PART ITHE FALSE GOD
THERE ONCE WAS A SCHOLARwho believed himself a saint. He had the kind of rare magic that others viewed as a curse, but he knew to be a blessing. A power that would help him become the savior his world so desperately needed, for he had seen the end that would come with the fading of magic, that would destroy his beloved shores, and he believed only he could stop it.
It was a responsibility he shouldered with righteous fervor as he left the college that had shaped him to journey across worlds, a saint embarking on a holy mission.
But his pilgrimage wound up sullying his sainthood. He was a monster now, with an appetite so insatiable that not even the exquisite, hearty life forces he had gorged himself on could sustain him. It seemed like the more he fed on power, the hungrier for it he became. He was ravenous by the time he stepped into the godsworld, this place at the center of all things that was not yet a sea of ash but a lush paradise.
His appetite sharpened to a vicious ache as he beheld the mighty gods who dwelled here, safe from the rot slowly devouring the worlds they claimed to care for. They did not deserve this haven of peace nor the fountain at its heart that overflowed with such delectable power, a heavenly nectar so pure and abundant it could end all suffering if it were allowed to flow freely beyond this place.
The once-scholar turned monster knew something of greed, but his intentions, he believed, were not as self-serving as those of these gilded gods languishing on their gilded thrones. If their power were his, he would share it widely with the malnourished and the starved and the eternallyeager, for he knew how it felt to want a seat at the table.
Yet what could one famished monster do against four ever-sated gods? Even the most cunning predator knew it could not feed on a pack of wolves four times its size. But sever them from their source of power—claim the fountain for himself—and he might stand a chance.
They were curious about him, at first. Intrigued by this unusual visitor in whom they could sense conflicting and impossible powers: the Tidecaller blood they believed had been purged from the world and the unified fragments of a lesser deity they thought would never be whole again. They did not know what to do with him but ask questions, sniffing him out like strange prey.
I have come to seek your help,the monster proclaimed, appeasing the gods with lies he had once believed, when he had still only been a scholar who fancied himself a saint, looking to petition those holier than him for their help saving the world.
But these lies were a diversion. He did not want their aid; he wanted to become them. And so, before they could stop him, he funneled their fountain’s power into himself.
It was like ambrosia on his tongue, divinity flooding his veins. The more he took, the closer to godlike he grew, while the four gods dimmed, their might dwindling to nourish his own.
But before he could finish them off, drain them of every last morsel of divinity, the gods vanished.
The world trembled with their leaving, and in the ensuing silence, the near-god found that he was only that:almostdivine,not quiteexalted, his deification halted by his unfinished feast.And now he was trapped here with a hunger that would inevitably return and a fountain that trickled ever so faintly on, as good as spent.
He knew, then, that he would never be a god in full until he finished what he started. Until he ended the cowardly beings who had ruled the living and took their place as the one true god.
1EMORY
EVERY DREAM EMORY HAD OFlate inevitably turned into a nightmare.
There wasn’t a single peaceful memory that wasn’t marred by darkness. When she dreamed of home, her father’s lighthouse was swallowed by the sea, his bones sinking toward the Deep. When she dreamed of Aldryn, all the students who’d once been her peers clamored for her death, their hissed accusations ofTidethiefandShadow rebornlike lashes against her skin.
When she dreamed of three kids laughing by the seaside, the gulls overhead plummeted lifeless into the water, and the sea dragged the kids into its depths. Emory screamed for Baz and Romie as water filled her lungs, but the current was pulling them all in different directions, and she knew they would never see each other again.
Tonight, Emory dreamed of the Hourglass. Not as it was in real life—the slender stalagmite and stalactite that melded into each other—but as it had often appeared to her in sleep. An actualhourglass, silver and towering and full of fine black sand that fell from one elongated bulb to the other.
She walked barefoot on the damp, slick ground of Dovermere as she approached it, feeling like she’d been here a thousand times before. Every step she took made flowers bloom in her wake. Narcissus, hollyhock, orchid, poppy. When she ran fingers along the cave wall, vines sprouted at her touch. A breeze played in her hair, the sound of it like music to her ears. Sparks danced all around her, like embers from a fire or lightning bugs in a summer field, illuminating the oppressive dark.
Emory, Emory.
The hourglass called to her. Inside it was a door set at the bottom, an opening through which the black sand vanished, sinking and swirling until it disappeared. Emory set her hands on the cool glass. Shadows gathered inside the bulbs, lifting the sand as if there were a sudden gust of wind trapped within. The black sand shimmered like stars in the dark, rearranging into something vaguely familiar. When the shadows dissipated, a tree was trapped in the hourglass, filling every inch of space. Its branches full of healthy green leaves filled the top bulb, and its trunk squeezed tight in the narrow space leading to the bottom bulb, where its dead-looking roots twisted and twined onto one another.
Emory’s hand moved of its own volition as it tightened into a fist and punched through the glass.
The tree dissipated into black sand and shadows once more, which burst out of the shattered glass like an exploding star. Emory wanted to shield her eyes but couldn’t look away, not as shadows and sand and glass pulled back, leaving her untouched, and remade themselves into a shape she knew well.
An umbra wearing a wicked crown of obsidian.
Sidraeus. The deity she’d once known as the Shadow.
Emory’s sleeping consciousness sharpened at his presence. Thiswas no longer a mindless dream; she wasdreaming, her Waning Moon magic making her suddenly lucid. Fear shot through her like adrenaline. She’d been trying to find Sidraeus in dreams for a while now, without any luck. Now here he was.
It was odd, seeing him in his umbra form. She’d become so used to seeing him wearing Keiran’s face. Sidraeus had possessed him to escape the sleepscape, where the deity had been imprisoned for centuries by the mighty god who ruled over the realm of sleep and death. Now Sidraeus was trapped again in the dark between stars, bodiless, after he’d lost his vessel.
That was the last time Emory saw him. When he, in Keiran’s body, had put himself between her and Cornus Clover, saving her from a killing blow that ended Keiran’s life—for good this time—and left Sidraeus as the crowned umbra that stood before her now.
He did not seem to recognize her. Or if he did, whatever tentative truce they had found vanished as his shadowed hand shot out to wrap around her neck.
