Heir Apparent
Vivian Vande Velde
 Giannine receives a gift certificate for a Rasmussem Gaming Center as a birthday present from her father. Unfortunately, when she arrives at the local center, a crowd from "CPOC," the "Citizens to Protect Our Children," has come for a demonstration against such games. Dodging the protesters, she enters the arcade and gets hooked up to Heir Apparent, a single-player RPG in which there are practically endless ways to win or lose. Giannine's character, Janine de St. Jehan, is the illegitimate child of the recently deceased King Cynric, who pronounced her heir to the throne, passing over three legitimate sons. Her task is to survive the three days (which will only last thirty minutes in the real world) before her coronation. Anytime her character dies, she will automatically be sent back to the beginning of the game. Janine finds herself on a sheep farm, where she meets her foster mother and Sir Deming, who delivers the news of her ascendancy to the throne. Ignoring her foster mother's advice to say goodbye to her foster father, Janine heads off to the castle. There she meets Queen Andreanna and her three sons Abas, Wulfgar, and Kenric. Andreanna orders Abas to kill her right there. Abas takes out his sword but is stopped by Kenric, who points out that other people have seen Janine enter the castle. Her life is spared, but her reputation is damaged when she perceives a thunderstorm that none of the other characters can see. Outside the throne room, the guards bring before Janine a boy caught poaching deer. They expect her to order the boy's execution, but instead she lets the boy go. Nigel Rasmussem briefly enters the game to inform her that CPOC broke into the arcade and damaged the equipment, hence the crazy thunderstorm. She cannot exit the game prematurely without risking brain damage, but she cannot stay in the game for too long without risking death in the real world. She therefore must win the game as quickly as she can. He tells her, "And next time, don't forget the ring." Shortly after he vanishes, the guards assassinate Janine, upset by her lenient ruling. As she goes through the game again, she is on a constant lookout for the ring. Deming and Andreanna are wearing rings but will not relinquish them to her. She varies her decisions but keeps getting quickly killed—once by Abas, once by a strange animal in a topiary maze, and once by the poacher boy's father. Back on the farm, she finally rushes at Sir Deming in frustration and tries to bite his ring off his finger, but he takes out a knife and stabs her. The last thing she hears is her foster mother explaining that the ring she seeks was left with her foster father. In her next life, Janine realizes she must no longer skip the step of saying goodbye to her foster father. She ends up before the statue of Saint Bruce the Warrior Poet, where the ring now resides. At the castle, barbarian invaders led by King Grimbold kidnap Janine, hoping to ransom back a crown they claim Cynric stole from them. Her own kingdom doesn't value her enough to provide the ransom, and even the ring fails to save her. In her next life, she thwarts the raid, and in the ensuing battle Abas beheads King Grimbold. She learns that Cynric gave the stolen crown (which grants the wearer a temporary Midas Touch) to a dragon that terrorized the land many years earlier. The next day, a meeting with magicians is interrupted by an attack by Grimbold's people, who send a message that they won't stop until Janine is dead. Kenric and Orielle poison Janine, once again sending her to the beginning of the game (deeply frustrating her, for she had made it halfway through). She uses her past mistakes to plan her decisions better and gain more allies, no longer experimenting with the ring as she previously had. The next time she deals with the boy poacher, she gets Kenric to accompany her. Unlike the previous times, she listens to the evidence with an open mind, makes Kenric feel like he's taking part in the decision, and sentences the boy to a month of hard labor rather than killing him or freeing him. She once again thwarts the raid on the castle, but because the warlike Abas isn't present, King Grimbold isn't killed. She invites Grimbold to the castle, where they all discuss their grievances in a civilized manner. He agrees to cease the attack for two days, while she retrieves the crown from the dragon. When the magicians arrive the next day, they determine through a scrying glass that the dragon is a week's journey away, but they give her several magical artifacts that help her reach the dragon quickly and survive the confrontation. She retrieves the crown and returns to the castle, but the dragon follows her. As it clutches her in its talons and is about to devour her, she quickly dons the crown and turns the dragon to gold. She gives the crown to Grimbold, making peace between the two kingdoms and gaining the respect of her compatriots. At a celebration, she thinks Kenric has poisoned her again, but he insists he has not. (What's really happening is that her time in the game has run out, and she is on the verge of dying for real.) At his suggestion, she uses the ring to make Andreanna treat her fairly and not incite the princes against her. Giannine awakens in the arms of Nigel Rasmussem, who turns out to be just sixteen. At first she thinks she is still in the game, being held by Kenric. It turns out that Nigel based Kenric's appearance on himself, and Nigel's appearance in the game on Nigel's uncle. He personally explains to Giannine exactly what has happened, and there is implied romantic attraction between the two. The book ends with Giannine's father coming to take her home.