Infinity Blade 02 - Redemption

even good food like this. The rebellion ate well; she saw to that. She’d keep these people strong.
    When the cook returned from upstairs, she sent the next man in line—the last one. A lanky soldier named Drel that the others looked up to. She’d found him raiding Deathless on his own, spreading stories of Siris. Now he’d get to meet the real thing.
    She nodded, sending him up the steps. Before she could return to her food, however, she heard a familiar voice coming from the front of the building.
    “Hereherehereherehere!” She could barely separate the words one from another. She smiled and stood as TEL scrambled into the room.
    The thing—it wasn’t really a he , though she often thought of it that way—wore the shape of a rabbit. A rabbit made completely of entwined brambles, colored like dead brush. It crackled as TEL moved, hopping through the door at a bolt.
    “Stop!” she snapped at the thing.
    “Master has returned,” TEL said. “Master lives . Oh, this is very good. Very good.”
    The brambles suddenly collapsed and a small man-shaped thing made out of wood—matching the floor—crawled out of what was left. TEL took the substance of things he touched, and changed shape at will.
    She kept feeling she should be able to find a way to use that more than she did. The thing didn’t like to listen to her, however. She could barely get it to do scouting duty.
    “He’s upstairs,” Isa said. “But give him time to get done with the person I just sent up.”
    “How much does he remember?” TEL asked, dancing from one foot to the other, like a child needing to piss. “Is it bad, very bad?”
    “I don’t know,” Isa said.
    He seemed different from the man she remembered—but then again, it had been two years.
    “I need to speak with him,” TEL said, moving toward the stairs. She stepped up to stop him, but hesitated as boots thumped on the steps.
    “Back so quickly?” Isa asked Drel as he appeared on the steps.
    “Well, he’s . . . um, not up there.”
    “What?”
    “He’s not up there, sir.”
    She hated being called “sir.” “My Lady” was far worse, though. She was not, and had never wanted to be, a lady. Confused, Isa stalked up the steps. TEL pushed past her, scrambling up more quickly.
    Siris wasn’t in his room. Isa felt a moment of panic. Had an assassin attacked?
    Don’t be an idiot, she thought at herself, entering the room. He’s immortal. Who cares about assassins?
    She crossed the room, and noticed the door to the balcony cracked open. TEL joined her as she stepped outside.
    “So you’re saying,” Siris said from down below, “that being ‘it’ is a mark of dishonor? But if only one person can be ‘it,’ is the position not one of distinction and exclusivity?”
    A child’s voice replied. “You’ve gotta chase people when you’re it.”
    “And in so doing, emulate the predator,” Siris’s voice replied. “Rather than the prey. Why doesn’t everyone want to be this ‘it’? That seems the preferred mode to me.”
    “If everyone wanted to be it,” another young voice said, “then the game would be stupid!”
    “But—”
    “Just run , mister!” another child said.
    Giggling followed. TEL moved toward the steps, but Isa stooped and grabbed him. “Wait a moment,” she ordered quietly.
    Amazingly, he obeyed. Isa moved to the edge of the balcony, and found Siris—immortal, Deathless, Sacrifice, and possibly the world’s greatest living swordsman—playing a game of tag with various children of camp.
    Isa leaned down, crossing her arms on the balcony railing, watching. Seeing him again had raised an entire host of emotions. Hope that this thing she had begun might actually have a chance at success. Embarrassment for the way she’d treated Siris, all those months ago.
    And also hatred and betrayal, deep down. Emotions she didn’t like, but which she also couldn’t control. He was Deathless.
    Watching him play tag helped change some of those feelings.
    He played for a long while, though eventually the children ran at the dinner announcement. Siris watched them go, wiping his brow, then turned to climb the balcony steps. Only then did he see her.
    He stopped halfway up. “Oh! Um.” He looked over his shoulder at the children. “I never—”
    “‘Never got to play games as a child,’” Isa said. “I know.”
    “Not that I remember, anyway,” he said, climbing the steps to join her. “TEL!” he said, noticing the small creature