Endgame Novella #1 by James Frey Page A

fighter I’ve ever seen.”
    “You’ve never seen Chiyoko.”
    “In fact, I have,” Satoshi says.
    Girls like Akina don’t learn how to fight. Not unless they’re being trained for something. Groomed for something.
    “I have support,” Satoshi says, and there is a murmuring among the elders, a murmuring that sounds like agreement. “You would be surprised to know how much.”
    “I have support as well,” her uncle says. “But I agree with you—this cannot continue.”
    Chiyoko nearly loses her grip on the sill. The wind is suddenly colder than it was, biting sharp and angry at her flesh.
    She never asked to be the Player. Never thought to wonder whether she wanted it.
    But she finds now she does not want to lose it.
    Who would she be without it?
    Who would she be without her uncle’s belief that she is special, that she is the one?
    Who would she be but a broken girl who only feels whole in the dark?
    Then her uncle speaks again. “I propose a test,” he says. “A challenge. Chiyoko has a training mission coming up. Survival in the wilderness. I intended to test her against the elements—but I see no reason not to pit her against an enemy as well. Akina will have the element of surprise, the superior firepower; Chiyoko will have her training and the will of the gods. Let us leave them to their own devices and see who lives.”
    A woman gasps, and Chiyoko recognizes this as Satoshi’s wife. Akina’s mother.
    “Chiyoko will know none of this?” Satoshi says.
    “You have my word,” her uncle says, and all the Mu know what this isworth.
    “You would send your own niece into an ambush?”
    “I have no fear that she can take care of herself,” her uncle says, and relief surges through her. This is how much he believes in her. Enough to risk her life on her skill and his certainty. “Can you say the same for your daughter?”
    “Satoshi, think about this,” Akina’s mother says. Her name is Lia, and Chiyoko knows her to be a fearsome woman, all sharp vision and sharper edges. There are those who whisper that she is responsible for much of Satoshi’s success and all his decisions. She doesn’t sound fearsome now. She only sounds afraid. “This is our daughter.”
    Satoshi says nothing.
    “If you have no faith in her, how can you expect our people to defy the gods’ will and follow yours instead?” Chiyoko’s uncle says.
    “If Akina kills Chiyoko, then you’ll accede to my wishes?” Satoshi asks. “You and yours will acknowledge that she is to be our next Player?”
    “She will have earned her place. And if it is Chiyoko who survives, there will be no more of this,” her uncle says. “No more questioning, no more dissent. You will accept the gods’ will. You will accept Chiyoko.”
    “If she survives.”
    “Yes. If.”
    Chiyoko leaps from the sill and lands noiselessly on the dewy grass. She takes no pleasure in the flight home, racing down streets and grazing roofs. She doesn’t enjoy the silence or spare a glance for the crystalline stars. She allows herself no thought, no emotion, not until she is safely enclosed in the dark of her room. Surrounded by evidence of her uncle’s love for her: The books he has brought her. The weapons he has given her. The mural he painted on her wall, a serpentine river to remind her that she is like water: deceptively peaceful, quietly strong, dangerous when underestimated, often deadly.
    Chiyoko’s uncle has always believed in her. He has raised her, all these years, while her parents travel the world, monitoring Mu business and Mu fortunes in other countries, ensuring that the people—andits secret, ancient mission—will live on. Like Chiyoko, they have a responsibility to their bloodline, and she cannot begrudge them that. She knows they love her. Even if there’s a part of her that wonders whether it’s easy to love her from a distance. With thousands of miles between them, they don’t have to be confronted by her silence, her failure. She,