Origins

There is only a quiet conversation in Elias’s office, an offer extended and accepted.

Of course Marcus will take Xander’s place, Marcus says. Of course he will do his friend, and his people, proud.

He will keep the golden horns in a safe place, and try not to wonder whether they weighed this heavily on Xander’s head.

Before Marcus can slink out of the office, Elias opens a steel safe and withdraws a clay disk, about the size of an outstretched palm. Carved with a spiraling formation of strange symbols, the artifact looks ancient. Elias places it gently in Marcus’s hands. The hardened clay seems to warm to his touch.

“Do you know what this is?” Elias asks.

Marcus shakes his head.

“A century ago, archaeologists found a disk in the ruins of the Minoan palace at Phaistos,” Elias explains. “It was stamped with two hundred forty-one symbols, in a language never before seen and, to this day, never deciphered. No one knows what it was for or what it might mean. It’s on display in a museum in Heraklion, where historians and tourists alike can puzzle over its significance. Or”—he pauses, tapping the disk in Marcus’s hands—“so we would have them believe.”

“The one in the museum is a copy,” Marcus guesses.

Elias nods. “The Phaistos Disk, this disk, belongs to the Minoan people. It is the most sacred talisman of our line. This language you see here is the language of the gods—those beings from the stars who birthed our civilization and will one day return to put it to the test. The disk’s message spells out a challenge and a promise.”

“Endgame,” Marcus says in a hushed voice, awed by the thought of a message echoing through three millennia.

“Endgame,” Elias agrees. “The gods love the Minoans over all peoples. The starry god King Minos descended from great heights to rule our society, to help us flourish and reign. Endgame will be our chance to prove ourselves worthy of that love. It will be your chance. So I ask you now, Marcus Loxias Megalos, do you swear on these sacred words that you will live up to the challenge? That you will forsake all, in the name of Endgame? That from now and ever on, you will live for the game, and for your people?”

Marcus doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t have to.

He has already forsaken the only person who matters to him. He has nothing left but this.

“I do,” Marcus says. “I swear.”

“Then so it shall be,” Elias says.

And so it is.

It turns out that supersecret Player training is pretty much like the training he got before, except that now he has to do it alone. There are no other campers—there’s no Xander. No one to challenge him, to push him to greater and greater heights, no one to beat. No one to celebrate his victories or console him through his losses. Only Elias, who has taken over all his training and who spends most of his time droning about what life was like back when he was a Player. Which is almost worse than being alone.

Marcus is kept busy, jetting halfway across the world to pit his survival skills against the Amazon jungle, infiltrating Middle Eastern warlord encampments, studying ancient scrolls with a cloistered sect of Tibetan monks, building his strength, testing his limits, trying never to stop and think, never to remember. Never to regret.

He doesn’t climb anymore, not unless he has to. Whatever joy he took in it is gone.

He gets by.

More than that, he excels.

“It’s like you were born to be the Player,” Elias says, more than once. Words that a younger Marcus would have killed to hear. The worst part is that Marcus knows he’s right.

In a way, it’s Elias’s fault—if he’d only realized Marcus’s greatness sooner, if he’d named Marcus the Player in the first place, then everything would have been fine. Xander would still be here. Marcus tries his best to hate Elias for this, but it’s hard, because Elias Cassadine is now the closest thing he has to a friend.

Imagine how hard Xander would laugh at that.

“You need a rest,” Elias says one day, after Marcus fumbles with the bomb he’s disarming and nearly blows them both up.

“No way,” Marcus says. “I’ll get it the next time. I just need one more shot.”

“You need some time off,” Elias says. “Take a week. Hang out with your friends. You deserve it.”

There’s no arguing with Elias—and certainly no admitting that he has no friends anymore, which is exactly what he deserves. He knows the other kids from camp hang out together sometimes now that they are off living their regular lives, telling stories of better days. But Marcus wouldn’t go, even if he were invited. He knows he would make them uncomfortable, a living reminder of their failure, and of the dead. Just as they would make him uncomfortable, pretending to be impressed by his triumph when they all know he was really a runner-up. It’s better for all of them if he stays away.

So the week stretches on, endless and empty. Marcus stares at the football posters on his wall and the picture of Xander on his desk, and in the silence, the stillness, everything he’s tried not to think about is impossible to escape.

One night after another, he doesn’t sleep. Can’t sleep.

He stays up all night, staring at the ceiling.

The last day, he visits Xander’s grave for the first time.

He stands before the gravestone, shivering in the sticky summer air. It’s a simple marker, bearing only Xander’s name and the dates of his birth and death.

So close together.

There was a funeral, but Marcus wasn’t there. He was too busy with his new training regimen.

He was too afraid.

In his hand, Marcus holds the golden horns, the official marker of his selection as a Player. It’s such a silly thing, a flimsy band of fake bull horns that no one in his right mind would actually wear—but for so long, it was everything. A symbol of the life he wanted so desperately. And then it was a symbol of everything Xander had taken from him. The band fit so comfortably on Xander’s head. Even though it didn’t belong there.

Marcus sets the golden horns on the stone.

“I did what I had to do,” he says. “What a champion would do. That’s all.”

Elias teaches that winning at all costs is more than just a phrase. That Endgame is not football, and it’s not war—it’s not a place for rules or for honor, for loyalty or mercy. Winning means doing whatever it takes, without hesitation or regret.

Marcus is working very hard to believe it.

“I thought you might be here,” a voice says behind him.

Marcus turns around. Elias is leaning against a gravestone, a strange, knowing smile on his face. He gestures toward the horns. “I hope you’re not planning to leave those here. They belong to you.”

Marcus shrugs, hoping Elias can’t see all the emotions, the pain, churning just beneath his surface. He’s supposed to be stronger than that now. He’s supposed to be invulnerable. “They were his first. All of this was.”

“Until you took it from him.”

Marcus has trained in relaxation and control. He knows how to master his breathing and his heart rate, how to tamp down his body’s reaction to stimuli and remain physiologically unmoved by panic. There may be fireworks going off in his head, but outwardly, he’s perfectly calm. Elias, he has learned, always has an agenda. Marcus waits for him to reveal it.

“What happened on that volcano, Marcus?” Elias says.

“I told you what happened.”

“And now I’m asking again.”

“His cable snapped,” Marcus says—Marcus always says. “I tried to help him, but I couldn’t.” He’s gotten used to lying about it—he’s gotten good at lying about it—but it feels especially wrong to do so here, in the shadow of the grave. “I couldn’t get there in time.”

“You’re an excellent liar,” Elias says. “That will come in handy.”

Marcus stops breathing.

Elias bursts into laughter. “Oh, wipe that deer-in-the-headlights look off your face, Marcus, you’re better than that.”

Marcus tries to remember what he’s been taught, remember his breathing, but it’s hard to find his calm center when every nerve ending in his body is screaming.

Elias knows the truth.

He knows.

He knows.

“We’re both men here,” Elias says. “It’s time to be honest.”

“His cable snapped. I tried to help him, but I couldn’t.” Marcus knows he sounds like a robot, but he’s capable of nothing else. “I couldn’t get there in time.”

Elias shakes his head, still chuckling. “Okay, then, how about I tell the truth. His cable snapped? Yes. You tried to help him? No. You watched and did nothing while your best friend hung on for dear life? Yes. You watched and did nothing while he fell to his death, then came home and lied about it, stole everything that was supposed to be his?”

Marcus swallows hard. His tongue feels huge in his mouth, clumsy and incapable of speech. His throat is clenched, his breath gone. But he manages to squeeze out the necessary word: “Yes.”

“Yes,” Elias says. “Yes. Good. Yes. That’s a start. And don’t you want to ask me something now?”

Marcus stares at him blankly. He’s waited for this moment for so long, for someone to ferret out the truth, for the consequences to crush him. He’s pictured this moment, but never past it. He doesn’t know what happens next.

“You want to ask me how I know,” Elias prompts.

“How do you know?” Marcus says obediently, although he doesn’t care. He doesn’t see how it could matter.

“I know because I was there,” Elias says. “Many of us were. We all wanted to see for ourselves what you would do when the opportunity presented itself.”

Marcus gapes at him, wheels turning. Because if Elias was there, waiting and watching, that meant he knew something would happen, which meant—

“Good, you’re keeping up,” Elias says. “Alexander’s cable snapped because our sniper shot it.”

“You were testing him?” Marcus says in wonder.

Elias sighs, obviously disappointed. “For someone who’s so sure he deserves to be a Player, you’re not very quick on the uptake. We were testing you.”

The words are like an explosion; Marcus could swear the ground is shaking beneath him. Thunder roars in his ear. The muted colors of the graveyard burst so bright he needs to shut his eyes against the pain of them.

This is how it feels, when your world falls apart and remakes itself into something you don’t recognize.

When everything you thought was solid melts away.

“It was always going to be you, Marcus,” Elias says. “It was obvious the first day I met you. But we had to know how much you wanted it. We had to know how far you would go—how much you would sacrifice for victory.”

Marcus concentrates on standing still. It takes all the energy he has to hold his muscles rigid. He fears that if he relaxes his control, even for a second, he will collapse. Or he will lunge at Elias and pummel him to death.

He thinks about relaxing his control.

Thinks hard.

Instead he forces out the obvious question. “Why are you telling me this? Why now?”

“Because it’s time for you to grow up,” Elias says. He takes the golden horns off Xander’s grave. “Stop sulking. Stop beating yourself up—what’s done is done. You made a choice, and it’s a part of you now. You know what you’re capable of, and that’s a good thing. It’s something you won’t soon forget.” He presses the horns into Marcus’s hands.

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