Verune stepped back in shock, only to hear a sickening crunch mere inches behind his head.

The Lassedite turned. One of the fox-heads’ jaws had clamped down onto the upper half Archluminer Staples’ body. Blood washed out from between its fangs, pouring down the head’s ivory blue fur. It threw the Archluminer’s corpse with a flick of its neck. Bony, bloody pulp splat wetly on the marble, smearing trails as it rolled to a stop.

Chaos took hold. Fear reigned. Everyone scrambled.

And the beast gave chase.

Curling its back, the beast pulled itself into the world with one final thrust. Eustin’s brother Quinis screamed. The horror defied all his wisdom. Wrath snapped the black fox-head’s drooling jaws. The head flicked forward, brushing Quinus with its fur. A pelt of knives would have had a gentler touch. The bristling fur stripped the flesh off the Angelic Doctor’s body, flaying him alive like the heretics of old. Bits of bloody meat and presumption got speared on the individual hairs.

Prince Gus ran to the door, screaming for dear life. He slammed his fists onto the wood. He knocked and beat and bashed.

The doors swung open—outward, into the hall. A pair of Blueshirt guards rushed in with their rifles at the ready. The Prince clobbered one of the guards in the face as he pounded to the door, knocking the man’s rifle to the floor. The other guard stopped in his tracks. He saw the beast, and his eyes went wide. He scuttled back, screaming in terror.

The Empress tried to stand, but she tripped on her skirt and knocked into Mr. Rousas. Both of them tumbled onto the floor.

“I am a godly woman!” the Empress shouted. “I am a wife! I am a mother!”

Princess Elena shrieked continuously, lost to hysteria.

This can’t be happening.

The warmth of the Angel’s love pulsed within the Sword. He knew it. It flowed into him.

How? How…?

The beast staggered into the room, crushing furniture with its bulk. Its tail was like a great cedar. It swished along the marble, screeching like metal on stone.

The Imperials scrambled to their feet. The beast froze, flickering again, but then a mass of yips and barking caught everyone’s attention.

The Empress shrieked and pulled her daughter close.

A swarm of little arm-long fox-heads skittered out from the great gate, scurrying across the marble on furred crabs’ legs that sprouted from their sides, beneath their ears. The demented creatures rushed out from between the great beast’s legs, snapping their jaws, yapping and whimpering.

Everyone ran.

Prince Gus and brother-in-law shoved the guards out of their way as they bolted through the double doors.

As he ran, Verune saw a flesh-puddle snake into one of the little fox-heads’ paths, touching the creature’s insectoid legs. The mewling abomination lifted its body and howled, but the sound melted into an agonized gurgle as the walking head convulsed, softened, and dissolved. If there were any bones, they melted along with it.

Verune squeezed the Sword’s hilt like his life depended on it—and it probably did.

Bending over, Emperor Eustin wrapped one of his arms around the Empress and grabbed George-Donald with the other. He pulled both of them forward. The bearded manservant staggered as the Empress found her footing.

Everyone ran out into the hallway, passing over the fallen guard. The hallway shook—people screaming and staggering—as two of the great beast’s heads phased through the wall of the hallway. The creature’s necks flickered where they made contact with the wall. Multicolored flesh-wax spurted out from around the beast’s necks, eating away at the surrounding polished stone, wood, and wallpaper.

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The two heads’ jaws snapped in rabid spasms, flicking saliva everywhere. Verune launched himself forward by pushing off Mr. Rousas’ side, but then flicked his head back at the sound of young Prince Orrey crying out in terror.

He’d stumbled, and Madeleine was desperate trying to get him back to his feet. She lifted with all her might.

The flesh-wax rose into the air, forming winding trails. The fluid spiraled toward Verune.

Verune pulled off his golden cope and threw it at the multicolored fluid. The fluid cut through the golden fabric, slicing it like butter. And it didn’t slow the fluid in the slightest.

For some reason, it was this that made the former Lassedite realize he was about to die.

“Prince Orrey!” George-Donald yelled—only for Rush to kick him in the gut.

The Emperor’s son-in-law pushed his manservant into the beast’s bite-range.

Verune’s legs gave out on him. He tripped and fell, sticking out his hands to brace for impact. He crawled on hands and knees, scraping his iridescent vestments on the hallway rug as he clambered to his feet. Footsteps pattered past him.

“Orrey!” Madeleine screamed.

As Verune ran down the hall, the young prince ran in the opposite direction, toward the beast. The former Lassedite’s head swiveled on his shoulders, pulled by disbelief.

Prince Orrey bent down to help George-Donald to his feet.

The red fox-head tore through the hallway wall. Wood, wallpaper, and stone splintered in every direction as the head lunged at the easy prey. Its jaws opened wide, swallowing Orrey and George-Donald in a single bite. One of George-Donald’s arms didn’t quite make the cut, and instead fell to the side of the red head’s teeth. Blood trickled out from the severed forearm and stained the carpet red.

Verune looked ahead to see Emperor Eustin staring wide-eyed at where his youngest son had stood just moments ago. The Emperor screamed.

A gaggle of the leggy little fox-heads scuttled into the hallway through the freshly torn hole in the wall.

The Empress grabbed her husband by the hand and dragged him to run.

Screaming in rage at his brother’s death, Prince Gus turned around, ran straight at one of the skittering fox-heads and kicked it in the jaw, screaming in pain as its fur pierced his boot and impaled his foot. The little head didn’t care. It skittered past the Prince, dragging him by his foot until its fur popped. Desperate, Gus grabbed Rush, screaming for help, only to make his friend trip and stumble. The railroad tycoon’s son fell forward, right onto the back of a fleeing fox-head, impaling himself face-first on its crystalline fur.

Jacob Jr. didn’t even have time to scream.

The creature didn’t stop to eat Rush’s corpse or even shake it off; it just kept running.

Verune couldn’t understand it. He couldn’t understand any of it. He couldn’t understand why some of the little heads had turned around and leapt off the floor, snapping their jaws at the great beast’s three necks, or at the trails of melted flesh ever-arcing toward the Sword.

One of the little fox-head’s leaps sent it careening into the fluid’s path. The fox-head’s jointed crab legs twitched, the body grayed and shriveled—with a shudder—and then exploded, spraying kibbles and fur fragments in every direction, leaving a mist of droplets hanging in the hallway. Individual hairs of its fur pierced the walls and floor. A handful of them stabbed Prince Gus in the back as he ran down the hallway, sobbing in true agony.

Verune was dashing ahead—heart slamming against his chest—when someone grabbed his arm and made him stumble, nearly ripping his shoulder out of his socket.

He turned to see Madeleine. The handmaid had lunged for him. “You have to get rid of the Sword!” She shook his arm.

“No!” Verune whipped his body around and threw her off. “Then we will be doomed for sure!”

The woman’s face was flushed with tears.

Behind her, the great beast was at war with the little fox-heads. Teeth and claws tore and squished fur and flailing crab legs. The beast’s three heads split the little heads with snaps of its jaws, flinging their corpses down the hall. They stuck like darts wherever they landed.

And through the chaos, the flesh-wax snaked through the air, indifferent to the bodies flinging through it. The liquid flowed toward the Sword. Stalking it.

There was no doubting that.

Princess Elena fell to her knees, holding her head in disbelief, unable to press on. One of the melted flesh puddles passed underneath her. Instantly, her knees fell into the floor, as if through a hole. The puddle continued to move, slithering toward the sword, slicing off the Princess’ legs at the knees. Everything below her knees fell into the puddle.

Legless, she flailed. Her screams drew the great beast’s attention. The three-headed fox crawled forward. The walls rumbled and shook as it squeezed its way down the hallway.

Madeleine’s arms trembled as she pushed herself off the carpet. “Mordwell!”

He couldn’t let the power of God fall into an atheist’s hands.

Gulping down air, the former Lassedite sprinted ahead. The holy Sword swung with the movements of his arms. He turned down the hall, and ran toward the stairwell—

—No, this can’t be…

He staggered to a stop—nearly stumbling. The stairwell wasn’t in sight. It wasn’t where it should have been.

What?

Somehow, the hallway that led away from the Imperial family’s residential quarters had taken him back to the dining room. The fireplace was just as he and the Emperor had left it.

Howls and screams and death surrounded him.

Gus stumbled into the room, bloodstains blooming on his white military uniform. The Prince came to a stop beside Verune, his head shivering. Gus stared in disbelief.

“How… where?” Geometry itself was being turned on its head. “No… this can’t be…”

Behind him, the Empress screamed.

“RUN!”