Chapter 1 Respawn
Respawn
April
ELLA
“The princess is the worst,” I insist. “She should get a job, contribute to society, and maybe rescue herself for once.”
The voice of Staggering_Indifference, an American graduate student, comes through my headset. “Without the princess, we have no game,” she insists.
“Yes, but a princess?” I scoff. “In the year of our Lord—”
“A princess trapped in a garden is an archetype. She’s not helpless if she’s able to inspire the worthy to perform noble sacrifice.”
No one can see my eye roll to this Medieval Studies monologue. I could teach my own college course on what a flaming pile of garbage the idea of princesses are in the modern era. “Yes, but—”
Staggering_Indifference squeaks her surprise when we are suddenly ambushed. “Maybe let’s cut the philosophizing?”
I unleash a wave of arrows and, once I find a rhythm, my attention bounces across several screens. Dialing the volume of the game down, I boost a playlist featuring the music of BLUSH, a favorite Seongan girl group. I sing along, too low for my headset to catch it.
Kiss me like you mean it…unintelligible Seongan lyrics…Kiss me like you mean it
“On your left,” I say, guiding my squad through the ruins of a castle.
The members fall into formation, sights trained on the dense tangle of briars. LoveShush is on my right hand while Staggering_Indifference, dragonslayer2, and BeastlyDutchOaths guard the rear flank, firing as needed.
“Panda,” LoveShush shouts, her avatar crumpling to the flagstones. The skintight bodysuit with strategic cut-outs was not, it turns out, as strategic as my flak jacket and tactical gear.
The ruins erupt in fire and my eyes dart across the screen. “Follow me to higher ground.”
BeastlyDutchOaths is fatally hit during the retreat, but we all respawn on the top of the rise, watching clouds of smoke between us and the horizon, our avatars bouncing gently on the balls of their feet. For today, the princess is on her own.
A notification pops up on my screen. “Group Torture, 10 AM.”
I frown, tapping it closed. I’ve got at least fifteen minutes before the weekly Wolffe family meeting, and our life points are in the red zone. “We have to do a side quest,” I suggest.
BeastlyDutchOaths has a hard timetable he can’t squeeze another minute out of.
“Sorry guys,” dragonslayer2 says. “My sister is going to rain hellfire on me if I don’t clean Boris’s enclosure. I’m out.”
I roll my eyes. Boris the box turtle would be thrilled to paddle around in his own waste for the next hour, whereas our team will have to disband and go through the hassle of reorganizing if we don’t at least make it back to our raiding ship—part Viking longboat, part time traveling device. “Dragon—” I plead.
“I’m gaming before noon, Panda. She hates that. If I can’t contribute to the ‘health and wellbeing’ of my family, she’ll confiscate my best controller and SquadRun figurines.” He aims at me, delivering a kill shot to a lone knight just over my shoulder. “Again.”
Staggering_Indifference pops in. “My boyfriend has a paper due about constitutional monarchy for his civics class and I promised to help. Panda, can you proofread it? You said—”
I try not to think of how many campaign points we’re shedding as we speak. “Of course. Send the file over the Friction server when you finish.”
Their avatars shimmer on the hilltop, disappearing as their life points are drained from our stats.
“You have somewhere to be, too,” LoveShush reminds me.
She’s the only one of our squad who knows who I am beyond my gamer tag.
In real life, she’s Alix, my oldest friend who actually thinks skintight bodysuits with strategic cut-outs are reasonable fashion choices.
She knows me as Her Royal Highness Princess Ella, Duchess of Sorstorm who showed up to kindergarten with monogrammed bib overalls and a security detail.
I glance at the clock and swear under my breath. “I’m not bailing on our team.”
Sometimes I worry that people on SquadRun—and a whole fetid raft of tabloid reporters—will find out who I really am, but I need this outlet. Half the team is American, I reason. I’m not sure they could find Sondmark on a map.
“You go,” Alix says. “I’ll stay behind and pick mushrooms and sorrel until our life points are restored.”
Tedious. Glacial. And Alix has enough to do, keeping her family’s stately home afloat in the absence of her family.
“No,” I decide, “we’re going after the abbey. We’ll grab a relic—in and out.”
“There is no in and out with murder monks,” she warns.
I ignore her negativity and begin to race across the boggy ground in the direction of the massive abbey grounds.
“I wanted to ask you something,” she says, shooting a flaming arrow into a grove of trees. “My mom and Marc have been in Seong for ages.”
His name is like a tiny, pale sliver under my skin. Marc has been gone for seven months and thirteen days, but who’s counting?
“I need your help.”
“What is it?” I answer, swinging a grappling hook from the base of a tower wall.
“I’m getting married on July 12th,” she says, cutting off my scold. She already knows I think it’s insane to plan a massive wedding in three short months, and her voice is determined. “If you’re not going to be my maid of honor, I just won’t have one.”
I vault over the top of the tower wall, slashing through a couple of waiting sentries.
Their blood splatters in elegant arcs. Alix is my best friend, but she has no real idea of how stressful the last year and more has been.
My family is in disarray and she’s only seen glimpses of the mounting pressure.
I would love to be her maid of honor, showing up for more than a group photo on the big day, but—
“You know it’s impossible,” I say. Mama will never say yes.
“We’re stretched thin. There’s the Ragnar Prize banquet coming up as well as a couple of royal tours, and Freja has practically abandoned us.
” I swallow away the knot in my throat. My twin’s sudden elopement last Christmas made everything harder. “Alix, you have a million friends.”
“Only one best friend,” she reminds me. I can hear from the tone in her voice that she’s all big eyes and quivering lips, but I can’t see a way to say yes. “Just think about it, will you?”
We grab a relic—the sacred elbow joint of an evangelical saint—fending off attacks from a dozen lethal monks on our way back to our ship. As we push into the current, I review our new stats and stretch hugely. This session was ugly, but our team has been saved to fight again another day.
Mid-stretch, my eye catches the time on the screen.10:13. Stultes es.
With a yelp, I rip off my headphones and dive into the closet.
Hasty hands clatter hangers together as I fumble for clothes.
In a saner world, Mama would be glad I haven’t run away from this royal prison, but I don’t live in a sane world.
I live in the heart of my mother’s kingdom, behind the high, gated walls of the Summer Palace, and she demands perfection.
I’m leagues from perfect when I stumble into the family meeting, smelling of hastily-applied deodorant wipes and wintergreen gum, but I aim a brief curtsey towards my mother—my queen—and drop into my seat with a thump.
“Thank you for blessing us with your presence,” Mama replies, her voice dry. She checks her wristwatch with a frown. “We expect,” she says, employing the majestic plural, “to be blessed, hereafter, with your punctuality.”
I adjust my glasses and send her an affable smile. “Punctuality from the personality hire? That’s a big ask.”
“That will do, Ella,” she bites.
I shoot Clara a look and mouth the words, “What did I miss?”
She picks up a red leather portfolio and tips it discreetly. “Crown Estates.”
Ugh. Time for Noah’s quarterly financial report from the Crown’s agricultural concern.
I flip past tabs reading “Media Mentions” and “Marriages and Succession Act (1798)” to locate my brother’s precious pie charts.
One of the pages contains a graph showing how many more kilos of free-range venison were sold under the House of Wolffe label than last year.
A red line on a chart shows an uptick. An orange line moves sharply down, and I consult the key.
Oh. Pity about the sugar beets.
My mind wanders as Noah drones on. If he were reporting on the state of our family, what would he say about our lines careening in every direction?
My gaze slips to Mama at the head of the table and Père on her right hand.
Has she apologized for commanding him to skip his father’s funeral on political grounds?
Has he agreed that Grand Père’s tolerance of a fascist regime was problematic?
My parents are so correct in public, so careful of their image as a well-oiled machine, but everyone knows that they haven’t shared a bed in more than a year.
Still, the Great Hall has stopped echoing with their shouts, so that’s a win.
What of Clara? Last year our youngest sister took up with a naval hero and launched a privacy lawsuit against a tabloid. Only time will tell if her surprising knack for performing her royal duties will make up for the headache she is causing my mother on other fronts.
My gaze slides along to Alma, my oldest sister.
Mama got her most dependable child to agree to an arranged marriage, but then everything blew up when her fiancé, Pietor (lying scum of Himmelstein), cheated on her.
Now she’s secretly seeing the future king of Vorburg—Sondmark’s nearest neighbor and oldest rival—and no one knows what to expect.