Shrunken, Gwil launched himself off the boat, gunning straight for the king.

  Yuma erected a crystal wall around the front side of his platform. Gwil clung to it and scrambled up, using the spiny clusters as handholds.

  “How interesting!” Yuma said, his eyes huge as they fixed on Gwil.

  Little needles bit into Gwil’s hands and feet, snaring him. He’d been ready for this—he wouldn’t allow himself to get trapped. Pop. He kicked off the wall as he embiggened, flipping himself over the top to land chest-to-chest with Yuma on the platform.

  Gwil dumped Nirva into his fist and punched Yuma in the face. A patch of crystal had grown on the man’s cheek. Upon impact, agonizing fire ripped through Gwil’s fist.

  The bones in his fingers shattered and something in his very core lurched. All the Nirva in his body sloshed like water in a bucket. Spasming, Gwil slumped against the wall, and found his feet rooted down, grown over with crystal.

  “Disappointing,” Yuma said. His arm crossed his body to swing at Gwil with a backhand slap.

  Gwil shrank into his waist, dodging the blow and ripping his legs out of their prison, shearing them at the ankles.

  He hit the platform on his hands and knees, hurled himself out the open side. Those shoes are bad luck, Gwil thought as he fell, blood streaming from his legs.

  Gwil hit the water with a plink. As the ripping current dragged him, he struggled to submerge himself—he was too light. He grabbed a stray vine as he passed and pulled himself under a pile of debris.

  Shit, shit, shit. Nyx, Nyx, Nyx. Fully under the water, with the stone pressing down on him, Gwil hid. Just need a second. He closed his eyes, the current jostling him as he treaded water with feetless legs.

  Fuck. When he’d punched Yuma… That was not good. He’d never felt anything like it—cracks splintering through his insides, threatening to shatter.

  His lungs burned with the need for air. Gwil didn’t know if he could suppress his presence while healing. He should’ve practiced this more.

  “Gah!” he gargled, bubbles bursting from his lips. What am I doing? There was no time for this. What if Yuma went for the others while he cowered here?

  Gwil climbed out from under the rocks, flashing Mir in hopes it might reveal another layer of the situation. Yuma—now using Nyx himself—appeared as a simple man, the faintest sheen the only hint he was something more.

  There was nothing else to see, though. Yuma hadn’t left his platform. He stood there watching his scholars, who’d gathered on the roof of the boat.

  Gwil bit his lip as he climbed onto the rubble and stood up. Maybe his only chance was crawling into Yuma’s brain and ripping it apart from the inside. He’d been hoping to save that move for a time he really needed it.

  Then he laughed, the sound tinny coming from his tiny body. Gwil didn’t need to beat Yuma. That wasn’t what they were trying to do. The goal was to get the king away from Malikau. Gwil was just the distraction.

  Pop. All he needed to do was stay alive. This would be a good lesson.

  “It can be a shock, I know,” Yuma said, eyes snapping to where Gwil stood across the water. “You thought you were something special. The way you were acting, you almost had me convinced.” He beckoned Gwil forward. “I only need to be careful that I don’t accidentally kill you.”

  Gwil pumped Nirva into his legs and jumped to his right, toward the floating boat, shrinking to the size of an ant as he flew. He kicked off a pillar, diverting himself toward Yuma, skimming over the water as he passed beneath the crystal platform.

  He landed on a piece of driftwood and jumped straight upward, right behind Yuma. The king still faced the boat. Gwil drew his legs up as he grew back to size, aiming to kick out the backs of Yuma’s knees.

  From both ends of Yuma’s cane erupted two spear-like prongs of crystal. Gwil tried to dodge, but the crystal’s path bent to catch him.

  He didn’t dare risk shrinking. The spear punched straight through his stomach. A chorus of voices screamed for a heartbeat and then cut off, silent.

  Gwil was losing consciousness. The blood spilling out of him felt cold. The pain was terrible, way worse than any of the other times he’d been impaled. His torso burned with the agonizing fire of foreign, dominant Nirva.

  Panic shook him out of his shock. He wasn’t healing. Gwil’s own Nirva crashed against the crystalline bulwark and broke. What flowed within him was lukewarm and frail in comparison.

  “I thought you might try going for my front,” Yuma said, “thinking that I would think you’ve gone for my rear. That would’ve been cleverer. Unless you anticipated my thinking that and thus went for the back. Is that what happened?”

  “Ugugh,” Gwil gurgled, blood dribbling down his chin.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  His insides were being torn apart. The crystal spear expanded through his innards, growing like a web, chewing through his bones, shredding his organs. He’d be imprisoned from within. No.

  Knowing it would be brutal… Pop. Gwil shrank up into his head. His torso tore in half. What was left of him fell—upper chest, arms, and a head.

  Bloody chunks dropped out of his gaping bottom end. Some reflex drove him to stick his arm up inside, where it plunged through burning hot tissue. He pressed against something, holding it inside. It pulsed. His heart, maybe.

  Gwil hit the water, tiny and mangled, like a squished ant scraped off a boot. Glittering lights shimmered like stars in the murky water. The thump-thump of beating wings stirred the voices to life, pounding like drums. A serpentine tentacle wrapped around his arm as he…

  ***

  “What are you waiting for?” Leira said, peering through the lightning-lit gloom.

  “The right moment,” Cort muttered, his hammer at the ready.

  She and Cort had perched themselves on a rooftop that was level with the mid-point of the teetering tower. The thing stood as precarious as a house of cards—Leira couldn’t believe it hadn’t fallen on its own yet.

  “Gwil’s out of his depth,” Cort said. “He knows it.”

  They’d just seen Gwil get his legs ripped off, then dive into the water, out of sight.

  “He’s not,” Leira said, her fingernails digging into her palms like little knives. “Give him time to adjust.”

  “He’s hiding and he didn’t even get hit,” Cort said. “He would never do that without a reason. It’s bad.”

  “A Monarch is a different beast,” Leira said. “Gwil will be fine. Because he has to be.”

  “Where did Challe go?” Cort said, peering over the ledge at the water below.

  Leira shook her head. “Maybe Gwil told her to do something.”

  “So, you have heard of Yuma?” Cort asked.

  “A little,” Leira said, her voice tight. She brushed aside the wet hair that clung to her face. “All I remember about him is that he’s older than dirt. Anesidyra hated him, mainly because he used a lot of old-fashioned lingo. Silly words really get on her nerves. And she said he had a superiority complex because being old made him think he was smart.”

  Cort grunted.

  “I forgot his name ‘cause Anesidyra always called him moth-fucker.”

  People emerged from the floating station. One by one, they climbed out, gathering on the roof. The Blueborn man looked all fucked up, like a crumpled ball of garbage.

  “Did Gwil do that?” Leira said. “Hey! How about now? Yuma’s people are gonna get away and then what the fuck is our distraction for?”

  Cort shook his head. “The situation has changed. That’s not what we’re trying to do anymore.”

  “Then what are we doing?” she hissed. “Let’s get down there and help.”

  “Calm, Leira,” Cort muttered in an annoyingly soft manner. “You’re right. Gwil can do what he needs to do. But it’s gonna be razor thin. Now, shush.”

  Leira clamped her hand over her mouth to keep herself from shrieking at him. She hated being shushed.

  As she stewed, staring wide-eyed at the water, waiting for Gwil, something tickled Leira’s spine. The sensation crawled into her brain. She shook her head in a spastic way. Tension plucked at her nerves like strings on an instrument. She heard a guttural, crooning song.

  Her vision blurred. Leira thumped on her ear, trying to dislodge the groaning wails. But it sounded so familiar. And… soothing. She relaxed and let it in.

  “I’m coming, sister. My name is Grizelda.”

  Gwil emerged from the water. Leira’s breath caught—all that strangeness was trampled by anxiety. She grabbed Cort’s bicep with a death grip, her nails digging into his raw, blistered flesh. Cort didn’t flinch, didn’t even move, save the bunched-up knot of muscle twitching in his clenched jaw.

  Gwil shrank, vanishing from sight. Two heartbeats later, he reappeared beside the king. A crystal spear burst through his stomach. Blood poured into the water.

  “Fuck!”

  Gwil disappeared again. He left behind a cloud of confetti-like bits of flesh.

  “There it is,” Cort said. He swung his hammer twice, striking two specific blocks that had been holding up the tower. He threw his body into the structure as it heaved, toppling it outward, toward Yuma and the floating station.

  People screamed. The balcony beneath Cort and Leira lurched at the shift of weight. Cort grabbed her and jumped down to the level below.

  Massive hunks of stone slammed down, but they landed with crunches instead of cracks. The screaming continued.

  Yuma had created an enormous crystalline umbrella above himself and the boat, catching the entirety of the fallen building.

  “That did fuck all!” Leira cried.

  “Be ready with the Spike,” Cort said as he helped her up. “But don’t show it yet.”

  He ran to the edge of the balcony and jumped, landing on the crystal canopy below.

  Leira followed him down. Everything’s fine, she told herself. We have the Spike.

  ***

  Challe crouched in an alcove, shivering. The floodwater was ice cold. She closed her eyes and breathed, doing what Gwil had told her, sending the fiery… juice through her body.

  Gwil’s friends were above. Cort and Leira—they were arguing. Challe guessed Gwil meant for her to stick with them.

  But instead, she’d hidden herself here.

  Challe felt sick and empty, like a rotten piece of wood. Everything she was had leaked out of her. No storm flowed through her veins.

  The goddess was gone. Challe’s head was hers and hers alone for the first time since she’d called herself Yanna. She felt as if she’d reverted—a wave of grief for her father struck, still fresh, as if twenty years hadn’t passed.

  Earlier, Challe had been about to tell Gwil and the others to call her Yanna. She’d opened her mouth to say it and then stopped herself. She wasn’t Yanna anymore, either. Yanna had died.

  Her time on the crucifix was a twenty-year void during which she’d done nothing save waste away. It felt at once like an age and an eyeblink.

  In returning, everything felt so vivid. Overwhelming. She’d not stepped foot outside the Stormwomb—had not stepped foot, period—in twenty years. To come back only to see everything she knew collapse…

  She so badly needed a second to breathe.

  The chill returned to her bones. Challe fought it back again with this… Nirva. Not the essence of the goddess. Something that belonged to her.

  Leira screamed. Challe’s eyes flicked up in time to see Gwil skewered by a crystal spear.

  Challe felt a furious rush. Sparks tingled through her body… The sensation vanished.

  She blinked. Her mouth fell open. Her rational mind screamed at her. But for some reason that she could not fathom, Challe was not scared. No, she knew Gwil would throw himself at that wretched king over and over again.

  This isn’t right.

  Those three, who Challe’s people had called demons with such deluded, gleeful certainty, were on their own against this monster.

  No, this was not right at all.

  They needed to take matters into their own hands. This was a fight for their home. Challe plunged into the water and trudged across the atrium.

  Her people had been smothered. They needed to stand up for themselves if they were to have a chance in this World.

  Challe went to find them. The Malikauans would make their own fate.