I won?
We won. Jessica reminded Tyler.
Ascendant.
The title was one of several prizes he’d earned, including having his half-step body upgraded to a fully incorporated lunar body; the pain and ghostly howling from that process had felt more like a punishment than a reward. It hurt almost as much as when Old Bones asked, through growling, sharp teeth, “Are you going to chase after her?”
Who was crazy enough to chase after death? “I’ll set up Hazeldown for her return.” Death returns to all men after all. He had a lot to make up for in how he treated her back at the manor. The feminine fires of Jessica burned in him now, and not without some small insight into how poor his behavior had been. If he could erase the memory of the toes request, he would.
Some girls are into that. Jessica reminded him.
“You don’t need to read my thoughts.”
Our thoughts.
Noble failures! He shushed that part of himself hard. Maybe if Harmony was pleased by all the work he could accomplish in Hazeldown, she’d help untangle the twisted fire through his soul? The white void to exit the Games was taking too long and giving too much time to think. His body felt like it had accepted the rewards, so why was he still here?
If it wasn’t the thirteenth time that Tyler wondered why he was still transitioning, he might have thought it fortuitous to be ripped back to Hazedown right after thinking about it. The shift from quiet nothingness to the smells of people, dust, and the ever-lingering presence of death, accompanied by a massive roar of screams, caused Tyer to flinch into an aura of blue flames by accessing Jessica’s defensive skill, [Fire Shield].
“Coodly! Coodly! Coodly!” Roared mixed with “Rising Dawn! Rising Dawn! Rising Dawn!” greeted him.
Guild Master Hemlock stood in his clean white clothes next to Loap, now wearing a green silk dress, as Tyler saw his image projected to the arena audience. “Our champion has returned. Let the celebrations commence!”
The crowd broke free of the stands to rush the arena floor, and Tyler shut down his flames. Among those who used their skills to get ahead of the crowd were a cluster of women in low-cut dresses. “My lord, you were amazing! – “You stood up for our town, beating those tourists!” – ”I know if you were here, you could have calmed the rioters!”
“Um,” Tyler started, at a loss for words as they all pressed in close enough to touch him. The authority he’d tried to ignore rippled funny in his chest. Jessica’s laughter in the back of his mind wasn’t helping, so he shot a desperate look at Loap.
“You can join us in the parade and throw flowers to the crowd,” Loap assured the girls in the opposite of a rescue.
“Whatever our lord wants.” The girls chimed almost together in the kind of husky voice that had Tyler questioning his recent oath to do better with women. There was a middle ground, right? Jessica would offer advice, right? At least when she stopped laughing?