There are two kinds of darkness: the empty and the full. The darkness you fall into, and the darkness you sink inside, both can hold, but only one can snatch you and drag you deep. When Zoe stepped through the portal and into the Witch, she embraced that second darkness. A world without light — that should have light — countless bodies pressed against each other and stacked until they pressed against the walls and the ceilings of this world within a world, this cubic womb of the Witch. Wet flesh slithered against Zoe. Sweat dripped and trickled down her skin — the taste of moans in her mouth. Ten thousand alien species compacted again and again. Endless souls drowning in their desire. Tremors rippled through the endless congestion of flesh and buzzed inside her bones. Hands grasped her and pulled her into the bodies, into the darkness.

Her mind awakened from the stupor of the beach. She floated toward the nucleus with full consciousness. Unable to move. Unable to breathe. Unable to scream. The Witch dragged her deeper.

[How does it feel to be special?]

The Witch’s words were the softest whisper.

[Swim through the sea of the useless, all those who gave themselves to me… who have nothing to me… of all the worlds, all the lives, all the choices, you alone are special… it isn’t fair, is it?]

Zoe sank, floated, drifted… her fingers trembled, and she pulled. Gripped flesh like a mountain wall. Climbed. Swam. Dragged herself through the wriggling masses toward the Witch’s desperate heart. She was special. When she needed power, the gods tore loose the fabric of reality to give her a chance. Shortcuts weren’t cheating, they were essential. After all, she was a surgeon; she knew the value of cutting.

Everything she’d done.

Everything she’d sacrificed.

It seemed fair to her.

[Indeed, it does, but nothing is fair]

The words cut through her thoughts as effortlessly as a sword through a pupae. She gasped. Webs of desire fell away. Flesh pressed upon her. Bile rose at the horror. Her blood bubbled. The words continued slicing out beyond her mind and into the surrounding flesh. Twitching bodies screamed as blood flowed and washed away the leathery sweat.

The press upon her grew like a tide. Her flesh twisted and bit back at those too close, but it was impossible to resist. As she struggled, Rue spoke once more.

[I want you to know. We never had any choice. Not me, and not you, we are puppets, but together we can cut the strings]

Zoe fought as the bodies pressed upon her. Blood, sweat, and ichor flowed into her mouth. It burned on her tongue. Black fire from the belly of the witch — a taste of the watchful cosmos — warped her like the fragile edges of a dream. Her Skein rippled with power. More flowed into her and she closed her lips as it slid down her throat. The flow touched her face. It reached for her. Insistent. Power pressed upon her lips.

[The Witch would lie to you if I didn’t block her]

Rue’s voice strained like a sword against a stone.

[Do you know the shackle of the gods?]

His words sliced through her thoughts. She couldn’t respond or try to understand. Couldn’t reform her thoughts to navigate the situation, so she relied on her instincts. The wonky way she could resist any of them was with the power she stole. She opened her mouth. The flesh on her body twisted and the jaws of hounds snapped out from her skin. With eight mouths, Zoe drank the power of the Witch’s star-studded womb.

[Gods are born from paradox they can never undo. Lorrilla’s death powered my ascension, but even with the universe in my palm, I cannot bring her back]

His words sliced through crying bodies. Sliced through her as she listened, as she ignored him, as she drank — but in the swirling pieces of her mind, fear eddied. The dream stuff she guzzled shifted the shape of her cells, twisted shadow through her skein, made her less — more — but even as she drowned herself she heard the tired warning delivered by the bleak words.

Just as a shattered mirror reflects the same image a thousand times, so did the truth occur at once and a thousand times in her vivisected mind.

“How can I undo the apocalypse if I gained power from the apocalypse?”

[How can you trust the Witch?]

Zoe gagged. Retched. Tried to stop drinking, but it sluiced into her as though she were an open drain. She reached for her techniques — to stop time — to slice Skein — but she touched nothing in this shadowy space.

[I offer you my blade]

And what did he demand in exchange for this? Once more, Zoe found herself the plaything of gods. Even with the fluid swelling her Skein, she could do nothing to escape the situation. Do nothing to save herself.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

She had done this to save her friends, but if paradox bound the gods…

“Yes!” Zoe shouted even as the Witch’s dark juice dissolved her jaws. “Save me from —”

Light severed the darkness.

[How kind of you to make yourself physical]

Zoe’s veins tasted metal as it scraped along her skin, through her flesh, cutting her so finely her flesh couldn’t know it had happened, only her mind, and her memory. Bodies fell away from her. Infinity fled the flesh cleaver and Zoe tumbled. Sky of color blurred, she struck sand, tasted blood and ichor, and a scream. Her bones rattled. Skin trembled like a puddle in an earthquake. The scream curled through her, spilled from her lips, and echoed the Witch’s pain.

Zoe blinked sand from her eyes as she writhed on the ground.

The Witch towered. Blood fountained from her hat as she stood. A pillar of cruel eyes with her face shrouded in shadow. Rue stood between Zoe and the Queen of the Crossroads. His body glowed and he held a sword before him, but neither he nor the blade seemed more substantial than light reflecting off an edge.

Zoe felt the Witch’s scream tearing at her throat. The same sound echoed beside her, and she looked for her friends. They lay crumpled on the ground, flesh steaming, contorted in agony.

Rage bit the scream from Zoe’s lips.

Shee called Moth to her and Mirror raced across her skin. She rose and flexed her fingers without thinking.

[Empress in Time]

Fire spilled from her grasp like lightning from a wounded storm. It raced across the sand and struck the Witch. Her eyes popped as the flames raced up her towering form.

[YOU DARE]

The words buffeted the ground and forced Zoe to her knees. Mirror flaked away as Zoe’s bones cracked inside her flesh. She gritted her teeth and held out her palms. Time flowed and burned and she blasted the Witch again. Her Skein felt endless as a shadowy pit. Darkness pooled inside her gut and she drew from it to keep the pillar of flame burning with as she dropped one hand behind her.

[Mind’s Eye Incision]

She fashioned a blade with a swiftness that shocked her, but beyond that, she did something she’d never done before — detached it from her body. Five psychic blades shot from her fingers and zoomed along the stream of time fire to slice into the Witch. They vanished into the tower of bleeding eyes at the center of the gory crossroads. Pupils dilated into toothy maws as the Witch wailed and reality —

Ended —

— returned —

Rue stood with his blade above his head. A crimson sky swirled around the tip of the blade and congealed. The ground stirred below him. A hill rose beneath his shining feet. The Witch towered and swayed like a beanstalk in the wind. Her eyes glared. Blood rained down and burned the ground. Zoe gasped for air that wasn’t there — sucked it down into her lungs — choked on nothingness — the rock beneath flickered like static to a dead channel —

Rue swung his blade at the Witch.

[Sever]

Reality split.

The future spanned out in two directions of possibility. Zoe’s mind reeled until she felt a hand on her shoulder and a handle in her grip.

[You wish to cut time?]

Rue stood behind her as the future parted like a sea before a prophet. In both the Witch twisted like smoke. As she gripped the blade, it raced through her — bypassed her Skein — and struck her heart.

[Bleed yourself for me and I shall bleed myself for you!]

[The Heart Torn accepts you]

[Accolade awarded: Defy Fate]

[Accolade awarded: Out of World]

[Accolade awarded: Wielder of the Blade]

Power buffeted her.

She staggered backward, and the blade that Rue gave her vanished, but the future split again. A dozen futures played out before her as she took her new power and charged the Witch. She blasted flames of Time and struck the bells of her Mirrored soul. Her body path and the logic-defying abilities of her accolades — her [Mind’s Eye Incision] floated like swords to cut away at the shadowy tower of eyes and blood —

A dozen futures where she died — impaled — swallowed — erased — split in half as she leaped and punched — vaporized one hound at a time — even as Rue fought alongside her to keep reality in place like ice resisting heat —

She fought alongside Rue against the Witch. Another dozen futures split forth and she exploded — imploded — melted — as reality burned like a fever dream —

“Why are you helping me?”

[I want you to end this, Zoe, end me, but first we must —]

“End them,” Zoe said.

She understood now.

Power bubbled in her guts. Washed over her. Skein, the Witch’s juices, the memories of the Blackstar, the New Flesh of Earth, the blades of the parasite from beyond — but none of it was enough.

Zoe crouched behind Rue as his blade blurred. She caught her breath. Was she fighting? Resting? Futures bubbled anew faster than they collapsed. She remembered the Gambler’s interview, and how it shattered her mind, but she was more than she was then — still, the coppery taste of blood flowed down her throat.

“I need more,” Zoe said.

[Yes]

“The Mountain.”

[I can hold her off]

Lakes of Blood bloomed in the sky. Blades thrust down from them like reeds and cut the world into a grid. Time and space diced and fell into cubes. On the face of one, Zoe stood with her friends.

The Witch’s voice curled around her like smoke. Eyes in the ragged shadows. The cube spun. Stars watched from the endless void beyond the skin of reality.

[You think you can escape the crossroads?]

Zoe glared up at the smoke.

“You tricked me.”

[All power has a price]

Zoe’s scarred lips twisted as she snarled.

“Justifcations, excuses, how pitiful from a god.”

[I will teach you how truly pitiful one can be]

The cubes of reality twisted and flowed back toward each other. Light flashed as their edges reformed with the scraping of steel.

[I tire of this, until next time]

The towering Witch fell into the center of the crossroads. Zoe felt an eyelid close around her the WItch vanished. The futures collapsed into one, and Zoe drifted into the space of a cube. She stood beside her unconscious friends on one piece of a shattered mirror, but every piece reflected the whole, and Rue drifted past her as his body lost form.

[You should go]

“Won’t she follow me to the Mountain.”

[The Witch cannot, but expect some resistance —]

The point in the crossroads where the Witch vanished exploded. Thousands of Mubilashi streamed out into the Sky. They flowed between the floating cubes of space and time. Eyes, teeth, laughter, claws. They raced toward Zoe.

“Can I trust you?” Zoe asked.

Rue only smiled. His blade flashed, but the Mubilashi poured endlessly.

[What is trust between a mortal and a god?]

Zoe nodded. Crouching over her friends, she raised her hand and reached for the Mountain of Faith.