lowered his feet to the ground. Time to make it all worth all they’d paid.

  The door slid open, revealing the white-beyond-white walls bathed in a glow without gradient or shadows—and an octarine barrier blazing between him and it.

  Ted stared at the barrier. How was it still running, with the Emperor cut off within the Grand Arena? He pressed his hand against the barrier and tried to focus upon the magic’s response.

  The barrier tingled against his skin. The magic…

  Pain throbbed in Ted’s temples and the barrier’s magic slipped out of his focus, again and again. Whatever it was, it had no intention of giving up its secrets to him.

  Fine. He didn’t need its secrets. He reached for Milo’s axe, and his hand found nothing. His chest clenched, and his other hand reached up and touched one of the cuts on his face. Between Death and the Emperor, he’d have to do this without Dispel.

  He cast nullification fields of Force and Portals, of Light and Energy, even tried Protection, though that imploded through self-nullification. As he’d feared, each cast did nothing to the unknown magic type.

  He hurled fireballs and blastbolts and lightningbolts and arrows at the barrier, all to no avail. Each bolt and arrow shattered against its power.

  He tried to teleport to different spots in the control room beyond. Each time, the spell went off and nothing happened.

  Ted slumped down against the wall and stared at the floor. He bit at his bottom lip. He’d failed. All this, and for what? So he could say he was a good person?

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  He looked up and back. Back down the corridor. Back to where Nibbles was no doubt still squeaking into the air at what the poor little thing could never change.

  A pit sank in Ted’s stomach. Her time left was ticking away to oblivion.

  If he gave in…

  If he gave his father control…

  If he stopped fighting a battle he could never win…

  He clenched his eyes shut and took a deep breath. He couldn’t give up, not yet. Cara never would, not while there was still a chance that the two-pronged plan might work.

  Tears welled in his eyes. Whether snakes or gorillas or gangs of orcs, she’d never given up. Never surrendered.

  A smile forced itself upon him. Dad had let him stay up late to finish it. He’d hidden under the blanket at the scary man, and that pig…

  Ted shuddered. That poor pig. Probably part of why he’d been so hesitant to trust teleport, come to think of it. Watching that duel—

  Ted sat upright. What was it she’d said?

  Dramatic fights to the death happen regularly in the Grand Arena, televised both in and out of game.

  He reached inward, searching and probing that extra sense for video feeds of the Grand Arena. A flood of moving images rushed back. He picked out a close up of Dad and Alenia slumped side by side against a wall and focused in on it.

  Cut rope and the slave collar lay discarded on the floor in front of them. Dad held a dagger in one hand, and Alenia’s hand in the other.

  Alenia stared into space while she caressed his knee with her free hand.

  Waves of cold washed over Ted and quickened breaths forced themselves in and out.

  Dad raised the dagger and pressed it against his chest. His eyes closed and his breathing slowed. He looked… sad. So very, very sad.

  Tightness pulled in around Ted’s chest and the world crushed down around him. He’d done this. Forced this.

  The images before him froze.

  No—not the images. His father. He wasn’t going to do it.

  Of course he wasn’t. He was a coward. A monster.

  The Emperor handed the dagger back to Alenia. “We can’t stay here forever.”

  “No,” she said. “We can’t.”

  “I can’t go back.” The Emperor stared at the floor a few feet ahead. “Not now. Not after everything I’ve done.”

  “You can. You have to.”

  He turned on her with a snarl. “I don’t have to do anything.” He took the dagger back and held it at her throat. “If you weren’t such a failure, I’d have Rebirth.”

  She said nothing, merely closed her eyes and waited for his will to be done.

  Ted’s heart leaped into his throat. If the Emperor killed her, the whole plan would come tumbling down. Cara would never… never…

  Seconds dragged by and the Emperor did nothing, just pressed the tip of the dagger against her neck until, at long last, he shook his head and pulled it back. “You’ll have to do it,” he said, offering her the dagger hilt first.

  Alenia stared at him and pushed his hand with the dagger down. “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah,” he said, leaning his head back against the wall and closing his eyes. “A clean crit. Don’t tell me when.”

  “That dagger won’t do it, not with your stats.” She rose to her feet. “Stand up.”

  He did as he was told, and she drew the sword—the Battlemage sword—from its sheath at Father’s hip, before turning him so he faced the wall.

  Ted cut the connection.

  The barrier blazed, its magic as indecipherable as ever.

  He scratched the back of his neck. Rubbed his shoulders in a vain attempt to banish the knots there.

  What if—?

  No. He swallowed hard. It would work. It had to.

  And yet…

  He glanced back. Back at where she lay beyond the fog, every second pulling her closer to eternal oblivion.

  It had to work. It had to.

  So what was taking them so damned long?

  The Emperor has fallen. The Imperial Throne lies vacant, ready to be claimed.

  The barrier fell. The tension in Ted’s shoulders ebbed, and he stepped into the eerie white of the control room.