To their credit, the villagers of Bekham recovered from their shock and awe with admirable speed. Damian never even saw Father Harald draw his bow, only the splinters as the arrow exploded against the bare skin of Nephret’s arm. Her head snapped toward him, her face splitting into a smile as brilliant as the Adonis constellation. She flung Finn aside like a toy, then streaked across the clearing in a blinding flash, reappearing before Harald. Casually, almost tenderly, she swiped her hand as if brushing aside cobwebs. Her fingers sliced through Father Harald as if he weren’t even there.

  Damian and the rest of the village cried out as Harald crumpled, split from shoulder to hip. People grabbed pitchforks, torches, axes, anything they could. This wasn’t their god. It couldn’t be. This was a monster wearing her face. Damian’s parents attacked the creature, springing into action.

  Skills were shouted in mass. [Sturdy Hew] from the village [Woodsman], [Pinpoint Shot] from one of their [Hunters], and dozens more. They broke on her skin like a gentle breeze.

  He couldn’t see much after the first moment; he was one of the shortest in the village after all. But he caught glimpses. Mostly metal and wood splintering on contact with her skin. Her arms were deadlier than any blade, cutting through flesh like air. It was the laughter that made Damian’s blood freeze. She was cackling as she drove her hand into one of his fathers’ chests and ripped free a handful of flesh and bone.

  “You dance well under the stars, villagers of Bekham!” she shouted merrily.

  It never even occurred to him to fight her, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t help. For the first time in his life, Damian used a skill. He hadn’t even meant to—it simply flared when he needed to know where Finn was. [Locate Chosen One] activated on its own, like flexing a muscle he hadn’t known existed.

  Chaos and screaming surrounded him, but Damian was used to being jostled. He ducked his head and dove into the crowd, weaving through his family and trying to ignore the screams rising to the fevered pitch of mortal agony. A stray elbow struck the side of his head, nearly pitching him into the dirt before he caught himself at the last moment. A sound like a roaring beast nearly deafened him; a flash of heat seared his side.

  Damian didn’t know what was happening. He couldn’t even comprehend it. But he knew his family was dying.

  His family was dying.

  But Finn was alive. He was alive, and so very close now. Shoving past one of his fathers, who was bellowing a battle cry and hefting an axe, Damian spotted his goal. Finn was upright, bracing himself on his knees as Frigg and Gunnar held him up.

  “Finn!” Damian screamed, stopping himself just short of tackling his friend. Instead, he lifted Finn’s face, inspecting him for injuries. His neck was raw and burned where the monster wearing Nephret’s face had choked him.

  Finn’s eyes were wide, slightly unfocused, but when Damian tilted his face up, he managed a wan smile. “Damian.”

  “We have to—we have to run,” Damian stammered, glancing to Frigg and Gunnar.

  “And leave our parents to die?” Gunnar shouted over the din. “Never. Take Finn, he’s the one she wants. We’ll slow her down.”

  “Wait—!” Damian protested, but Gunnar was already gone.

  “We can’t go,” Finn muttered. “She wants me. If she gets me, she’ll stop... right?”

  Before anyone could answer, a voice whispered beside Damian’s ear. Except, he saw Finn and Frigg react to it too. “I won’t. I want you to witness me.”

  Almost against his will, Damian turned toward the screaming. At that moment, the nine-foot nightmare tearing through his family lunged toward them. Dozens stood between her and them, but she moved through the crowd as easily as Damian would walk through tall grass. Bones shattered. Skin split. Blood sprayed as Nephret turned the living into corpses in an instant.

  A massive arm knocked Damian to the ground, and he could only watch as the monster drove her fist through Frigg’s chest, bursting out her back and lifting her over the fell god’s head. Frigg screamed, hot blood showering down on Damian and Finn. Damian screamed too, the sound tore from his throat unbidden. The goddess flicked her arm, and Frigg’s body slammed into the ground like a meteor, bones cracking audibly. She was dead.

  Damian tried to struggle to his feet, but before he could blink a massive foot pressed against his chest. His scream reached a new, fevered pitch as agony exploded across his ribcage. Weight crushed his ribs; searing heat burned through his tunic. He pushed at the foot but burned his palms almost instantly. All he could do was lie there and scream and cry and watch.

  The woman turned her attention on Finn. She smiled, and Damian thought all the malice in the world lived inside that smile. Then, suddenly, silence—too complete to be natural. Everything around them was frozen. Dozens of his parents had been rushing toward them, desperate to intervene. But now they stood frozen like statues. Even the torch flames hung motionless in the air.

  Indeed, the only things moving or making noise were him, the monster crushing him into the ground, and Finn. Finn gawped up at the thing calling itself Nephret, completely overwhelmed. She waited, disturbingly patient, for him to recover his wits.

  “Why?” he asked, voice trembling. “The Game said I was chosen by the gods—by you.”

  The woman tilted her head slightly, and pressure on Damian’s chest increased, forcing a scream from him. Finn’s eyes flicked down; he twitched as if to move, then hesitated. Damian wanted to tell him to run. To leave him. Damian was already dead, but maybe Finn had a chance. Maybe his class would save him. Pain had robbed his voice; anything but a hoarse scream felt impossible.

  “Do you not feel chosen?” the woman asked, playful and mocking, as though she weren’t crushing the life out of a child. “Do you not feel… loved? Mmm. I can feel your love. Like the stars in the sky, the lines that pull motes into constellations. There’s so much love here it’s… sickening.”

  Finn’s eyes darted from the woman, scanning around him. He glanced at a nearby wood-splitting axe, not a weapon built for battle, then locked eyes with Damian. His screams had reduced to whimpers despite the ever-increasing pain. He forced himself to shake his head. Finn shouldn’t. Finn couldn’t. He’d die. He needed to run.

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  The woman looked down at him, and it felt like the entire night sky was somehow pressing against Damian’s very being. He choked on the sheer presence of her attention, frail breath snagging in his bleeding throat. Her eyes were terrible, and full of hate.

  “You love him,” she said, face softening, almost surprised. Then her features hardened back into that wicked grin. “Good. I’ll leave him alive long enough to watch you burn.”

  Finn lunged, snatching up the axe and hefting it. Its simple bog-iron blade glowed with golden energy. Some skill, something Damian had never seen before, made the humble wood-cutting tool painful to even look at. Like Nephret. Like Finn had somehow stolen a sliver of her divinity.

  The goddess looked almost bored as he swung.

  Then the axe bit deep into the flesh of her leg, and the monster’s face twisted in shock and pain. She snarled and lashed out, the back of her hand catching Finn across the face. His body went limp, crashing through the corner of a nearby lodge and out of Damian’s sight. The splinters froze in the air the instant he passed through them.

  Nephret winced, yanking the blade from her leg as blinding white ichor poured from the wound. She tossed the axe in the direction Finn had been thrown. With a wave of her hand the wound sealed, yet the light of her blood still seared Damian’s eyes. He didn’t look away. Some deep, savage part of him was glad to see her bleed.

  “Fucking [Chosen],” she muttered, then glanced down at Damian as if he were an afterthought. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  Time unfroze all at once, the world erupting into noise and descending back into madness. For a heartbeat the goddess’s weight lifted, and Damian sucked in air. She moved too fast for him to see what happened, but there was no time to wonder. A fresh agony crushed every scrap of thought from his mind.

  It was his legs this time. Damian looked down to see a massive log hurled across them, crushing and pinning him to the ground. At least he was done screaming. His throat was too torn and the pain so bad it eclipsed anything he’d even thought possible before this moment. Every breath was pain. Every heartbeat was pain. His ribs probably looked like gravel, his organs a soupy mess. All he could do was lie there, whimpering and sobbing.

  From where he lay, he couldn’t see the monster masquerading as a star-god anymore. But he could hear the screams. The wet rip of flesh, the sharp crack of breaking bone, each cry rising to a lethal crescendo before it cut off. It hurt almost as much as the agony already consuming his shattered body.

  A face filled his blurred vision. Mother Revna’s, smeared with dirt and blood, twin tracks carved through the grime by tears. Despite the calamity around them, her hands were impossibly gentle as they cupped Damian’s face. It was the smallest possible spark of comfort in an ocean of death and pain.

  “Oh gods, oh heavens,” she muttered, and Damian felt the pain dull slightly as her skill settled over him. [Ward: Worldguard]. If only it could guard him from this waking nightmare.

  “Where’s Finn?” Damian croaked, delirious with pain.

  “Shh,” Revna urged, stroking Damian’s face. “Don’t waste your breath.”

  Damian tried to protest, but before he could, the shattered wall of the lodge Nephret had hurled Finn through exploded outward. Finn tumbled to a stop beside him, sprawling against the beam pinning Damian’s legs. He was a wreck, one arm bent the wrong way, shirt ripped off his body, blood streaming from a dozen cuts. But when his rolling eyes found Damian, he grinned that same crooked grin Damian had come to love so much.

  “Oh hey,” he said, too casually, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. “I think we die now.”

  “Boys,” Mother Revna said, her voice shuddering, “whatever happens, I want you to know I lo—”

  Her head snapped violently to the side with a sickening crunch. She slumped over Damian, sending a fresh wave of agony through his destroyed chest. Somehow, he could smell the death on her. He tried to scream again, but his throat refused, producing only a choked sob. Just like that, she was dead. Hours ago she’d been comforting him in bed. Now she was a corpse. Maybe Damian was still asleep, maybe this was another nightmare.

  It felt too real to be a nightmare.

  Nephret stood behind their mother, towering over them, lips curling in disgust.

  “You’re so pathetic,” the goddess spat. “Barely worth my time. I’ve made better dancers of goats. [Blade Of The Chosen]? The Game favors a mewling whelp.”

  Finn groaned, lifting the glowing axe with his one working arm. Nephret waved a hand casually, and the axe exploded. Somehow, Finn didn’t even flinch as the splinters peppered his body. He looked at the broken handle, then tossed it aside with a deep scowl.

  “Do what you came to do,” Finn said in a brave voice. Damian could hear the fear under it though. “Just... leave Bekham. Take what you want and go.”

  Nephret inhaled slowly, surveying Bekham. Damian realized most of the lodges were burning, and the screaming had grown distant. Was everyone dead, or had they run away? He hoped the rest of the hearth had survived. Somehow. His breath came slower, his heart fluttering as it struggled to push life through a ruined body. Then the goddess’s eyes turned down on him.

  “As you wish, little [Chosen One],” Nephret crooned, still staring at Damian for some reason. “But only because I’m bored. And as a gift, I’ll even save your precious little friend.”

  The monster waved her hand, and Damian jerked as he felt energy fill his body. He gasped as his wounds started healing, flesh knitting and bone snapping back into place. Somehow, it hurt more than everything else that had come before. It was as if every pain he’d endured repeated itself at once—a transcendent agony that made his vision swim with lights and his muscles convulse.

  Through the haze, he barely registered Nephret leaning over Finn, running a clawed finger down his cheek. Wherever she touched, his skin blistered and burned beneath her impossible heat. Finn barely had the strength to flinch away.

  Her clawed finger traced down his chest, stopping over his heart. Finn gurgled as her hand pressed slowly, almost delicately, through his skin and into his chest. For the whole motion, he met her gaze, defiant to the last. Damian wanted to speak, to move, do anything. But his body still convulsed violently as it rebuilt itself.

  He wanted Finn to look at him so he could beg, with his eyes, for forgiveness for being so fucking useless. But Finn didn’t look back. He shuddered as Nephret pushed her entire fist into his chest. He spasmed once, then went still.

  The monster lingered for a moment, then shuddered in some terrible ecstasy. When that disgusting moment passed, she turned to face Damian again. Finn’s blood coated her hand but boiled off her skin seconds after she pulled it free. Damian’s convulsions finally eased, but he was so utterly exhausted and overwhelmed he couldn’t move.

  Gunnar and Frigg were dead. Father Harald was dead. Everyone else was probably dead. Mother Revna was dead. Finn was dead. In that moment, Damian wanted to die. He wanted Nephret, whatever she was, to go back on her word. She could end him as easily as breathing and end the suffering with it.

  The way she eyed him made him think she might be considering it. Wanting to urge her on, he barely managed to spit on her foot. Her gaze dropped. She blinked—then smiled, for the first time since Finn’s blade had cut her.

  “You want to die, don’t you, little star?” she crooned, and Damian felt true hatred boil in him like nothing he’d ever felt before. “No. I won’t kill you. You’ll live and suffer, knowing that if you give up, if you give in, you’ll be spitting on your family’s memory. Do you hear me, little star?”

  Damian couldn’t move. His body refused him. And besides, the beam still pinned him down. Still, he tried to kill her with his eyes. If there were any way right at this moment, by magic or miracle, for him to see this monster dead, he’d take it.

  “Good,” Nephret said. Her smile faded, her expression hardening as she straightened and stretched. Then, in a flash of movement, her foot came up and smashed into Damian’s face—and everything went black.