When Erin woke, she wasn’t in her tent, but standing in a forest clearing that felt both familiar and alien. She knew she should know this place, but it was as if she viewed the memory through a pane of fogged glass. Not helping her recall were the ways in which it felt different. She was certain that the last time she’d been here, there had been stars. Hundreds of thousands of stars glittering above the clearing's open sky, but now it was dark. A lone moon shone full and bright against a backdrop of oil.
She turned slowly on the spot, taking it all in, struggling to peer beyond the veil in her memory until a word fell from her lips—no, a name.
“Thetra.”
The place responded to the name, the leaves of the trees around her rustling in a breeze she did not feel. The sound was unsettling in the dead air, and she knew why. It could only be something moving unseen in the dark beyond the clearing. A great many somethings.
“Even a child such as yourself ought to have made more progress,” a voice like poisoned honey spoke from behind her, and the sounds of the forest stopped. No, all sound died, like the clearing was suddenly a vacuum; empty of the air sound needed to travel. Erin turned slowly on the spot to find a woman standing six feet distant in the clearing's center.
She was all the pieces of a great beauty: raven hair, the soft curve of a jawline, the heart shape of her face, her eyes dark and entrancing. Her skin was pale beyond pale, white as paper and shining like marble. Erin saw veins of gold standing out against her skin, glimmering in the silver light of the moon.
Yet she was not beautiful. Like everything about her hadn’t been fit together quite right. The eclectic features of her face refused to coalesce into a whole, and it hurt Erin’s eyes vaguely to look at her. More than that, there was a darkness that marked her out. A twist to her lips that promised a cruel smile lay just under the surface. The set of her jaw and a quirk of her eyebrows felt like finding a spider on you in the dark.
“You’re not Thetra,” Erin announced. The memory was coming back, the fog vanishing from the glass bit by bit.
“Very astute,” the woman mocked, taking a languid step forward and closing the distance to five feet. Erin felt suddenly like a fly must, bound to the sticky strands of a web, its multi-faceted eyes unable to look away as the spider came for it. “It’s clear to see the gift of attention has not been wasted on you.” More mocking, another step. Four feet.
“Who are you?” Erin asked, wanting to back away but finding herself unable to move.
The woman’s laugh was low and mocking. “There are more answers to that question than your feeble mind could possibly imagine. If you knew a fraction of the truth, you would die of fright at the mention of my names.”
As she stepped closer, Erin felt a strange shrinking sensation. The woman seemed to grow taller with each step. By the time she stopped in front of Erin, she loomed over her, towering at what seemed like ten feet.
“I don’t know why my brother plays these games. I have taken to visiting his chosen in their dreams, and you are, all of you, woefully inadequate for the task ahead.” Erin had no idea what she was talking about.
“You mean the—” Here, Erin stalled. Not sure what to call it. Not sure what word to put to the end of everything. What to call those abominations that clawed their way into reality through those cold flame portals.
“You don’t even know their name?” the woman said with a shake of her head. She made a tut-tut sound, and then there was a third woman. This one, Erin did know.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Thetra said calmly. She’d appeared in front of Erin, her head tilted up. Her jaw was defiant, and her shoulders squared. “Neither is she. Why did you bring her?”
“It’s a projection,” the dark woman said dismissively. She waved a hand as if flicking away the complaint, and Erin saw she had claws, no; talons. Like a bird of prey. Long and curved and strong. “She’s not here at all. I just wanted a chat. See how my brother’s flunkies are getting along with their pet projects. I must say, Thetra, I’m not impressed.” The woman had turned and strode away before turning back to them and settling herself in a heavy chair, the same marble shade as her skin, conjured up from the ground. “Why didn’t you tell her about the Detritus?” she asked.
“I did,” Thetra said, crossing her arms and leaning back on one foot, not shifting from where she stood in front of Erin. “She saw them.”
“But you didn’t tell her what to call them?”
“That wasn’t part of my instructions.”
“Were your instructions to waste time? To leave her to wander all across that worthless little world and to ignore the threat?”
“She has already encountered the threat,” Thetra said, but her tone was tense. Her posture fixed.
“You play games,” the woman said, relaxing back into her seat, her hands placed on either arm, looking so imperious Erin felt an insane impulse to kneel. She didn’t, owed at least partly to the fact she couldn’t move. “The Detritus threaten all of creation, and my brother plays games.”
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“Who are you?” Erin asked again. She strained against whatever held her in place and managed to wrest herself from it for a moment. Long enough to step out from behind Thetra to face the woman herself. Then she felt whatever bonds she escaped settle on her again.
“Remarkable,” the woman said, raising an eyebrow. “Tier 2 and you can resist my will. Those Hero Souls truly are something. I bet you could kick me out of here if you had a soul like that, little Thetra. Perhaps I should acquire some of my own. Tell me, Erin, would you like a change of employer?”
“I don’t work for anyone.” This declaration was met with silence, and the woman's gaze shifted from Erin’s face to Thetra.
“More games? You didn’t tell her about us? I thought she would figure it out eventually, but no. She has no idea.”
Then, like someone had flicked a light switch, the stars were back. The darkness leeching away, withdrawing from the forest clearing. The woman turned her dark eyes on the sky, frowning.
“You must be quite the pet, Thetra. To get my brother—” and then she was gone, marble chair and all, and Thetra sagged where she stood, exhausted.
“I can’t believe she came here.” The memory of ‘here’ was much clearer now. This was where she’d come after she died. Where she had met Thetra. The place had faded from her memory shortly after leaving.
“Who is she?” Erin asked, hoping this time to get a proper answer. Thetra turned to face her, her expression turning to a grimace.
“And she brought you. Even as a projection that’s no joke.” Silence fell between them, while Erin waited, refusing to allow the subject to move on without an answer. If nothing else had been made clear by the woman, there was no doubt that Thetra was not telling her everything. With a sigh and a shake of her head, Thetra answered.
“She’s a goddess and she has a lot of names. Who she is depends on where and when you are.”
“When?”
“Time is more fluid outside of Tiers 1 and 2. It’s complicated. For Jetriser, and for your present, she’s called Delafear, the Goddess of Lies, Secrets, Disguises, Deceit—you get the idea. Her domain is the obfuscation of the truth.”
“So she was lying about all that?” Erin asked, and Thetra grimaced again.
“No, though I wish she had been. Delafear isn’t what you’d call altruistic, but she needs reality as much as any of us. More, if anything.” Erin had almost forgotten what she was supposed to be doing on Jetriser. Why she’d left her old life behind, but Thetra’s explanation brought it all back.
“She seemed unhappy.”
“She has no room to complain,” Thetra said, her tone oddly petulant. “She could be doing more to help. The other gods certainly have been. At least they’re doing more than pulling Tier 2s out of their dreams to interrogate them and undermine their siblings' efforts.”
“Am I really doing that badly?” Erin asked, and Thetra grimaced for a third time.
“Yes and no. It was neither intended nor anticipated you would revive outside of Academy City. The scrambling of the rebirth points was intentional, though by whom I can’t say.”
“How is that possible? There are gods involved in this. How could they not know?”
“The separation of Tiers isn’t just a guideline. Gods can’t just run around Tier 2 worlds, doing as they please.”
Erin absorbed Thetra’s words, the weight of their implications settling on her shoulders. The reality of her situation, the scale of the threat, it all became clearer.
“What do we do now?” Erin asked, her voice steady despite the turmoil inside.
Before Thetra could respond, Erin felt a strange sensation, a tingling that started at her fingertips and spread through her body. She looked down, her form shimmering and fading at the edges.
“Thetra, what’s happening?”
“You’re being pulled back to your body,” Thetra said calmly. “Delafear’s power is fading.”
Erin’s vision began to blur, the clearing and Thetra becoming indistinct. “But I still don’t know who this threat is.”
“The group that took your friend Sigrid will bring the Detritus into our reality,” Thetra said quickly.
Erin’s heart pounded. “How?”
The world around her dissolved completely before Thetra could answer. A moment later, she gasped, eyes flying open as she found herself back in her tent. Rain pattered on the canvas above, and the familiar scents of the forest mingled with the dampness of the air.
Erin sat up slowly, the memory of the clearing and Thetra vivid but slipping away like a fading dream. The ever-present weight of rescuing her friend had grown yet more pressing, and Erin felt it like a physical burden settling across her shoulders, pressing her down into the earth.
[Interesting dreams,] Lisa spoke up. The longer Erin had been on Jetriser, the more she was able to feel Lisa within her mind, and upon waking, she could tell the Liaison had been moving around the edge of her thoughts, observing them.
Not that interesting.
[On the bright side, it doesn't change what you planned to do anyway, even if it does raise the stakes somewhat.]
Somewhat? You saw that guy who took Sigrid. How am I supposed to stop that?
[One thing at a time. You should try to get some more rest. It's still several hours before we set out.]
Erin fell back in her bed and stared up at the tent's V-shaped roof, turning the dream of Thetra's clearing over in her mind. It was increasingly indistinct, and Erin got the impression she wasn't allowed to remember that place. Despite the fact it was where her whole strange journey had started, she had forgotten it until now, and she could tell she would forget again, but not the essentials. Not Delafear, whose name sent a shiver up her spine. Not the Cult, with the dark robes and glowing blue eyes, and not the Detritus. Pale-skinned monstrosities sliding out of burning holes in reality to lay waste to Earth. To everywhere.
Her mind drifted as she listened to the rain, and she found herself recalling nights in Dangole, her, Sigrid, and Liam sitting around with Kiran and his Monster Hunters sharing a drink in the small village's inn. For a moment, she was able to forget that all of her friends were far away, and she drifted off to sleep once more, this time undisturbed by dreams of dark gods and places she shouldn't remember.