Kaitlyn had no way to tell how long it had been since Maribel had abandoned her amongst her tribe. She could not remember when she had last eaten. She could not remember when she had drank water that was not dew sucked from the wet face of the bed rock she was chained to.

  What Kaitlyn did know, though, was how many times she was gossiped about. Eighteen different women came up to the tablet twenty-seven different times, saying things like “such a shame” and “serves a whore right.”

  “I heard she was pregnant.”

  “Where’s her husband?”

  “What’s it matter.”

  “Who’d she kill?”

  “Herself.”

  Only five different men approached. They would say nothing but simply look at her with sad, angry eyes.

  None of that hurt as much as the return of Kaitlyn’s grandmother. Was it in the morning? Or the evening. Kaitlyn could not tell. She only knew that the sky behind her was twilit orange. Kraag’s peak loomed in the distance.

  “You fool.” That was it. Nothing more than that. And she turned and walked away from Kaitlyn. She offered no food or drink, nor did she bring her a change for her filthy clothing or a blanket to protect Kaitlyn from the cold.

  It was not the words of the gossips that bothered Kaitlyn, but the fact that they woke her. The dreams Kaitlyn had were getting more and more vivid with every passing moment she spent amongst them. And as they became more vivid it grew that much more difficult to discern it from her reality.

  She would be lulled into those triumphant dreams where she stood high on a cliff, overlooking those begging masses. But now, they were not faceless pilgrims, but instead their faces were those of the gossiping, judgemental men and women of her tribe begging for forgiveness from Kaitlyn as Kraag walked amongst them. His behemoth feet sweeping them aside or crushing them as he approached.

  Other clusters of the crowd would be consumed when the ground burst outward with a geyser of magma, belching sulfuric smoke. No more was Kraag presenting himself as the gentle, watery eyed god at first. His eyes would be glowing red, spilling shadows, and urging Kaitlyn to release her emotions.

  The god and the screaming mass would disappear completely when one of those gnarled old women would start assaulting Kaitlyn’s sexuality or her former family. And Kaitlyn would be stripped of her planet-rending powers. She would be shackled again to the bedrock. Used up till she was useless and abandoned by all she counted on for aid. The whiplash was painful.

  But she found solace in the fact that when she drifted back into her dream, the face of the most recent gossip would be front and center. And Kaitlyn would look at her, stare into her eyes, and rejoice as meteors crashed down on the bitch.

  “Your heart grows tired, Kaitlyn,” Kraag would say in his smooth, smaller-than-expected voice.

  “Everything grows tired,” Kaitlyn answered.

  “You know what to do, Kaitlyn,” Kraag goded.

  Kaitlyn looked to her feet. The funerary urn was there. The spirit of her child, her guilt, her emotions, they all ached to be released. And Kaitlyn reached for the urn.

  “That husband of hers. I hear his father was in with the Tarleys.”

  Once again in the waking world, Kaitlyn could feel her weak fingers grasping for the urn that was no longer there. Just mentioning Matthew’s existence was a knife in her ribs. She looked at the two old women, side-eying her.

  “What are you looking at?” Kaitlyn tried to ask, but her mouth was dry and her throat sore. What came out was a burst of coughs and hacks.

  “Probably a disease from laying with such a waste of a man,” the other woman said.

  “I hope her wedding gifts were a fair trade for the family she gave up here,” the first added. The two old women looked at the pitiful shape on the bedrock, shaking their heads as they walked away from her.

  Kaitlyn waited for the dream world to take her once more. It was not long before the two women were there, hot tears streaming from their eyes as they begged Kaitlyn for their lives. Kaitlyn waved her hand and a spring of molten stone enveloped them.

  “Release, Kaitlyn,” Kraag said. “Stop wasting time and let yourself free.”

  “Her poor mother cried for three days after she left. Silly woman. Should not have shed a single tear for such a terrible child.” This woman was the age of Kaitlyn’s mother and looked at her with such disdain. No one stood with her. This announcement was for Kaitlyn’s ears alone.

  When Kaitlyn returned to her dreamscape, that woman was one of many to be crushed under Kraag’s feet as he impatiently approached.

  “Kaitlyn,” the god said calmly. “You have suffered enough.”

  The shamaness looked at the urn. “I haven’t,” she said. “My baby did not have a day of life. It was sold to Matthew before it even breathed.”

  “That was Matthew’s sin, not yours,” Kraag told her.

  Kaitlyn simply scoffed. “Do not grace him with power like that. I wanted his love. Had he not stolen my baby, I probably would have given it to him before he asked. I deserve to rot here on this stone.”

  “Kaitlyn, you torture yourself but beg for mercy. I do not understand.”

  “I don’t either,” Kaitlyn replied. “I feel I need to suffer. But…”

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  “You do not want to?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then don’t Kaitlyn. For once in your miserable life, do something for yourself. Don’t be a tool for Matthew. And don’t be a martyr for Maribel! Everything you-”

  “My mom said she hates Kraag and cursed him,” said a young girl to her companion, a dough-faced boy that looked at Kaitlyn with a face scrunched in disgust.

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Because a man wanted to rape her,” the girl said, turning her nose up.

  “What does that mean?”

  How dreadful. These children were being raised in these prejudices and not even understanding the words they used.

  “-have done in your life has been for others. For once in your life, get what you deserve.”

  “I deserve to die,” Kaitlyn muttered.

  Kraag’s face drew near. His ruby eyes, still spilling shadows, were filling Kaitlyn’s entire field of vision. “Then die, Kaitlyn. But do it on your own terms. Not chained to your past!”

  Kaitlyn trembled in horror as the god breathed on her. Its breath was hot, arid, and alien. She looked at the urn.

  “Kaitlyn, you have-”

  “What is she doing?” an old woman asked as Kaitlyn rose on the bedrock. Kaitlyn could only vaguely hear her. Kraag’s face and words were everywhere.

  “Someone call the elders,” a man commanded.

  “-let yourself be used long enough,” Kraag said to her. “You have powers beyond any of those who have chained you. I have seen into you. I have seen what you are capable of. But I will admit something to you.”

  “What?” Kaitlyn asked.

  “I fear you, Kaitlyn. Because if you are permitted to, you-.”

  “She’s broken her shackles,” the man explained to Kaitlyn’s grandmother.

  “Kaitlyn!” the old woman shouted. But Kaitlyn was a world apart.

  “-could surpass even me. Release yourself. Free yourself. From Matthew. From the Church of the Will. From the guilt of your dead family. From me.”

  “What will I do?” Kaitlyn asked.

  “Live free, Kaitlyn! Why is this so hard to understand?” Kraag’s eyes were flaring, and the heat of his breath was overwhelming. “Do you truly thirst so much for torture? Fine!” Suddenly, Kaitlyn’s strangely satisfying dream world began to change. Darkness was closing in. Everything was going black except for Kaitlyn, the urn, and Kraag’s two eyes.

  “This is despair Kaitlyn. Your dreams are your only respite from the hell you endure with those you once called family. But if you spit in the face of my gift, then I shall take that sanctuary from you as well. My efforts shall go to others who are actually grateful for my gifts.”

  Kaitlyn was panicking. The darkness was cold. Kraag’s dry breath was no more. There was a breeze that chilled her, but it smelled stale and dead.

  “Kaitlyn!” her grandmother shrieked as she watched her granddaughter begin to shudder and convulse on the bedrock.

  Kaitlyn watched in horror as the ruby eyes began to dim.

  “Farewell, Kaitlyn. Another failed effort.”

  “No!” Kaitlyn wailed. “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to be given up on and left to rot!” Kaitlyn snatched the urn from the ground and ripped the lid off. There was a surge of emotion as her fear led to sorrow and rage.

  “I hate them! I hate the tribe for how they’ve turned their back on me! How they let Matthew take me and use me the way he did! I loved him and he treated me like his property!” The freedom was not coming quick enough. She raised her baby’s urn overheard.

  “I hate Maribel! She promised to help me, but she wanted my case study. Nothing more. I’m just a worst case scenario for her!” Kaitlyn smashed the urn. It exploded on the dark nothingness beneath her and the dreamscape began to return. The tribe stood in front of her, each of the gossips and judgemental adults and curious children looked on in awe and horror at the sheer power of Kaitlyn Carpenter.

  “I hate myself! I gambled with my family and lost!” Kaitlyn spread her arms wide. There was a crack as the cliffside beneath her split. The crowd wailed in terror as they watched.

  “Let your fear of me be justified, Kraag!” Kaitlyn swung her arms toward the distant peaks of Kraag’s shell, and suddenly her eyes widened.

  She was awake.

  The bedrock, motivated by her defiance of everything that had thus far come to define Kaitlyn, was soaring through the air in two massive pieces. Unintentionally, Kaitlyn had superheated the dense stone. It was glowing red, spewing thick black smoke as it tore through the evening sky.

  Aside from the low, unrelenting rumble of the meteor, there was an unearthly silence over the entire tribe. Kaitlyn watched in shock as the boulder grew smaller, flying toward the elder god.

  “What have you done?” Kaitlyn’s grandmother asked, shattering the silence.

  Kaitlyn snapped her head in the old woman’s direction.

  “Kraag does not fear you, and I do not fear you, you whore,” her grandmother snarled. “Look what you've done to our home, you bitch.”

  “If he does not,” Kaitlyn said softly. “He will. And you will, too.”

  Miles away, the boulder connected. The tribe was too distant to hear the collision, but Kraag’s roar filled the air like thunder in the distance. Kaitlyn’s eyes teared up as she saw an explosion of magma erupt from the side of Kraag’s shell.

  “Get her!” someone from the tribe screamed. The mass moved.

  Kaitlyn did not.

  The ground exploded upward. Fire and magma was all around as displaced rocks began pelting everyone and everything. Small pebbles at first, but Kaitlyn just needed to wave to tear boulders up from the earth, as well.

  Groundwater geysered as boiling torrents and steam, scalding the fleeing shamans as they dove through the calamity.

  Kaitlyn was weeping. She was feeling the full range of emotions she had held down for all those years with Matthew and even long before it. And through the emotions, she was destroying the world.

  In the shadows, the King’s Shade’s eyes twinkled with satisfaction. He had promised this power to Matthew in dreams a year ago. Never did he imagine it would be so strong directly from the source.

  Kraag’s host heard it before they saw it. They all sat with their families, enjoying dinner or time together, relaxing before the night chill set in. But then the sound of thunder. It never let up, though, it just kept barreling forward.

  Robin, eating with Yanni’s family just off of Kraag’s front-left foot had felt Kraag’s growing discomfort, but had no idea it was related to the madness of Kaitlyn Carpenter. He ran out of Yanni’s tent just in time to see the glowing, red rock falling from the sky.

  Much of its bulk had crumbled off or burnt away as it soared from the small tribe on the horizon, but even small, it carried enough fury to stagger the elder god.

  The collision was a sound Robin had never heard, nor ever wanted to hear again. Rocks smashed into rocks, exploding and groaning, triggering Kraag’s undulating, pained scream. The roar resonated with the earth, causing tremors that sent people tumbling and rolling across the ground. People already screaming and crying at the sight were tossed down, and there they remained when the dust settled.

  Robin stared up at Kraag’s dazed face, looking down at him with sad and pained eyes. He looked to the shell, the point of collision, which was eerily glowing. Molten stone was spurting and oozing like blood from the mountain at the point where the rock struck.

  Kraag cooed as he recovered, but he still looked at Robin with sorrow. Robin followed the god’s sad eyes and could see something burning in the distance.