Gwil had never seen so many people at once. Packed shoulder to shoulder, they filled the four terraced balconies of Malikau’s grand atrium. The air buzzed with nervous, excited energy, thousands of torches flickering as if to match. The hair on the back of Gwil’s neck stood on end.

  Word of all that happened had spread through the whole sanctuary—a battle against the fearsome demons, the discovery of human survivors from a faraway land.

  On the atrium’s fourth level, there was a bridge that extended from a balcony to the center of the expansive space, ending in a wide circular platform that hung in the open air. There stood Gwil, Cort, Leira, Challe, the Elder Warren, Quez the Eagleman, and a host of other Malikauans. A place of great honor, apparently.

  The warriors who’d been involved in the battle gathered on the ground floor, surrounding the hole formed that had been formed by the fallen statue as if it were something to be revered.

  “Hey Leira, where’d the snaketopus go?” Gwil asked.

  She shrugged while shushing him.

  ***

  On the third floor was a small, special house, nestled among the other stacked residencies. That place, connected to their secret tunnel network, served as a hidden abode of Tezca and the Jaguars.

  Inside, Tezca—the true Elder Warden—and Legs sat at a small dining table beside the window, peering out through the half-drawn blinds.

  Tezca scraped the last slivers of pasta from his bowl of spaghetti, clenching his teeth against the grating screech of metal against porcelain. How, how, how did some of the strands always break? No matter how gently he placed them in the pot, how carefully he stirred.

  He slammed the polished bowl down on the table. “Legs, if you kick me in the shin one more fucking time, I swear to every starborn god I will welcome your Second Generation counterpart.”

  “Sorry, Self,” Legs said, grimacing as he swung his legs out from under the table, twisting himself sideways so he could still look out the window. “My legs are just so damn long.”

  “You’re wearing your metal clogs, and you know I bruise easily,” Tezca snarled. He took a deep breath, his cheeks jiggling as his expression softened. “My apologies, Legs. If anything, I wish your legs were even longer. I am just on edge.”

  “It’s perfectly understandable, Self,” Legs said. “I mean, this is…”

  “A complete and unmitigated disaster!” Tezca yanked the cord to open the blinds fully. No one would see them—all the servants were completely captivated. “What the fuck does Claws think he’s doing right now? I smell a mishap worse than mustard topping a chocolate souffle.”

  ***

  Gwil was getting antsy and angry. Leira kept elbowing him in the ribs as he fidgeted and scowled.

  But all these people… they were so happy and excited. Stomping their feet, singing songs. Gwil couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was about to come crashing down on top of them.

  Gwil didn’t understand the Warden’s game, or why Challe was making them take part in it, but he hated it. What he wanted to do was grab the Warden, take a dive off this platform, and drive that asshole’s head through the floor. That would be best.

  He kept trying to catch Challe’s eye, but she’d only shake her head while staring forward.

  Finally, the Warden stepped up to the front edge of the platform and raised his arms. The man was still missing the end of his nose. Gwil figured he left it unhealed on purpose to make himself look tough.

  Considering their number and their rowdiness, the sudden hush that smothered the crowd was disconcerting. A succession of shrill thunderclaps rang out, like a bunch of glassware falling out of a cabinet. Inside the atrium, with the ceiling reaching almost to the surface, the storm had a terrific presence. The piercing, visceral tones put a shiver in Gwil’s bones. Even the echoes snapped as sharp as cracking whips. But the thunder ebbed back to its steady rumble with something akin to a sigh. Outside, facing the sky, it must have been incredible.

  “Hear how the Gracestorm speaks to me as she reaches her peak,” the Elder Warden cried. He spoke into a big cone-shaped thing that made his voice sound throughout the atrium. “The Gracestorm, the true form of our blessed Goddess, who swore herself to me after I saved all your ancestors from the heinous demons of the Apocalypse.

  “I have heard many call my victory a miracle. I resent that. Frankly, I find it offensive. That was something hard-fought, something I earned. That is why the Goddess knelt before me and named me protector of humanity’s last. We are a sacred people.”

  Gwil nudged Cort and made a yapping gesture with his hand. Cort smirked, then clutched at his wound and audibly winced, drawing glares from a few of the Malikauans that they shared the platform with.

  “Today, my beloved Malikauans, I thought I might kneel myself, kneel before our brave warriors. For they have fought off a terrible threat! They have slaughtered demons! Yes, you’ve heard true. On this day, demons invaded our sanctuary.

  “Today, my beloved Malikauans, I thought I might celebrate with you. For we believed we discovered humans from the outside. Survivors from another haven.” He turned sideways, gesturing towards Gwil, Cort, and Leira.

  The crowd cheered and then cut silent again at the Warden’s raised fist.

  “Alas, our World is not so kind. It is devilish.” He raised his voice and made it rougher. “The Goddess has informed me of treachery. These humans are monsters wearing masks! An unstoppable horde of demons will invade our home! We must flee Malikau, all of us. The Goddess will bless us with a new sanctuary!”

  Gwil clenched his fists as the air rippled with the despair of ten thousand torn-out hearts. Something in their wails spurred him to use Mir. Slit-shaped wounds opened in the air all throughout the atrium. From those red-black gashes emerged greedy tendrils of Yalda’blood. The tentacles coiled around so many throats.

  ***

  Tezca and Legs both applauded.

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  “Bravo, bravo, Claws,” Tezca said. “A brilliant spin. Inspired. You know, Legs, I always thought Claws was a bit… not stupid, but brutish. Clueless. Always stabbing himself in the face with his own weapons is…” He shook his head, jowls swinging. “But this, this would be worthy of Head. See, we really don’t need him.”

  “We will be able to escape with so many of the servants!” Legs said. “More than will even fit on the escape boat.”

  “Don’t say that out loud, Legs,” Tezca said, wiping his mouth with a silk napkin. “I know it’s just us here, but it’s uncouth to speak of such things so brazenly. Hmm… I hope Claws knows that we need to go retrieve the Goddess’s corpse.”

  ***

  “We must remember—the Gracestorm is the true embodiment of the Jade Goddess,” the Elder Warden continued. “Yes, we revere our Vessels. We owe them so much.”

  Nuh-uh. Gwil pushed his way forward. Challe caught him by the wrist and shook her head.

  “But the Vessel is not infallible. The Vessel is not the Goddess herself. And our precious First Sacrifice, Challe’Jade, Sixth Maker, has been corrupted by demons! Their human guises have deceived her eyes, and their forked tongues whisper in her ears! She is a victim, yes, but she is a traitor to Malikau! Challe’Jade has defiled our sanctuary.”

  Those words outraged the Malikauans. Gwil could feel that some few aimed their vitriol at the Warden—they believed Challe.

  ***

  Legs buried his face in his hands.

  Tezca tore the blinds down from the window and stomped on them. “What the fucking fuck is he doing, that goddamn idiot? Pitting us against the Vessel? This will cause a riotous rampage. Why are you still sitting there, Legs? We need to go stop him!”

  ***

  “Liar!” Challe screamed. Her voice…

  Gwil stuck a finger in his ear and fiddled with it. The sensation he felt was like when the ear unclogged after days of being water-logged. But then he realized the whooshing whisper came from the sudden absence of the constantly rumbling thunder. The tension that had gripped his body—perhaps even from the moment they stepped foot in these lands—without his noticing… vanished.

  “My people! For centuries, Tezca has deceived us all!”

  With the cadence of her words, the thunder screamed back into existence. Gwil could feel his eyes vibrating in their sockets.

  “He has murdered a thousand souls for nothing! And he calls them sacrifices. I found the Progenitor in the Warden’s temple! The sacred creature spoke to me and called me by name.”

  Leira cupped her hands around Gwil’s ear and whisper-shouted, “She doesn’t even know about the hidden tunnels and the teleporter.”

  Gwil shook his head. He didn’t know what was so special about a silly axolotl, but Challe’s words had a terrible impact. As if a switch had been flipped, the already enraged crowd erupted into full-blown, violent chaos. Gwil watched as a man fell, limbs flailing, from the third-floor balcony.

  Metal flashed. Tezca slashed at Challe. He missed her and sliced off the ear of the unfortunate man beside her. The spillage of blood broke the fragile tension that had gripped the platform.

  At the same time, Challe rose into the air. Her jadestones gleamed so bright that it hurt to look at them, and they left a fan of afterimages. Dark clouds wreathed her body, trailing in her wake as she soared away from the platform.

  Quez pushed past Gwil to run down the platform’s bridge. He cradled the head of the wounded man against his chest.

  Leira grabbed Gwil’s arm and shouted, “I think she bungled it.”

  “Eh, yeah, fuck this,” Gwil said. Pop.

  He darted through the tangle of frantic legs, crossing the platform. Pop.

  Gwil grew back, face to face with the Warden. He fisted the man’s collar with both hands and then smashed his forehead into the Warden’s nose. Time to take that dive.

  ***

  “There are no demons!” Challe screamed into what seemed a void. Like when she was a child, screaming into her pillow.

  She was losing herself. She could not hear her own voice, could not even see, save the silhouettes that shadowed her swaddle of churning clouds and flashing jade light.

  Brother against brother, sister against sister. I am a storm, a thing of ruin. I have sown nothing but strife. And for what? Truth? What was that worth?

  She’d hoped… to salvage everything. But it all crumbled at her touch. Their life in Malikau was an illusion. Challe thought to dispel it with honesty and transparency. But that illusion had become far more real than some foreign, unwelcome truth.

  An illusion, no matter how precious, was still an illusion, so fragile when held against truth’s blind hammer. Brutal nails were being driven into her people. Their words rang in her head, little scraps of madness.

  ‘You would trust a mortal above the Goddess?’

  ‘The Goddess serves Tezca!’

  ‘Challe’Jade is the Goddess! She was the First Sacrifice!’

  ‘I know you shat in my tomato garden, you bastard!’

  ‘The Jaguars slayed Apocalypse itself!’

  Still, Challe felt compelled to share her worthless words. The flood had begun. “The World has not ended! Millions of humans still live all throughout the World. We are prisoners of a deceiver! He has stolen so much…”

  The criers rang their bells as they ran up and down the balconies.

  “Tlal’Jade is dead! Tlal’Jade is dead! A new Vessel must be born! Everyone is to be present in the Stormwomb by midday! Derelicts will be subject to early execution!”

  Yanna, fifteen years old, awakened to those words. She buried her face in her pillow until it was difficult to breathe. The fabric was crusty with the tears she’d shed through the night.

  Two days ago, her father died. They’d been eating breakfast. He’d been laughing as Yanna told him a story about their neighbor. And then his spoonful of porridge dropped from a shaking hand. And, just like that, he was dead.

  The surgeon told Yanna it was a tumor in his head. Sudden. Painless, he’d said. The surgeon had not seen the way her father looked at her, eyes twitching, lips caving inward.

  Yanna sat up in bed. Home looked the same as ever, and it made her want to claw her eyes out.

  She was alone. No one. Her mother had died giving birth to her.

  ‘Thank the Goddess’, her people loved to say…

  Yanna made her way to the Stormwomb. She became a part of the slow-moving tide of frightened fools. Finally, in a daze, she reached her seat in one of the auditorium’s uppermost rows.

  Warden Tezca and the Jaguars stood beside the Goddess, at the center of the crucifixes. Tlal’Jade, Fifth Maker, her corpse fresh, had been moved to her new position in the ring.

  The number of those still entering thinned. The ritual would soon begin. And with it, so much death.

  At the edge of the pit, a towering pyre burned, hungry. The Elder Warden’s claws glistened in the firelight.

  Luca the Progenitor died for this. Five hundred years ago, the sacred creature, a servant of the Goddess, gave its life to transform the first generation of Malikauans. Every one of the ancestors drank a single drop of Luca’s blood, a single drop of the Goddess’s blessing.

  The Progenitor died in giving the gift, and the ancestors became carriers of divinity waiting to bloom. In the centuries since, the blessing was diluted. It remained in their bloodlines as a scant miracle.

  And so, the ritual consisted of execution after execution. Sacrifices in search of the Goddess’s blessing. Until someone was reborn as the Vessel. The number required increased with the passing of each Maker.

  Mar’Jade, First Maker, brimming with the Goddess’s essence, was named the First Sacrifice. A century later, the birth of the Second Maker demanded twenty-seven deaths. The Third, one hundred and sixty-two. Tlal’Jade was the nine hundred and thirty-third. Today, they predicted thousands.

  The Elder Warden raised his arms. The crowd ceased its nervous muttering. “Who would become Challe’Jade, the Sixth Maker? Who would have the honor of being the First Sacrifice?”

  “I will.”

  And Yanna found herself descending the stairs with frightening haste.

  She knelt in the soft sand. The Elder Warden stood behind her. The metal blade touched her throat. It was not as cold as she’d expected…

  So many lives sacrificed to power the Gracestorm, their lone defense against a ruined world riddled with demonkind. Challe seethed at how they’d all… given so much away.

  She hung there in the air, enveloped by the storm that flowed from her body. And she wondered… Maybe Malikau needed to face a reckoning. But not like this. Please, not like this, not by my hand.

  ***

  “I can’t fucking believe this,” Tezca said to Legs. “I don’t know if it’s even worth going to save Claws after that stunt.”