It struck the man, sparking off and sending the other men and women around him flying back. Their bodies, dead, littered the ground. Magic arced through the air like the rebirth of a cosmos, all condensing on a glowing figure rising from where the leader of this dark ritual had once stood.
A roar cut through the ringing in Vi’s ears as the man tilted his head back and let out a primordial cry. He should be dead; the lightning had struck him square in the chest. Instead he wore the red light as a second skin, seeming to grow in size before Vi’s eyes.
She’d seen all this before. Perhaps that was why she was so calm. She’d seen it in her vision of her failed future, and Yargen had seen it countless times. This was how it always began: a battle to determine which god would rule the next cycle of the world.
The man’s jaw elongated with his screams. She watched as it jutted painfully outward. Vi heard the crunching of bones and witnessed new growth to make room for rows of razor-sharp teeth. His skin became hard and leathery as it stretched across plated armor underneath. His face became even more sunken and skull-like. His hair floated around him, swirling with the magic tempest he was birthed within. His eyes rolled back completely, exposing whites that seemed to glow faintly.
Lightning continued to strike around them. The electricity burnt away each of the bodies, as if rabidly consuming what scraps were left of the mortal essence that had brought both divine beings back into the world. Raspian continued to grow, remaking the mortal form that was given to him into something he found suitable.
Then, all at once, the wind died, the lightning ceased, and the world was still.
She didn’t have to look around to know that time and space had shifted. Reality distorted around the weight of the gods. The landscape had become even more barren, every building crumbling to dust. The horizon had all but vanished. Over Raspian’s right shoulder, the moon hung, cracked and bleeding, about to give birth to a wyvern that was ready to consume the world whole.
This suspended reality, outside of time, was a temporary battleground for them. It was the place the opposing gods could exist simultaneously: not quite the mortal realm and not quite the land of the divine. They could decide the victor here—who would return to the real world and rule, and who would be trapped in this liminal space until the next great battle.
Vi didn’t dare take her eyes off the dark god. She watched him warily. At any moment, he would attack, and their final battle would begin. The memory of her final vision, following the destruction of the Crystal Caverns, cut through all of Yargen’s influences and stood out in her memory.
The vision, that’s why you need me!Vi tried to communicate hastily with the goddess.
Vision? What vision?Vi didn’t have a chance to respond as Raspian raised a hand, pointing a clawed finger at her. Lightning punctuated his every movement. He opened his mouth and sound filled her mind.
“Youfinallymeet me once more, Yargen.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“It’s time,”Yargen said through Vi’s mouth, using the language of the divine. Vi felt her lips make the sounds and understood the meaning of the words, but she couldn’t have repeated them if she tried. “Go willingly into your darkness. Meet me once more in a thousand years.”
“After you trapped me in that pit? No, perhaps you should feel what it’s like to be contained and smothered with no natural way out.”
He lifted his hand and Vi felt the magic collecting there. Yargen acted before she could.
She moved, tilting to the side, her hand swinging back. A spear of light trailed the line of her fingertips through the air. Her hand closed around it. She flung it forward.
The spear crashed against Raspian without so much as stunning him. He lifted his hand and a crack of lightning shot into the sky above. It arced through the clouds and came down as a hailstorm of bolts.
Vi dodged each one quickly. She retreated, gaining distance. Each attack carved static electricity through the air, giving her a split second to react before a bolt of red lightning scarred the earth where she had been standing.
Raspian lowered his hand and lumbered forward. He swung his other hand upward to cleave the land beneath her feet. Her body was sent tumbling back, head over heels. She dug her hands into the earth, seeking purchase. Just when she found her footing, a large rock fell atop her back and Vi cried out in pain.
She might be sharing her mind, but Vi felt every blow as though it was solely her own to bear.
“What a weak mortal form you chose this time,” Raspian said with his booming voice. “You have committed yourself to one girl, Yargen, when I have had generations of devotees ready to bleed for me. I took the essence of hundreds. What can one mortal do for you?”
We have to get on the offensive, Vi urged the goddess within her.He’s larger and slower. We can out-maneuver him.
She lifted her head and brought her hands under her shoulders, pushing upward with a grunt and finding her feet. With a strength no mortal should possess, she dislodged the boulder. Her focus returned to the dark god just in time to see Raspian swinging a clawed hand down toward her.
Vi’s instincts kicked in. “Mysst xieh!” The words escaped her, even if they no longer needed to be said. She reached across her abdomen.Mysst soto larrk, Yargen’s voice echoed in her mind as her magic wove a sword into existence. Fingers around the hilt, Vi drew it as if from a sheathe and slashed it across Raspian’s lower stomach.
Light flashed off the sword like steel on flint. There wasn’t so much as a scratch left behind on his gut. Raspian swung up with his other arm, reaching for her face. Vi bent backwards.
Wildly off balance, she flailed. Yargen’s instincts kicked in. Her right foot swung out, her left bent as she tipped backwards, and she allowed herself to fall. A word Vi didn’t understand echoed across her mind. She plunged into the earth as though it were a pool of water. The once-hard stone vanished into puffs of light.
Suddenly, she was falling through the sky.
Vi twisted mid-air and looked at the ground beneath her, desperately trying to keep up with the goddess. Raspian spun in place, looking for her. His thunderous steps shook the ground.
A spear of light was back in her hands. Wielding it in both, Vi was ready to use all the momentum of her fall to sink into his shoulder, but a bolt of lightning shot her down from the sky.
