into the blue sky and right into the sun, which gave fake lens flare, as if seen through a nonexistent camera. The air of the office felt Endorian. The hair on my arms stood up; a part of my brain was afraid and yet very, very happy.
“How come nobody knows about this?”
“Because everything about it sucks.”
I felt weightless. It felt like—
“Did Simon ever get to try this?” I asked.
“No.”
“Where are you?” I said.
“Here.” Somewhere back on earth I felt her take my hand, tightly. For a minute, I felt like Simon wanted to feel.
Chapter Forty-Six
I couldn’t see anything promising in falling in love with the heroine in a video game, but there it was. And that I was designing her latest game raised questions of conflict of interest. But I was in love—I couldn’t help it. It was an occupational hazard and didn’t do any harm. So what if I had a fantasy girlfriend? She was smart and confident and had amazing hair, and she was a princess. At least she was a playable character. Or did that make it worse?
After much hesitation I’d asked her to have dinner with me at a Vietnamese restaurant in the Garage, in Harvard Square, on our awkward first date (at least, I thought it was a date; there were cultural differences to consider). I sipped my bubble tea while she fidgeted in her seat. She was in her alternate outfit, the one you unlocked by finishing Tournament of Ages without losing a single match. It was like a cherry-red sheet-metal corset. It wasn’t built to sit down in. It didn’t look much good at stopping arrows, either.
She leaned the NightShard, her signature weapon, against the scarred wood paneling behind her. It was a long wedge of dull gray metal with a two-handed hilt. The weapon was named for the chip of obsidian mounted at the top, allegedly hewn from the scales of a nameless dragon-god. The blade was bare of runes or any ornamentation, but that would change if it tasted blood tonight. No one tried to take it.
“Are you cold?” I asked. “I have a jacket.” The armor left her arms bare, not to mention her midriff.
“No,” she said. She tapped a silver armband against the metal table. This might not have been the best venue. The Garage was crowded with college students on Thanksgiving break.
The waitress brought our menus.
“Just order anything,” I said. She looked at the menu for a few seconds before laying it back on the table.
“I can’t read,” she said quietly.
I ordered a Diet Coke for me, plum wine for her, and pho for both of us. Leira wore her black hair up in a topknot tied with braided cord. She was physically intimidating, perfectly muscled, except that up close she had the beginnings of crow’s-feet near her blue eyes. She looked beautiful, although at life size her poly count was a little low.
“So,” she began. She looked around the room. I guessed that she was a little uncomfortable with noncombat situations. “What is it you do? You’re a scholar? Or a clerk?”
“Formerly.” I hedged. “I’m still figuring it out. I’m only twenty-eight.”
“Ah,” she answered. “I’m twenty-two.” I guessed that in a medieval world, twenty-eight was a pretty advanced age. I should probably have my own township by now. Leira, of course, had been twenty-two for a dozen years now. She’d also killed about a hundred thousand people.
“And then you’re a, um, warrior princess?” I asked.
“That’s right.”
“And how did you get into that line of work?”
The food arrived; she ate like a princess turned nomadic warrior, and then we chatted. Adventures she’d had; which weapons she liked (cavalry saber, compound bow) or hated (morning star, crossbow); the current stealth system (hated it). She told me her origin story, the real one, the one that doesn’t show up in any manuals or cutscenes. I paid for dinner. She offered, but the waitress wouldn’t accept rubies or gold armbands.
Afterward we walked down to the river and looked at the moon. “Only one?” she said.
“Only one,” I said. They’d given Endoria three. They’d made Endoria better. It was better, I thought.
“Leira, what do you know about Mournblade?”
“They say that when Mournblade is destroyed, this age will come to a close and the world will be reborn.”
“But what happens then?”
“The Fourth Age, silly. The Age of Humankind.”
“That sounds a little sad, actually.”
“Well, Prendar’s not a fan.”
I walked her back to the portal: a flat oval that hung next to the Harvard Square