Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
It’s beautiful.
I drop into the chaos. Land on a roof. Slide down a wire spine of twisted rebar.
The moment my boots touch dirt—
I feel them.
The dying.
The nearly-dead.
The afraid.
The spark curls off them like mist.
My fingers ache for it. My chest opens without tryin’.
The first one rushes me—blood in his teeth, gun in his hand.
I touch his throat.
Unspool.
It doesn’t even take effort. He falls like cloth.
The spark floods into me. Sweet and sharp. Hot enough to melt the back of my teeth.
I breathe out—and somethin’ inside me purrs.
I don’t stop.
I move through the alleys. Through the trenches. Through the fire.
And with each one I touch—each body I strip of that glowin’ thread—
I feel better.
Stronger.
Cleaner.
More.
I tell myself I’m doin’ this for Clara. To refill what’s lost.
But somewhere deep in the override, deeper than the mission, deeper than her—
I like it.
They beg.
I take.
They fight.
I take.
And when they scream?
That’s when the spark flows fastest.
I lose track of time. Lose track of bodies.
The ground is slick with it.
The air’s thick with it.
I think I laugh.
No. I know I laugh.
And the war keeps goin’, and I keep unspoolin’, and for the first time in a long time—
I don’t feel like I’m dyin’.
And on that bone, was born I.
The executioner and the death.
I feel alive.
And that… is the problem.
I’m somewhere else. Peace. Quiet. Dark.
The space between worlds.
The silence so loud it roars like a memory.
I step out, back into the fray.
Then out again, into the void.
Into the emptiness.
I walk across the air like a Messiah.
The whole Grand Design bows to me now.
I own this place.
Clara is strapped to a wall, the needle-threading cage pressed up against her body. All the little tubes barely glowin’ a dull-gray color.
I lean down and kiss her.
It pains me to unspool, and only my love for this woman gets me past the urge to keep it all for myself.
She takes it. Her color comin’ back.
Alive.
Saved, once again.
I turn, forcing myself to go back to that body. To be his slave. To keep going—for her.
Half a step later I’m face to face with the Corrupted God.
“I knew it,” he says. A smile of joy creeping up his face. “I knew it!” he laughs.
Somewhere, deep inside this factory, the crowd erupts—a distant roar.
Rise a God! Rise a God! Rise a God!
And this is when I understand the true meaning of losing.
37 - JASINA
It was the disappearance of Lilika that triggered it. After thinking about this for three days, I’m absolutely sure of it now.
Finn was perfectly fine that morning.
Was he, Jasina?
Was he really?
He was attentive, affectionate—the sex was good.
Wasn’t the sex good that first time too? When he bent you over the couch, got you off with his fingers—then passed out?
I hesitate, unsure once again.
I’ve been going through it in my head, over and over, deciding something new each time, only to talk myself out of it a moment later.
He was fine that morning. But. Just for the sake of argument—the argument I’m having with myself—let me think… his eyes were glowing, but it wasn’t a bad glow.
Do you hear yourself, Jasina?
Eyes don’t glow!
I understand this. But he’s being augmented. It’s part of the process.
Is what he did last night part of the process too?
That’s it. I can’t even bother to pretend to play devil’s advocate anymore. The pretense is over. Because this nagging inner voice of mine is right.
None of this was good.
None of it. It was a set up.
Deep down, I know this. I know this.
It’s just… I don’t know what to do with this information. What do I do? Finn is gone.
Gone!
He’s not the same man I met back home. Which wasn’t even a good man. Only marginally an acceptable one. But he got better. We got better together. And it was good before we came here to this city.
That’s not even true. Because we didn’t come to this city, we were brought. We don’t even live in this dimension, we’re visitors. This god is…
Say it.
Just… say it.
Evil.
There’s something wrong with him. With this place. With all the people here, even. Because the girls—how could they not notice Lilika’s gone?
It’s ludicrous. Absolutely bonkers that we all meet up in the mornings and just pretend that we didn’t lose a fifth friend just four days ago.
I tried to talk to them about her. The next day, after they left me in the tea room, book club unfinished, I went downstairs early. Maelis was waiting, but I tried to engage her about what happened the day before—when Elsha spit her words at me—You’re nothing special. You’re not above us.
And Maelis—quiet, frumpy Maelis—told me the same thing as she did the day before. One day, it will be your turn. Every spark has its purpose, Jasina.
That creepy motto.
Every time I asked her what she was talking about, that’s all she said. “Every spark has its purpose.”