Dead bodies were piling up around the statue. Every desperate soul that fell short of salvation reached out with their hand as they died, grasping at nothing. Each was like a knife through her heart.

  Challe struggled to breathe. It was all so surreal. Life was so simple while she hung from the crucifix. She’d been content to the point of vacancy as she birthed storm after storm.

  She moved as if in a trance, wholly aware that two arms of her arms were not truly her own, but she kept moving, because more—far more—of her people were making it to the top of the statue.

  If not for that monster of a man—Cort—Challe doubted any of them would’ve made it.

  Watching him, Challe understood why Gwil had not feared for the lives of his friends. And why he had called the Malikauan warriors weak.

  Cort fought with a fury that made Challe question his humanity. And that was when she realized that she already knew, in her heart of hearts, these three were not demons. All her doubts were dead.

  How could someone so big move so fast?

  Clad in half-melted shields, Cort would climb the statue, escorting a group of Malikauans, defending them with his body. Then he would jump down and crush any red-eyed demon that had dared to advance. He alone dictated the flow of the battle.

  When he closed with the enemy, they looked like fledglings in their attempts to match him physically. With his mighty hammer, he ruined their metallic bodies.

  Cort was covered in burns, the skin blistered and blackened. His clothes were drenched with blood. Yet he had not slowed down even a single step.

  Why? Why are they doing this for us?

  Childishly, Challe wished she could be like that. Someone who did impossible things because they chose to, not at the whim of a dead goddess. Her stomach fluttered at her blasphemy, and the joints of her extra arms ached.

  Quez emerged from the thick of the fray, dragging a wounded man.

  Challe snapped out of her spiraling thoughts, chastising herself for her cowardice.

  She stood beside her empty crucifix. The heart of the Stormwomb had become a pit of death. But then, it always was, wasn’t it?

  Rivers of blood streamed from the corpses of those they’d failed to save. The sand had turned into clumpy muck as a crimson pool formed. The Jade Goddess stood at the center.

  Challe’s feet were stained, and her toes were sticky.

  Speaker Lall was beside her. The woman knelt, draped across a warrior with a hole in her stomach, pressing down with all her weight on the gushing wound.

  Challe ran to help Quez carry the wounded man. One of his cheeks had been melted off. Blackened strands of sinew clung to an exposed jaw. The tendons quivered with his screams. They laid him down behind the statue and Challe found herself sick at the thought that the man was lucky to have so narrowly avoided having his head blown off. Lucky.

  Absurdly, she fixated on how the blood had smeared the design of his body paint. Still, her hand was steady as she picked up a crimson-soaked rag and pressed it against the man’s face. And that, that was all she could do. Useless.

  Challe’s mouth opened and closed. What would she say? Sorry? It will be okay? Why? That she was the Vessel, that this poor soul might believe her, only made her feel more worthless.

  Anguish tore loose from Lall’s throat. Challe met her eyes. Lall shook her head as she stood up, clutching at her own wound as she dragged the body out of the way. They were piling the dead ones outside the reach of the Goddess’s meager haven.

  Quez made to return to the fight. He took a step and then faltered.

  “Challe’Jade, what is happening to our home?”

  “I- I don’t know, brother.”

  A gap parted in the battle. Through it, she saw Gwil, surrounded by the red-eyed monsters. Challe’s mouth went dry as they piled on top of him, burying him. But before she could even scream, the pile exploded. Demons were flung into the air. Gwil stood in the middle with his arms raised as if in celebration, as if he’d thrown all those soldiers. When Challe saw that he was smiling, she thought she’d gone mad.

  “Upheaval,” Challe said.

  The flower woman, Leira, arrived. Finally. She had the power to help. She had something to give. Like Cort, like all of them, she was a bloody mess. Her magic dust hung over the battle, shimmering like gemstones in the sky.

  Challe moved away from the wounded man to give Leira space to work. The flower in her eye was relief. The flower in her eye was a chance of survival.

  “Quez, Lall. Listen,” Challe said. Her four hands went to each of their four shoulders. “I have learned a hard truth.” She took a breath, the taste fouled by the stench of the dead. “The Progenitor is alive. I saw the creature with my own two eyes. Luca spoke to me.”

  “A miracle,” Lall groaned.

  Red bolts of fire screamed all around them. Not one had touched the Goddess. Sensing a place of safety, the snaketopus had crawled up the statue. It clung to the Goddess, its living snake-tentacles coiled around the stone baby that she cradled in the crook of her human arm.

  “No,” Challe said. “No, sister. The Progenitor was a prisoner in the Elder Warden’s temple. It was living in a cage.” Eyes wide, she looked between Quez and Lall. “Do you understand? Tezca cannot… Deception poisons the air. These so-called demons have come. Look at them!”

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  She pointed not at the red-eyed soldiers, but at Gwil. He was a sliver of flesh amidst a tide of metal. He shrank and grew, dancing through them, at once erratic and graceful, like a moth.

  “I have seen him. He laughs and smiles. He and his friends risk their lives for us, with us, without a second thought. Where is the Warden?”

  Leira looked up from the wounded man. He’d stopped screaming, his expression content as he drew steady breaths. A fibrous white mask was stitched over his melted cheek.

  “That’s just how they are,” she said, smiling. “I’m Leira, by the way.”

  “Challe,” she said. Her heart skipped as she realized she’d adopted the name that was a bastardization of her title.

  “I hope you know you’re gonna be comi- Cort!”

  Leira shrieked and something snapped inside of Challe. As if a dam broke, the Goddess’s fire surged through her body. She was on her feet before she knew it, shoving her way through the ranks of warriors. Quez was calling her back.

  Cort had been overcome. He was on his hands and knees. Blood fountained from the smoldering wound on his back. The red-eyed demons swarmed him like scavengers. They beat on him. The sound of metal cracking against bone was deafening in her ears.

  Some of the Malikauan warriors attempted to reach Cort, but the demons recognized the value of their prize and defended it fiercely.

  Vivid green crackles shattered through Challe’s vision. The storm in her veins was spreading outward. Bolts of lightning filled the air. Challe reached out and took one into her hand, one of her natural ones.

  She held it like a spear, and she hurled it without thinking. Her stomach dropped. What have I done? The lightning bolt would annihilate Cort.

  Her heart remained steady. Searing blood coursed through her hand, and she commanded the lightning with her fingers. The bolt split apart into a web, and the tendrils went where she wished.

  The expulsion was blinding. Jade energy washed over the red-eyed demons. Their metal bodies melted into twisted deformities. And Challe felt—knew—they too were human beings.

  Cort collapsed onto his stomach as Leira shoved past Challe. The flower woman dragged Quez behind her. They made it to Cort as the warriors formed a ring around him. In doing so, they toppled the petrified bodies of the soldiers and trampled them into ash.

  Leira and Quez heaved Cort to his feet, each of them getting under one of Cort’s arms. As they limped back, Challe turned to regard the statue of the Goddess. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  No answer. No feeling. Nothing. Challe fell to her knees at the sight. The Jade Goddess stood pristine, gleaming, atop the pool of blood, corpses littered around her feet. All five of the crucifixes had been destroyed. Her sisters, her predecessors, Vessels, reduced to charred bones and dust.

  The Goddess stood pristine.

  ‘Challe—it came from you!’

  She fell in with Quez and Leira. Cort’s legs gave out as they reached the statue, and he fell facedown. Challe realized that even then, he’d been carrying himself more than they’d been carrying him.

  “Goddammit, Cort,” Leira said as a cloud of pink and white spores enveloped them. “Why are you so wide? Where are we supposed to get so much cloth? You’re not the only one who’s hurt, y’know.”

  “‘M fine,” Cort grunted. His face was sheet-white, and he shuddered with ragged breaths. Nearly his entire body had been scorched, but the true concern was the stomach-churning wound on his lower back. It went from the base of his ribcage to his hips, a deep gouge, like a sliver sliced off by a knife. The flesh was angry red, cooked, and bone peeked through at the edges.

  Dazed, Challe watched as Leira extracted a white dress from a pack.

  “Yeah, you are fine,” Leira said, speaking quickly. “I only hope you have some money, Cort. This dress was very expensive, and I paid for it myself, and I only got to wear it once.” Her hands shook as she wrapped the dress around Cort’s torso and tied it tight.

  “Does it look like I’m getting married?” Cort asked.

  Leira laughed. “Yeah, you’re a perfect zombie bride.”

  “Salvation comes!” Lall cried, prostrating herself.

  Challe looked up and saw the Elder Warden, his silhouette framed against the auditorium’s entry way.

  He dashed into the chamber, a green blur save for the glint of his claws. Arcs of blood hung in the air as he carved through the red-eyed soldiers.

  ***

  Gwil had no hands!

  The laser guns were damn annoying. Even when he bolstered his flesh with Nirva, the bolts lingered and burned. Gwil’s attempts to block and swat them away had seen his hands melted.

  He had another problem, too. He’d gotten shot in the stomach earlier, and it had healed, but a part of his intestine was sticking out of the new flesh.

  Pop.

  On instinct, Gwil shrank to dodge another laser. Oo, wait. He needed to get shot again so that his stomach could re-heal properly.

  He embiggened then folded his handless arms behind his head and did a sort of belly dance, the charred strips of his clothing swaying like beads. The protuberant bit of intestine jiggled at his movements, causing a terribly unpleasant tickling sensation.

  The trooper reloaded their weapon and fired again. Gwil’s entire belly disintegrated.

  “Gubughawh. Thanks.” Gwil fell backward, blood gargling from his mouth and his gut. He focused his Nirva there and flared it with such intensity that the voices cried out. Twisting streams of vapor trailed from his body as he hastily packed all his goods inside where they belonged.

  As he did so, he realized he’d made a huge mistake doing this before his hands had grown back. His fingers were just stumpy nubs, and this was delicate work.

  As best he could, he massaged flat the stringy tissue that was stitching the gaping cavity. It was a bit like working dough. Good enough.

  Gwil jumped to his feet, found the trooper who’d shot him and sprinted toward them. He pumped Nirva into his leg and smashed the soldier’s mask with a flying kick.

  Bright green light filled the auditorium, accompanied by sharp, successive cracks of thunder. “Woo, way to go, Challe!” Gwil cheered as he went to hunt more soldiers.

  There weren’t too many left, and most of the ones still standing didn’t have guns.

  Gwil made quick work of a nearby group of three troopers. Their armor was strong, but Gwil found that a hard enough blow to the head still rocked them pretty good. Cort was right, though—they did recover quickly when the damage wasn’t fatal. Gwil had already given out a few second helpings.

  He pulsed some Nirva into his hand to finish regrowing his fingers, and then pinched closed a hole that had re-opened in his stomach. Nice. No organs were visible.

  Looking down, Gwil saw a gun next to his foot. He picked it up, found the trigger, and then took aim at a trooper running across the pit.

  Pwoing!

  Gwil’s eyes widened as the projectile blew through the soldier’s torso, damn near ripping them in half.

  “Eugh.” He tossed the weapon away and then turned around to see that there were barely any Malikauans left in the auditorium. Almost all of them had made it out.

  Gwil went skipping toward the jade statue, where most everyone who remained had gathered. The spring left his step when he saw all the dead bodies.

  And then he saw Cort, lying on the ground, looking really bad. He was so covered with blood that his tomato-red hair was indistinguishable.

  Something like a shadow flickered through Gwil’s mind. He whipped around, eyes darting.

  There. The man moved like a skulking predator as he slaughtered the remnant Leviathan troopers. He had claw-like knives mounted to his hands.

  And then Gwil recognized the cat skull helm. He glanced over at Cort again. Leira was there—he’d be fine.

  Gwil ran up to the robed fighter. “Hey! Are you the Elder Warren?”

  The man decapitated a soldier and then turned to regard Gwil, grinning. The fangs of his helm crossed a heavily scarred face. “Yes. I’m hunting demons.”

  “Oh, fuck off with that, man,” Gwil said.

  Quick as a flash, the Warden closed the gap and plunged his clawed fist straight through Gwil’s stomach.