CHAPTER THREE

Oh. My. God! I bet I'm in a portal! I've played enough games that use them to recognize one.

I laugh. This whole thing should be scary, but it's not. That feeling of rightness hums through my chest. Whatever this is, it's linked to that missing piece I've been looking for my whole life.

The music continues, so lovely it fills me with joy.

Time doesn't seem to exist in a way I can understand. Is it a second or a century later that I find myself lying on a firm surface? Does it matter?

I'm gonna go with no.

The light recedes, peeling away from me to form a ball once again. It swirls faster and faster, little blue lightning bolts flashing as the music speeds up. Then it zips up into the dark sky overhead, leaving me reaching after it.

As I blink away the last lingering dots of its brightness, stars appear overhead, the darkness softening from black to the deep purple of the darkest of plums.

I sit upright, ready to figure out where I am. It's like the start of any game, when you're a new player who needs to get the lay of the land before you can really play. My hand pats at the back pocket of my jeans, but I dropped my phone during the scuffle on the stairs, so no help there.

The air smells sweet and clean, like what my mountain-meadow room freshener tries to be. But this is real, lacking any of the big-city smells you get from too many cars and people all crammed into one area.

It's also too quiet, so I can rule out any kinda urban area.

Squinting into the surrounding darkness, I spot tiny dots of blue light to my right. They dart around like fireflies. But the brightest thing near me is me. My crystal necklace glows, warming my chest.

I fish it out from underneath my shirt and hold it upright. Silvery white light shines from it, and little zips of electricity shoot through me, vibrating with a feeling of… potential.

More zips shoot through the palm I use to steady myself on the ground—no wait, not ground. Stone.

Lights wink on around me as crystals set into the rock I'm on start to glow. The hollow place inside me feels different. I rub my fingers up and down my sternum. A fullness stirs like an animal ready to pounce, a feeling of potential. I don't know what it is, but I like it. I feel powerful for the first time in my life.

The crystals only surround me for a few feet in each direction, so I scoot right, reach out, and my hand pats at empty air. I move along the edge, figuring out I'm on some kinda raised platform. In games, I'm used to running around, falling off things, and doing whatever it takes to learn my way around as quickly as possible. Patience isn't exactly my middle name—I like action.

But games give you the chance to die over and over again, resetting each time to an earlier save point.

I'm gonna have to play this like a granny player, one who inches their way through every bit of the game.

Because you don't get do-overs in real life, and dying here means actual, for-real, not-playing-around dying.

My crystal and all the ones embedded in the rock stop glowing, and the hum of power fades from my body. I spend the next few hours trying to get what sleep I can. It's not super cold or anything, but I always chill easily, so I pull my arms inside my T-shirt and hug them to my stomach to stay warm, glad my jeans and Chuck Taylor high-tops keep the rest of me covered.

I must doze off, because the next thing I know, I'm yawning. The sky's light overhead, and the sound of birdsong sweetens the air.

Rolling upright, I poke my arms back through the sleeves and spin in place. A forest surrounds me filled with big pines like Christmas trees on steroids, and some strange trees with blue oval leaves.

"Yep, Dorothy," I whisper. "You sure aren't in Kansas anymore." A grin splits my face. If you're gonna have an adventure, might as well do it somewhere fabulous!

I'm also on top of a twenty-foot column of rock, so yay me for not walking off the edge in the dark. But how am I gonna get down? Checking my pockets again turns up nothing more than lip balm and a tissue. I can't MacGyver anything out of those. Looks like I didn't acquire any "tools" in the portal. I run my hands over the top of the rock column, digging my fingertips in, searching for cracks. It takes a few minutes, but there's nothing.

Sitting back on my heels, I stop and think. If this was a game, I'd hide rope somewhere only a little tricky to find—you want the opening levels to be challenging enough to be fun without making it so hard people give up.

Then I snort. "It's not a game, Taylor. There don't have to be rules."

But the portal put me here, on top of this stone pillar. Why? Whatever it had been, it felt friendly, so there must be a reason.

I lay down on my stomach at the edge and reach over, feeling down the side. Maybe there's a hidden ladder of handholds or something? The rock slides sandpaper rough across my palm, broken only by the smooth surface of the occasional inset crystal.

A growl lashes from the trees, and I freeze.

A monster stalks from between two pines, a real-as-hell effing monster! He's eight-feet tall, with coarse gray skin only covered by the crude loincloth made by tying an animal pelt around his hips. Completely bald, he's got a rough-hewn face of irregular features topped by a blob of a nose. He looks like that time I was seven and put one of my action figures in the oven to keep "warm," melting Thor's face into something face-adjacent.

A huge mace rises over one shoulder, the spiked head looking wicked. This guy would be one hell of a character to fight!

The monster snarls in an unknown language. Oh, goody! Another challenge. I really, really wish I were playing this as a game. I start doing a thing I always do—make a mental "wiki" entry about this monster and shove all the details I've noticed into it, because you never know what's gonna end up being useful.

He stalks over to the base of the stone, and I watch carefully. Maybe he'll show me where the hidden ladder is? But nope. He just wraps his long arms around the stone and uses brute strength to cling to the sheer surface.

The huge gray monster climbs the side of the pillar as if twenty feet is nothing.

I scooch to the far side, teetering right on the brink.

But the top of the stone's not that big. He swarms up over the edge, leering at me, and one long arm reaches out.

"No!" I throw up my hand. The crystal on my chest heats, and a bolt of electricity zips through my body.

The monster flies backward!

What did I just do? I jerk in surprise and take half a step back. Onto empty air.

"Eeeeeee!" My arms pinwheel as I fall, my heart thundering. I don't wanna die! I don't wanna hit the ground!

I snap to a stop, laying on nothing.

"What the hell?"

My fingers dip down a couple of inches to bury in soft moss, then I drift the rest of the way, settling onto the ground as gently as you please.

"That did not just happen."

But it did.

I moved that monster… with my mind! Then I broke my own fall. It's like I became a character in one of my favorite fantasy movies or games, one where I'm a mage… or a witch. Hmm, witch. I like the sound of that. It feels right somehow.

An angry snarl jerks me upright. Shit! The gray monster's back on his feet. I guess a twenty-foot fall isn't anything to a guy that big.

I leap to standing, and my five-feet-two-inches feel absolutely miniscule when faced with his eight feet. I'm a pebble facing a mountain.

But this pebble's got powers!

I throw up my hands again—

—and nothing happens.

Oh, shit.

He steps toward me, and I backpedal. I wish I could go back and face the angry gamers again instead—I'd have better odds.

Another step.

Then a new person hurtles from the trees, plowing a shoulder into the gray creature and knocking him away from me. This guy wears clothes, a wine-colored shirt and brown leather pants that cling to his muscular legs.

And ass. Oh, my. They really cling to that ass.

They roll and come back up to standing to start circling each other. The new monster's face comes into view. His skin is green! He's got tusks! And pointed ears!

God, it's like someone crossed the Hulk with Legolas. He's huge and green—far larger than any elf—but he's also scorching hot, with sharply chiseled features and long black hair.

He growls something at the gray guy and yanks his sword from its scabbard. Oh, it's a nice one, the steel bright and pure, the edge so sharp it glints in the sun. If we were in a game, I'd expect to pay lots of gold for a weapon like that. My mental wiki entry on him is gonna be lush.

The green elf deflects the monster's mace in a diagonal uppercut that's pure beauty and power. Without missing a beat, he snaps the tip of the blade back into position and slices the thick gray hide in a slash that runs from left shoulder to right hip. A dark line appears on the gray monster's torso, then spreads in a rush of black blood.

It bellows and bats its weapon at the green elf, but it's a distraction. It spins and runs for the trees.

The elf watches it go, snarling after it with a flash of tusks. Then he turns and stalks toward me, holding his sword out to the side with one hand, the blade still dripping blood.

"Hey, now," I say. "I appreciate the save and all, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna be your spoils of war or something."

"Drevistie," he growls and reaches for me, his brows pinching together in a frown.

"No!" I've had enough of being bullied and threatened today. My hand flies up. And this time I must really mean it, because my crystal warms, and the green elf flies backward.

He hits the mossy ground, turning all of his momentum into a graceful roll that brings him back up to his feet. Damn, those are some awesome moves!

I expect another attack or at least more scowls, but he stares wide eyed for several seconds.

Then a devilish grin splits his face until he looks at me like he just won the boss level of the game.

And I'm the grand prize.