“My son,” he said, eyes enlarging. “Where’s my son?”

—

There was something about the way he said it, the soft way his voice curled around my son, that struck Momo’s heart with a knife. God, empathy was a tricky devil. One Momo wrestled with like no other. So much so, that when she witnessed this tentacled monstrosity—the very summation of everything she had worked against—plummet before her eyes, she still had the unfortunate impulse to save him.

“Oh, damn it.”

She tucked her wings in and plunged towards him. He had a few seconds on her, but he wasn’t very aerodynamic; his deadened tentacles whipped like streamers in the wind. The broken pavement reached to caress him, but Momo’s arms were faster. She caught him in the bundle of her arms—bridal style—and landed like an earthquake, the pavement cracking under her feet.

“I broke the possession,” she said, breathing hard, then dropped Jarva onto the ground.

Wasting no time, Sumire strode straight towards them, straddled Jarva on the ground where he lay, and caught him by the collar. “You piece of shit,” she grunted, nearly frothing at the mouth. “I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.”

“Sumire,” Momo said softly. “Remember, he wasn’t himself—”

The pirate craned her head towards Momo with an unyielding fury in her eyes. “I did my fair share of time being under someone else’s control. I know—even when you’re completely submerged under their influence—there’s always a part of you that remains cognizant. A part of you that is complacent. Complacent in the killing, in the torturing… I could have fought against it, but I didn’t. He could have, too.”

Momo swallowed. “I don’t think that’s fair, Mire. You had your sister to protect.”

Sumire reached for her cutlass, wrapping her fingers around the hilt before pressing the edge of the blade to his throat. “What’s his excuse, then?”

Momo took a second to contemplate it. There was his son, of course, but caring about one’s son doesn’t exactly clear you of mass murder, dictatorship, and flagrant kidnapping, and she wasn’t about to justify his actions to Sumire of all people.

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“Honestly? I don’t think he has a good one,” Momo mumbled. This did nothing to dissuade Sumire, who pressed the blade even harder against his purple flesh. “But!” she interjected, throwing her hands up in the air. “There’s still so much information we need from him. If he’s retained his memories from while he was possessed, there’s quite possibly no other person on this planet—or this plane of existence—that has more dirt on the pantheon, Kyros included. He might be essential to us winning the bigger war.”

Momo squatted to Sumire’s level, and gave her a soft, pleading smile.

“You have your sister back now, Mire,” she said plainly. A bid for mercy. “Think like my Military Advisor. Your mind—seven steps forward as it always is—is the best asset we have. Don’t waste an irreplaceable opportunity because of a bit of adrenaline.”

Sumire’s jaw clenched. Momo saw a glimmer of doubt cross her face.

In the meantime, the sky opened wide. The giant dome of light, previously powered by Kyros’s magic, shattered, unable to sustain itself any longer. Sera’s barrage resumed instantly: ginormous hail, rain, thunder, and most critically, lightning, supercharged and radiating like the blaring lights of a football stadium.

Momo’s eyes immediately flew to Nyk. “Cover us!” she pleaded. The dokkaebi obliged with a grunt, draping black over them once more.

With her eyes closed in a migraine-like squint, Sumire finally came to a decision.

“Okay,” she said, rolling off Jarva. The octopus immediately took a sharp intake of air—grateful to be released from the threat of her blade. “You’re right. We’ll get the information we need, and then leave the gods to deal with him.”

Overjoyed, Momo wrapped her hands around the other woman, pulling her in for a tight embrace. “Thank you,” she said, whispering into her ear. “Nura would have wanted it this way.”

Sumire said nothing, only hugging her tighter.

“Momo. Your—uh—is he supposed to be doing that?”

Grimli’s voice tugged her out of the intimate moment. She whipped her head around to find Jarva wordlessly limping out of Nyk’s protective drape, his desensitized tentacles dragging along behind him. His entire manner was zombie-like: single-focused, lethargic.

“My boy,” he gurgled, his voice eerie and dreamlike. “Are you out there in the streets? I told you to not walk amongst the peasantry—they are dirty and unseemly. You should be in your quarters, focused on your studies. Your father can only offer you so many bodies to drain of experience, and the supply runs low. The prisoner exchange in Nam’Dal provided too little.”

Momo disentangled herself from Sumire and paced towards him. She opened her wings with a flourish, preparing to dive, just as his head completely exited the drape.

In that very same instance—almost as if the sky had been awaiting him patiently, vengefully—lightning struck him like an iron boot.

“Oh my god.”

Momo came to a screeching halt at the end of the drape, staring at nothing but a pile of ashes.

“When you said you wanted the gods to deal with him,” Grimli said. “I didn’t think you meant it so literally.”

Momo turned to chastise him, but then she felt something quiver in the pocket of her robe.

Her eyes widened in terror.