“The rest of them? The rest of them? The rest of us!” Tezca wailed. “The rest of us are dead, Vessel, because of your treachery and the monstrous demons with whom you’re fraternizing.” Tezca raised his voice to be heard by the surrounding mob. “Challe’Jade, your dereliction of your sacred calling has led to the deaths of the holiest of men. My beloved Malikauans, the First Sacrifice was a curse disguised as a blessing.”

  Gwil was keeping his eyes on the outraged crowd, but he spared a glance at Challe, worried that she might quail at the Warden’s words.

  Instead, she stepped forward, pointing with one hand while holding the other three at her sides, fists clenched. “Of all the Jaguars, I always hated you the most.”

  “Mwahaha!” Tezca laughed while obnoxiously touching a finger to his pursed lips. “All part of my ruse—I mean design. I bet you thought I was the dumbest, too.”

  “Hit him with a lightning bolt, Challe,” Gwil said, brandishing his two bladed clubs. “Then I’ll chop him up.”

  “Good gods,” Tezca said, recoiling in disgust. “Demonic cannibals. I was joking when I said I would taste good.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that!”

  “Gwil,” Challe said without looking away from Tezca. Though she spoke softly, her voice made Gwil’s hair stand up. “Let me handle this, please. Tezca. Why did you hide the Progenitor? What was the point of the sacrifices and the Gracestorm? It was all so… needless.”

  “That’s very simple, Challe’Jade. You see, I read a book called Despotism for Dimwits: A Beginner’s Guide. A delightful and informative read, and quite humorous considering the subject matter. The text highlighted the importance of instilling fear and desperation in the hearts of your serv—I mean…” Tezca trailed off as the crowd quieted.

  The corpulent man went red in the face. He looked back over each of his shoulders. “Fear not, my beloved Malikauans. I am merely weaving a deception to appease our deranged Vessel.

  “The truth is, of course, that was not the real Progenitor, who tragically died during the conception of Mar’Jade. I managed to procure a similar creature, who I hoped to imbue with the Goddess’s blessing so I could put an end to the dreadful sacrifices that we are forced to suffer.”

  The crowd cheered and wept, falling over themselves as they dropped to their knees. Tezca suddenly turned tail and barreled into their grasping hands. He moved with remarkable speed, disappearing into the sanctuary afforded by hundreds of innocent civilians.

  “No!” Challe’s shriek spawned a spiral of dark clouds. Biting hailstones pelted the bystanders, and a bolt of lightning shot out to collapse a nearby balcony.

  “That coward,” Gwil said. “He’s using them as meat shields. C’mon.” He grabbed Challe’s wrist so that they could give chase, but when he yanked her, she didn’t budge. Green light shone from her eyes and from her jadestones.

  Jagged slashes of lightning cascaded over the heads of the assembled Malikauans, the intensity burgeoning as the bolts sought Tezca.

  Gwil flared Nirva and punched Challe hard in the stomach. She doubled over, gasping at the loss of her wind. The lightning and the storm clouds dissipated.

  “I…” Challe shook her head. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Gwil said. “Weird stuff happens with Nirva all the time and it’s all Warren’s fault, anyway. Let’s get his ass.”

  He and Challe pressed forward, and the crowd came together, attempting to block their way. Gwil was impressed by their bravery as he swatted them aside. Tezca’s path was easy to follow since he left a gulf of fallen Malikauans in his wake.

  “Gwil,” Challe said, and the storm outside again fell silent. “I want to kill him.”

  The conviction in her words… Gwil felt it as if she’d given him a command. It didn’t compel him, but it sure tugged at his heart.

  “Aye.”

  ***

  Leira suffered the discomfort that was nostalgia.

  She stood well behind the thick of the battle, behind Cort and Quez and the slightly less stupid group of warriors who they’d allied with. Leira didn’t much care for how they’d been made to split hairs over degrees of zealotry, but they couldn’t afford to be picky, and Quez seemed a nice enough guy.

  Numbers wise, their force was still disadvantaged, but Cort was such a menace that he more than made up the difference. Unfortunately, a bunch of the normal Malikauans had decided to take a bite from the apple of derangement and throw themselves into the battle.

  Leira had assigned herself the responsibility of dealing with them. She rained spores—pink and red—upon them, making them calmer and dumber.

  When she enthralled a larger group, she couldn’t control them nearly as precisely. Her ability to influence diminished to something akin to mood alteration. Their susceptibility hinged on their individual strength of will and whatever external stimuli were present. So, depending on the intensity of the situation—say a death battle with their kin over the sanctity of their faith—a solid resistance could be mounted.

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  That was where the pink spores came in. She doped them up to dull their aggression and, voila, they were much more receptive to the red spores.

  This was a lot of people though, and their devotion had them so feverish she could only make them clumsy and slow-witted. If she gave them too much of the pink stuff, they’d die of respiratory failure or something. That would be counterproductive.

  Leira sighed as she worked. She’d seen this whole damn shitshow play out a dozen times before. This brutal, twisted mess… It was eerily similar to Anesidyra’s preferred method of conquering a people.

  And it was not lost on Leira that, in this instance, one could argue that she, Cort, and Gwil were the invaders who had destroyed a homeland. Or rather, inadvertently facilitated its destruction. And maybe they hadn’t handled the situation in the ideal manner.

  But they did try, and that was worth something, she hoped. All they could do now was try to ease the fall. Sometimes, that’s the way she goes.

  Anesidyra despised using soldiers. The Centipede Queen was an infection. Kingdoms, cities, mercenary groups—she enjoyed seeding them with her festering rot so they’d crumble from within. Or better yet, rip themselves apart.

  Brothers and sisters killing brothers and sisters. Yeah, Anesidyra would be downright gleeful seeing something like this.

  Once, when Leira was twelve, the Queen brought her to a dinner with some upstart Hallow who’d gathered himself an army of mercs. He was playing at being lord of some little manor.

  When they sat down at the table, Leira smelled it on the man and knew what was coming. Anesidyra had infected him with her parasites—which were way dirtier than Leira’s spores—weeks prior.

  The Hallowed man’s wife and kids and a bunch of his friends were there, too. They were all very excited to be currying favor with a Leviathan Monarch.

  A gaggle of servants brought in the food. They carried those silver platters with the dome-shaped lids. They set the trays down and opened them up, revealing dishes that were crawling with parasitic centipedes.

  Anesidyra forced the Hallow to force his wife to feed the parasites to their three children. They turned into horrible, insectoid monsters right in their chairs. Then, they infected everyone in the room, save their mother.

  Through it all, the Centipede Queen laughed and laughed. That poor mom got it the worst, because Anesidyra didn’t let the parasites take her, so she kept her mind and her memories. She was made to serve as Anesidyra’s foot masseuse. A terrible fate.

  As far as Leira knew, the woman still held that position. Dammit. I should’ve tried to bring her with me when I escaped. Ashkana would’ve.

  Leira shook her head clear and focused on the battle. Some idiot had set a tree on fire in the time she’d been distracted. She needed to do a better job conserving her spores—she didn’t want to bury herself again. If she didn’t run herself dry, the spores would repopulate over the course of a few days.

  She shouldn’t complain, though. Burying herself wasn’t too bad. It was actually relaxing, like a mud bath. As long as she didn’t have to commune with Megrim or conduct a Full Blooming, then she was a lucky lady.

  A disturbance rippled through the pool of enthrallment in her mind. Something powerful had caught their attention, and it was tugging at the threads of influence.

  Seeing them through her flower, cast in shades of crimson, Leira parsed her thralls. The effect spawned from a group of hostile soldiers gathered in the middle of the throng. Leira went up on her tiptoes, but the battlefield had grown quite crowded, so she still couldn’t see.

  She smiled to herself as she looked for something to stand up on. Leira hadn’t always been so tall. During her recent time in the Rebirth flower, she’d discovered she had a bit of influence over the way her new body grew, so she decided to make herself a little taller. So far, she found it delightful.

  Leira climbed up onto a pedestal and looked over everyone’s heads. There.

  “Oh no you don’t, you fuckers,” she muttered.

  She’d spotted two of the green-robed Jaguars surrounded by Malikauan warriors. The clawed one—who’d apparently been pretending to be the ruler, though Leira doubted whether Gwil had understood the situation correctly—and the stupidly long-legged one who had been rescued by the warriors earlier.

  Leira took a deep breath and screamed from her perch, “Yo, Cortemius!”

  Cort, who dwarfed everyone around him, turned to look at her. ‘What?’ he mouthed.

  “That Claws guy is trying to get away with the Legs guy! We should stop them!”

  She read his lips: ‘Fuck’. Cort pointed toward the edge of the fray and made that way himself.

  Leira clicked her tongue and stepped down from the pedestal. She searched for Gwil, but he, Challe, and the Warden had gone off somewhere.

  She swallowed her worries—not for Gwil’s well-being. He’d be fine. No, Leira was performing something of an experiment. Or, more letting it take place.

  This King Yuma… She couldn’t remember who he was, so he couldn’t be that powerful, at least as far as Monarchs go. Leira wanted Gwil to get a shot at this lesser King so they could find out where he might stand against Anesidyra.

  The Centipede Queen was not a patient woman. The three of them needed to be prepared. Leira feared Anesidyra would get her claws in them before they even recognized the threat.

  On the outskirts of the battle, things were less structured, the combatants more scattered, so Leira had her guard down, which allowed a warrior to strike her on the arm with his club as she passed him by.

  “Yowch! You little bitch,” Leira spat as she spun around and kicked the man in the kneecap, dropping him. She clutched her arm, hot blood trickling between her fingers.

  The man scrambled away from her. He had a green sun painted on his cheek. “Demoness! Demoness!” he cried.

  She moved alongside him—the ability to loom was the best part of being tall. “Thank you, darling. Run along now. I know you’re just misguided.”

  The fool swung at her leg. It only glanced off her shin, but it still fucking hurt. Leira stepped forward and stomped on the man’s throat, then knelt on his chest. She shoved her hand into his mouth and pulled down on his jaw. “Open wide,” she said as she leaned over him and called on her acidic spores. Fetid brown liquid poured into the man’s mouth, sizzling as his throat melted.

  Leira brushed herself off and shook her head. Nasty temper—she’d picked up a few bad habits from Anesidyra. Nature, nurture, what have you. The worst thing was the tendency to speak sweetly and use terms of endearment with people you intended to kill. She needed to stop doing that. Too creepy.

  Cort emerged from a cluster of feather-clad warriors with Quez stumbling after him. The Malikauan man was wide-eyed with craze and soaked with blood.

  “Where are they?” Cort barked.

  Leira nodded in the direction and set off at a run. When Cort fell in step with her, she grinned at him. “So, you need my help with fighting?”

  Cort threw his hands up. “Of course I do. Are you crazy? It’s two Hallows. And all those warriors’ll be throwing their lives away to protect them.”

  “The Jaguars,” Quez rasped. “We can use them to stop this. The people need to hear the truth for themselves.”

  “C’mon then,” Cort grunted.

  He held his hammer sideways and charged. Through the rift in the crowd, Leira could see the two Jaguars. Claws had his arm around Legs, and they were making their way to a hallway.

  Cort dove and hooked his hammer around Claws’s ankle.