Page 21 of Ravaged Devotion

“Welcome back to the land of the living.” Illya had made it to Hart Estate an hour ago, standing with Ryker off to the side while the medical team took care of Uriel.

They’d checked him over, taken blood samples, and, since two of them were also part of the team responsible for creating the game, had begun to interrogate him about the things he’d experienced while being trapped inside it.

They’d already established their working theory—that Ryder and Uriel had decided to stay inside the game—was accurate, and had practically patted themselves on the back afterward, as though that actually made any sort of difference.

Ryker had reached for a ballpoint pen without thinking, but Illya had placed a hand over his wrist, quietly stopping him.

His friend had a point.

Today wasn’t meant for bloodshed. They should be celebrating.

Even though…

His gaze drifted to the door. They’d moved Uriel into a room next door to the pods, which had been prepared in advance in the hope that this day would eventually come. When he’d left, there’d been no sign his brother was going to wake as well, and he wanted to ask about it, but the doctors had only just left, and their friends were all eager to question Uriel.

Illya, Nyoka, and Ryker were the only three Black Harts who’d made it so far, the others having not answered their multi-slates for some reason. Ryker had left them messages and expected them to arrive within the next hour or so. Ellery especially, since Uriel was his cousin.

“What was it like?” Nyoka gripped the railing at the end of the bed, his curiosity palpable.

A nurse was still jotting information down and checking the IV, but she paid them no mind as she worked.

“Like this,” Uriel replied. His voice was gruff from ill use, deeper and rougher than Ryker remembered. His eyes had focused though, his expression still a little bit lost, but getting there. He’d changed into a set of loose pajamas and was under a silk blanket, and his palm kept smoothing over the material, as though testing something. “Like reality.”

“Ares will get a kick out of that,” Nyoka said.

“It’s good he didn’t come,” Uriel told them. “It would have broken him.”

Their friend Ares already struggled with comprehending reality.

“There were times I almost forgot…No, that’s not right.” He paused, reconsidered how he wanted to phrase things, and then tried again. “I did forget. For a while. Time moves differently in the game. For us, it was maybe a few years before we started to forget who we really were and where we came from. I think having each other, being able to remind one another, extended that period. If we’d gone in alone, we would have forgotten sooner.”

“You’re talking about integration?” Illya asked, but Uriel shook his head.

“No. The decision not to come back once the timer went off was our own. We were having too much fun, and Ryder,” his gaze flicked up to Ryker briefly, then away, “didn’t want to leave. It took me a while to realize he’d meant ever.”

“Why would he do that?” Nyoka glanced over to Ryker for answers.

Ryker shrugged, but he could think of a dozen reasons why, even if he wasn’t willing to share them.

It wasn’t like this was new information, anyway. They’d already been told that Ryder had chosen to leave them. Had chosen to remain in a fantasy world instead of returning home.

Selfish bastard.

Abandoning him just like Rue.

“Once the novelty had worn off, I tried to convince him,” Uriel continued. “I stayed too long trying, ended up forgetting who I really was. It’s like the game rewrites you. It’s still you. You still have autonomy, control over your thoughts and your actions. Every word out of your mouth is one that you’ve chosen. And yet your past is gone. Who you were before…it’s erased.”

“It’s been three years out here,” Ilya said. “How long was it in there?”

“Three hundred.”

Ryker straightened. “Centuries? It’s been centuries?”

“You enter the game as either an immortal or a demon,” Uriel told them. “Unless they’re killed, they can live forever. They don’t die of old age.”

“What happens if you’re killed? Doesn’t the game end?” he had faith in their gaming abilities, but not dying for three hundred years in an action RPG game seemed improbable.

Uriel exhaled slowly out of his nose. “No. The game resets. Depending on where you were in it, you wake up at a past stage and have to do it all over again. There is no end. No winning. You just keep playing, over and over again, no matter how many times you die. And dying? You feel that. All of it.”