II Table of Kings

  Cold.

  Not office-air-conditioning cold, not winter draft through a window cold, this is deeper. The kind of chill that lives inside stone. My cheek sticks to it when I breathe. For a second, I think I’m on the floor of the server room again, that I finally passed out at work, but then the texture gives it away: not tile. Polished rock. Smooth as glass.

  The humming is still here. It fills the air, dense and layered, but lower than before. I feel it more than hear it, a vibration that runs up my spine, into my teeth. Like a thousand bees caught somewhere behind the walls, moving in perfect rhythm. I lift my head.

  Light spills over a surface in front of me: a table, long enough that I can’t see the far end. Black stone, polished to a mirror, veined with something faintly luminous. Gold? No, light from a single orb hanging above the center, suspended in midair like a sun frozen at dusk.

  Figures line the table. Dozens. Maybe a hundred. They’re slumped over, heads resting on folded arms, some half-turned like they fell asleep in the middle of a meeting that never ended. A dream of people dreaming.

  I push myself up and the chair beneath me creaks, heavy wood or metal, hard to tell. My pulse doesn’t belong to me anymore; it’s pacing with the hum.

  “What the hell…”

  My voice is small against the ceilingless dark.

  “Ah,” says a voice that doesn’t echo. “One stirs early.”

  The sound is soft, but the room bends toward it. A man steps out of the dark beyond the orb’s glow. He’s tall, taller than anyone I’ve met in real life, and his presence feels wrong, like he’s been edited into the room instead of walking into it. His coat is a gradient between smoke and silk, every line sharp enough to slice the light. His skin could be any shade; it changes slightly with each tilt of the orb. His eyes are the same color as the hum sounds, if that makes sense at all. He smiles.

  “Good evening, Marcus.”

  He shouldn’t know my name. “Who, ”

  He lifts a hand, elegant, polite. “Names are tethers. You may call me Seth.” The hum deepens when he says it, or maybe that’s my imagination.

  “This place,” I manage, “what is it?”

  He studies me the way you might study a painting you didn’t expect to like. “This,” he says, “is Nod.”

  The name slides through the air like it’s always belonged there.

  “Nod,” I repeat, mostly to hear it myself.

  “Indeed. A crossroads between sleep and waking. A world built from both.”

  The others begin to stir. One person first, then another, the chain reaction of consciousness spreading around the table. Heads lift. Eyes open. Murmurs ripple.

  Seth clasps his hands behind his back and lets the noise rise before speaking again.

  “You have been chosen,” he says. “Each of you for your talent, your drive, or perhaps for the flavor of your will. You are here because you can lead.”

  Someone down the table laughs. Nervous, sharp. “Lead what?”

  Seth turns his gaze toward the voice, and even from here I can feel the weight of it.

  “Lead who,*” he corrects gently.

  He gestures toward the orb. Its light blooms outward, uncoiling into shapes, continents, seas, clouds. A map hangs over the table like a living hologram. Mountains glint silver; rivers crawl with pale light.

  “This is the world of Nod,” he continues. “A hundred nations. A hundred thrones. Each of you will claim one. Each will rule as king or queen, and guide your people toward their fate.”

  A woman near me whispers, “Is this a dream?”

  Seth tilts his head. “Of course. But the world dreams back.”

  Another voice, male, skeptical. “If this is a dream, then why does it hurt to breathe?”

  Seth’s smile widens a fraction. “Because not all dreams are gentle.”

  The murmurs swell again. I glance around, faces of all kinds, most dressed like they came straight from bed. Business suits, pajamas, hoodies, a few still wearing earbuds. It’s surreal, a boardroom meeting assembled from random lives.

  Seth raises a hand. Silence folds over us.

  “You will find the rules simple,” he says. “When you sleep, you live here. When you wake, you return to your world. But Nod moves with or without you. Time will not wait. While you wake, another king dreams. Do not tarry if you wish to keep your throne.”

  Someone scoffs. “So what happens if we just… don’t play along? I have a job. I didn’t sign up for this.”

  Seth turns to him, still smiling, but his eyes cool slightly, like a candle flickering in a draft.

  “Then your kingdom will fade without you,” he says. “And someone else will claim the ruins. We are not monsters. You are free to wake. But time, I’m afraid, is less forgiving.”

  The man opens his mouth again, then closes it.

  Another woman, voice shaking: “Why us?”

  “Because we asked,” Seth says simply. “And you, all of you, answered.”

  That doesn’t make sense. None of this does.

  He continues as if reading a script we can’t see.

  “There is one throne above all. The Emperor of Nod. The one who unites or conquers the others. To that soul goes the Perfect Wish, a single truth carried home to the waking world. Anything desired, made real.”

  That gets everyone’s attention.

  A perfect wish. The words taste too big to swallow.

  Seth lets the thought simmer before he adds, “Of course, power must be tempered. You will begin with three lives. When you die here, you will wake there. When you next sleep, you may return. Lose all three, and your bond to Nod will shatter. Your throne will fall to the first who dares sit upon it, and your story will end.”

  Murmurs again. This time darker.

  A voice to my left mutters, “So… a game.”

  Seth inclines his head. “If you like. A contest of kings. And an audience, of course.”

  “An audience?”

  He gestures lightly toward the space above us. The air ripples, and for a second I see faint overlays, text boxes, icons, a flood of phantom comments scrolling upward and fading.

  “You will be seen,” he says. “The waking world watches. Each of you may open your realm to them. Let them witness your triumphs, your losses, your cleverness. The crowd is fickle but generous. Those who entertain earn their favor, and their wealth. Those who hide may find shadows more accommodating.”

  So it is a game. Streamed. Viewed. Judged.

  I feel a flicker of unease that’s almost excitement, and then shame for feeling it.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Seth’s tone sharpens slightly. “Now. The hour wanes, and Nod hungers for its kings.”

  The table shifts under my hands. Circles of metal rise from the surface before each of us, smooth, dark discs pulsing with faint red light.

  “When your sigil turns crimson,” Seth says, “press it. And the world will choose your crown.”

  The first glow appears halfway down the table. The woman whose disc lights up jumps, then, hesitates only a second before pressing it.

  The map above us spins, faster than thought, then slows, focusing on a gleaming forest shot through with light like crystal veins.

  Seth’s voice fills the air, rich and ceremonial. “The Kingdom of the High Elves, Tellestra. A realm of beauty, order, and light.”

  The woman gasps as the air around her folds inward. A flash, and she’s gone.

  The map shows her again, standing in sunlight, transformed. Her hair is silver now, her armor mirrored blue, a crown of crystalline branches circling her head. A poleaxe of the same light rests across her shoulders.

  The rest of the room stares.

  The next sigil glows. Another player presses it. The map flickers: mountains, fire, anvil-lit caverns. The dwarves of Ironsdeep. Then a spire-city of humans girded in brass and smoke. Then jungles of luminous beasts, then frozen tundras, then oceans with castles that drift on the waves.

  Each new king or queen vanishes, replaced on the map by a glimmering crest.

  I lose count after sixty. The table grows emptier, quieter, each flash of light one less heartbeat in the room.

  Then a voice I recognize shatters the lull.

  “Hell yeah!”

  I turn instinctively. The laugh hits first, loud, self-assured, impossible to mistake.

  “Scott?”

  He grins across the table. Same grin from college, the one that used to get us out of trouble and into worse. His hair’s shorter now, his jaw sharper, but the energy hasn’t dimmed. Even here, surrounded by strangers in a nightmare-dream, he looks like he’s about to host a fitness channel.

  “Dude, this is nuts!” he says, half-laughing, half-shouting. “What a trip!”

  Before I can answer, his sigil flares bright red.

  “Guess it’s my turn.” He slams his hand down on it with the confidence of a man who’s never hesitated in his life.

  The map spins, slows, and focuses on a sea of red sand. Bone palisades ring a sprawling desert city. Tents of orange and gold stretch outward from the walls like flames.

  “The Dominion of the Sunforged,” Seth announces. “Warriors of the desert, conquerors of the dunes. Proud, unyielding, born beneath the endless heat.”

  Scott laughs, delighted. “Oh, that’s badass!”

  He starts to say something else, but light erupts around him, swallowing his words.

  The orb’s image changes: there he is, larger than life, standing in a city of sand and stone. His skin darkened by the sun, armor trimmed in gold. A massive hammer rests across one shoulder, runes glowing faintly along its head. Beside him lounges a tiger striped white and gold, its eyes half-closed but alert.

  The room murmurs approval. Even I can’t help it, it is impressive.

  Then his image fades.

  The seats keep emptying. The map’s glow dwindles as the last few nations are claimed: jungles, glaciers, floating citadels. The light thins to a single, pale point near the bottom of the map.

  When the silence comes, I realize it’s just Seth and me left.

  He regards me with that same patient smile. “Every contest requires a final crown,” he says. “Shall we complete the circle?”

  I stare at the sigil in front of me. It pulses faintly, the rhythm out of sync with the hum.

  I swallow. “Do I have a choice?”

  “Choice?” Seth tilts his head. “You already made it, Marcus. You’re here.”

  The glow turns crimson.

  I press it.

  The map hesitates before spinning, slower this time, like the world itself is reluctant. I track the motion, heart pounding, hoping for forest, mountain, anything alive. The light drifts south, past the deserts, past the mountains, until color fades altogether.

  It stops on a region of shimmering black sand.

  The light zooms closer. At first I think the wind is blowing across it, but the movement’s wrong, too fluid, too alive. The surface ripples. Shifts. Crawls.

  Then I see what it really is.

  Thousands, tens of thousands, of beetles, their shells gleaming like obsidian mirrors, moving in perfect coordination. Some the size of dogs, others massive as horses. The dunes themselves breathe as the swarm rolls across them.

  My stomach turns.

  Seth’s voice lowers, almost affectionate. “The Dominion of the Black Sands. The industrious. The innumerable. The patient.”

  “That’s not, ” I start.

  He lifts a brow. “A kingdom? Oh, it is. A hive that builds empires from dust and devotion. A perfect fit, wouldn’t you say?”

  Before I can respond, light crashes over me.

  The world disintegrates.

  The hum changes.

  It’s everywhere now, through me, around me, in me. My lungs vibrate with it. The cold beneath me isn’t the conference table anymore.

  I open my eyes.

  The room is enormous, carved from stone that drinks the light. Pillars of black glass rise to a ceiling lost in shadow. Thin veins of violet pulse within them, like frozen lightning. The air shimmers faintly with heat or energy, I can’t tell which.

  Before me, three rows of soldiers kneel. Ten, ten, ten.

  They’re human-shaped but not human. Black chitin armor plates their bodies, jointed and seamless. Their faces are hidden behind masks shaped like stylized mandibles, each marked with faint golden etching. They kneel with one hand on the ground, one across their chest, heads tilted upward in perfect unison.

  The hum isn’t from the room. It’s from them.

  I can feel it coming from their chests, their armor, their breath.

  To my right, a voice cuts through the vibration, smooth, female, steady.

  “At last you are awake, my king.”

  I turn.

  She’s taller than me by a head, wrapped in heavier armor traced with faint gold veins. Her hair is white, cut evenly at her shoulders. Her skin a warm bronze that glows in the dim light. But it’s her eyes that hold me, gold, molten, unblinking.

  “The time has come,” she says.

  She kneels, then rises, holding something in both hands: a thin ring of light, white as bone, faintly pulsing. Three black stones hang suspended within it.

  She offers it to me without a word.

  The hum shifts pitch when my hands close around it.

  The crown, if that’s what it is, feels weightless, but my arms ache as if I’ve lifted something vast. My heartbeat syncs to the vibration inside it.

  I raise it toward my head. It doesn’t touch. It hangs above me, spinning slowly, a hovering halo that sheds a faint, silver mist.

  I exhale and look forward, and freeze.

  The throne ahead is carved from the same obsidian glass, shaped like a single piece of stone that decided to pretend it was furniture. Its edges catch the violet light and split it into thin ribbons that crawl along the walls.

  Beyond it, the floor is so polished it reflects like a mirror.

  I see myself.

  The reflection is… wrong.

  The armor I wear is black, smooth, edged in silver, every line sharp enough to draw blood. The person in the reflection moves when I move, but slower, deliberate, graceful. My hair is longer now, reaching my shoulders, darker than any color I’ve seen. My skin pale to the edge of translucence. My face still mine, but refined, sharpened into something almost royal.

  The eyes in the reflection are gold.

  Not brown, not hazel, pure gold, faintly glowing like the general’s.

  Looking at them makes me dizzy.

  The hum grows louder, wrapping around my thoughts, threading through my veins. The reflection breathes when I do.

  I take one step closer to it, and the room tilts.

  My stomach flips.

  The hum surges to a roar.

  My hand lifts toward the reflection, but before I can touch it, my knees buckle.

  The last thing I see is the crown’s light expanding, swallowing the room, and the reflection’s golden eyes staring back at me as everything folds inward.

  Then,

  Nothing.

  Only the hum.