The Acolyte ran for the cauldron of liquid bait, lifting it and nearly sloshing it on his tunic. He was headed for the rest of the party, who were on their feet but still too dazed to see what was happening.

I ran to cut him off.

Frozen, fast-crawling trees tore through the woods toward us, shedding clumps of ice as they came. More and more were rising in the wake of the slowly drifting orb of pure cold.

Rake dipped into the shadows, appearing beside the wooden beasts and jabbing his dagger upwards. Triangles of darkness erupted from the tips, punching through frozen wood with surgical precision. He appeared and reappeared with blinding speed, only ever striking once before rising from another shadow and striking the next creature.

White-frosted limbs were sent falling and venting hissing, cold air. The beasts didn’t bleed but flipped to their backs and curled in like dying insects when they suffered enough damage.

He was only putting a dent in the growing tide of animated trees, though.

The briarwraith kept floating toward us as trees pulled themselves from their roots, shook to life, and joined the rapidly approaching swarm of enemies.

Bloody Steve hacked at Jai, parrying giant, half-formed icicles erupting from her hands. He seemed to be letting himself suffer tiny cuts and small wounds, growing bloodier with every passing second. The more he bled, the more furiously he seemed to fight.

An icy path appeared beneath Jai, letting her slide effortlessly down the hill to gain distance from Bloody Steve.

He leaped, body arced like a bow as he pulled back both hammers.

I forced my attention back to The Acolyte. I shouted something incomprehensible to Lyria, who was blinking like she’d just awakened from a nap and gave me a strange look as I sprinted up the hill toward her.

I tried to summon another echo of my weapon inside the cauldron The Acolyte carried. I planned to shove it against the upper lip of the cauldron. If I was lucky, it might tip the cauldron and spill the contents.

Instead, I missed. My echo appeared in front of The Acolyte. It was full of bait liquid, just like my Alchemist’s Kit.

Without thinking, I urged it toward his face.

The ghostly glass didn’t shatter. Instead, it broke apart like a cloud, splashing him with the bait potion. He dropped the Cauldron in surprise and it tipped, then rolled down the hill, spilling every last drop on its way.

The briarwraith stopped moving. It had been carving a straight line roughly toward where Jai had used the old book to summon it. Now, it changed course. It was heading for The Acolyte.

“You…” he said, teeth clenched.

Perch was finally coming to his senses. He rubbed his eyes, then pointed at The Acolyte and fired off golden string after golden string.

Kass had drawn his bow and was aiming.

Lyria had her shield out, darkness billowing from its surface like writhing shadows.

As if brushing away annoying insects, The Acolyte swiped a hand, not even taking his eyes from me. A red wave of mist whipped up from the ground, absorbing Kass’ arrow, severing the golden strings, and catching Lyria’s charge as if she’d been stuck in tar.

He looked toward the approaching briarwraith with grim resignation, then back to me. “You still won’t succeed,” he said.

I was running, but I slowed, eyes on the wall of mist that cut off the others. In the distance, Rake was tearing through the crawling horrors with no sign of slowing. Bloody Steve was standing over a pile of broken chunks of ice with Jai’s motionless form at the center, hammers and body covered in blood. He was smiling wide and looking toward us.

I doubted he would let me do it, but I started emptying my Alchemist’s Kit with one hand and fumbling for a small vial of rot poison with the other. If I could just project…

“The little gods all scramble for a chance to defeat my master,” The Acolyte said.

His words made me pause.

Behind him, the briarwraith was getting closer. I could feel the immense cold of it drawing near.

“Your master? Ithariel?” I asked. My hands were shaking as I tried to dump rot poison in my now-empty bottle. I nearly spilled it on myself.

“The True Lord,” he said, laughing. “You pretend to forget? Or does your fear truly run so deep?”

The True Lord?

The Acolyte spread his arms like he was about to bask in the sun just as the briarwraith reached him. It pushed straight through his chest.

There was a sudden, sharp sound like a guitar string snapping. Then The Acolyte’s body collapsed inward faster than I could blink. The white orb flared brighter and grew in size. Half-formed, glowing white arms, limbs, and melted faces pushed out of its surface as it grew. There was a steadily increasing sound in my ears, like a roar of rushing water.

The red mist faded.

All the frozen trees stood to full height suddenly, limbs raised as they let out a deafening roar.

And then sharp, cold metal pressed to my throat. “Looks like it’s time to go, Mr. Helmet,” Rake said. “We’re running, and then you’re giving me that token.”

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

[Stop]

The voice boomed in my mind, and I had the distinct sense that it was coming from the briarwraith. A pulse of white force punched outward, washing over all of us.

Perch was already raising his hand toward Rake, but the golden string he was forming lost momentum, drifting to the ground. Kass lowered his bow. Lyria staggered, shield falling to her side. Even Bloody Steve, who had been running our way, slowed to a stop and stared as if confused.

I couldn’t move. I didn’t feel the cold anymore.

The briarwraith was featureless again. It seemed to glitch in and out of existence, occasionally flickering and scrambling before settling back to a solid shape. It began drifting toward me.

Fear clutched my insides, but I couldn’t move.

It came closer, moving slowly as death. The entire forest was still, frozen as if time had stopped. Only the orb moved, and it kept coming straight for me.

I kept picturing how The Acolyte’s body had been crushed inward with that horrible sound like a breaking string. I tried to force myself to move, but nothing happened.

The wraith paused before my chest, then floated upwards, only inches from my face. It was like staring into a cold sun. Pure white filled my vision.

[Compatible Memory Detected. Error… Accessing Deep Stream… ]

The voice trailed off as the briarwraith floated closer and closer, washing my world in pure white. Frigid tendrils of cold crept through me. My last thought was that death was less painful than I expected.

#

There was a time when our chairs in this Crystal Court were not empty so often. How long had it been since we’d convened like this? Decades?

Too long.

Ithariel was speaking the ritual words of gathering, but I hardly listened. I was still reeling from the sight—both physical and spiritual—of the other gods.

I barely recognized some of them.

Time had lost its grasp on us long ago, but several of my counterparts carried the stench of forbidden things in their spirits. Azmeria’s fire seemed alive now, twisted with some hidden power. I sensed something like a shadow within Elyon, lurking so deep within him that I wasn’t sure even he knew. Morathai was run through with tendrils of death and chaos magic that clung to every pathway in his body. Sylphara reeked of dimensional magic as if she’d been abandoning all caution and diving deep within the rifts, exploring the forbidden places.

I felt resignation like the weight of worlds as I let my senses drift around the room. Every last man and woman showed the signs.

We were all pushing the boundaries of our morality, our self-preservation, and our wisdom. Seeing the extent of how far they’d all gone in a few short decades was terrifying. I supposed fear did strange things, even to the likes of us.

I couldn’t pretend my explorations weren’t possibly the most dangerous path. I doubted the knowledge I held left any marks on my spirit or my body, but it could very easily lead to every single one of our deaths.

I’d found the edge we were searching for. I just had to hope we didn’t fall on it ourselves.

Ithariel finished the rituals and then sat back in his chair. “We can’t keep acting alone.” A strange crown of anti-light sat above his gray hair. It was new, but I wondered if it was only for show.

Most of us played the same tired game at these court sessions, even if they’d grown infrequent. We all postured, determined to imply we were still gaining strength. I knew we’d been stuck in a stalemate as well as the rest of them did, but old, silly habits died hard—even for gods. The game felt even stranger now. With the signs of unknown meddling in forgotten and forbidden arts, one of us may have truly surpassed the others this time. And yet, everyone still wore their best and stuck to the old ways in this court.

“Of course,” Celethiel said, voice lazy. The large man lounged in his chair, head tilted back. He ran a hand down his dark brown beard, white eyes glinting. “We should band together. And who better than Ithariel to lead our combined might?”

Sylphara tossed purple hair over one shoulder, leaning forward in a way that exposed her cleavage. “Want to be our lord, Ithariel? All you had to do was ask.”

Ithariel ignored their taunts, face like carved stone. “Seraphel?”

“No matter how I approach it, my assessment is the same as our last meeting,” I said. “Even combined, we can’t stand against it. Not as we are.” I said the last words very carefully.

Challenging the others on their obvious explorations would be hypocritical and dangerous. But I also hoped at least one could offer up what they’d discovered. Maybe one of them had found something less dangerous we could use.

I waited and watched as they all stared back, not one offering explanations or hope. I had to hope it was because their explorations were in vain, and their silence wasn’t protecting dangerous secrets for their own benefit.

“You’re sure?” Elyon asked, breaking the silence. His shifting greatsword was plunged deep into the Crystal Court’s floor. He gripped it tight with fingers covered in dozens of rings. “You could have misread the threat.”

There was an almost imperceptible sensation of somebody else speaking from deep within Elyon. Like a shadow pulling puppeteer strings connected to his mouth.

I shuddered.

I hope you know what you’re doing, Elyon.

Sylphara spoke. “I agree with Seraphel’s assessment. We can’t be sure. And we can’t risk failure. For now, we can hold the barrier.”

“While our enemy grows in strength by the day,” Celethiel added. Violet cracks were running through his skin like fissures in rock. When I tried to probe them with my senses, I felt overpowering nausea.

“You presume,” Sylphara said carefully. “Or have I missed your excursions into the rifts?”

Celethiel sat straighter. He let the torrent of power inside him flare as subtly as a fighter tightening his fist, but we all noticed it. The purple fissures glowed brighter and the sense of him flexing his influence was felt in the room. To us, it was a slight pressure at the temples. If he flexed his might like this around a room full of mortals, they would be vaporized.

“And how long since you’ve tended to your divine house, Sylphara?” Celethiel asked. “I hear it suffers while you disappear for years on end.”

“My divine house?” she asked, disdain dripping from her words. “Tell me you’re not still playing politics when so much is at stake.”

“Our houses are a great source of power,” he countered.

She made a dismissive sound. “Of pride, you mean. Pointless measuring sticks for those of you who can’t help but compare yourselves at every—”

“Enough,” Ithariel snapped. While none of us stood above the others, Ithariel’s general neutrality over the centuries gave him the right to serve as moderator for our formal meetings. His divine ability also granted him a level of prestige among the mortals that had a power of its own, too. “We aren’t here to bicker.”

Even the most level-headed and neutral of us seemed to be harboring a secret. I felt it slithering within him, coiled like a serpent around his spine.

Seeing how far they’d all gone made me more and more certain. My option was the only way. The best way.

[Memory Corrupted]

Splinters of light appeared through the Crystal Court, splitting existence like shards of fallen glass. I felt a distant, wrenching sensation yanking me away from it all.