A quiet warmth spread through Cade’s body, and the darkness that consumed his vision faded into a gentle red. The crimson glow was like a girl’s blush or maybe the vibrant embers of a dying city.

  Wait, Cade thought. His mind moved sluggishly. Why are so many trees burning?

  “It wasn’t me!” he screamed and sat upright.

  His sudden motion elicited a sharp cry as his forehead bruised a girl’s nose. She was leaning over him, her two calloused yet petite hands pressed against his chest.

  “Ow! Seriously?!” she demanded and clutched at her face.

  “Meadow? What… What are you doing here? Are you okay?” Cade demanded even as he fought to sit upright.

  Though the worst of the pain had subsided, he felt like he was simultaneously plagued with the Drought Fever of his youth and approximately ten million hydrafly bites across his entire body.

  Jagged stones dug into his spine, and the heavy stench of burnt flesh and wet lumber clung to the air.

  “I should be asking you that, you idiot!” Meadow poked him in the chest as she wiped at the edges of her eyes. “Why did you try to burn out your core like that?!”

  Soot stained her brow, and she looked nearly as tired as Cade felt. He glanced over to where Hugh’s destroyed form remained, a sour taste crawling up his throat.

  “It was the only way to be sure,” he answered softly.

  A pair of rapid footsteps approached from down the road. Cade leaned his head in that direction and spotted an unwelcome figure quickly devouring the space between them. Cade turned to Meadow, all exhaustion evaporating from him in the shadow of his new threat.

  “You need to go. Now,” Cade demanded of the cute wood elf.

  “What?!” Meadow answered with a deep scowl. “You still need more of my healing magic, Cade! I’m not going anywhere!”

  Though his fingers twitched anxiously, he picked up her right hand and clutched it tightly.

  “Please.” Cade’s words tasted as foul as the Baron’s blood, but he forced them out. “You can’t be here for this. She will assume you’re with me… with us. And I swear that she’ll hunt you down for it. Please. Leave.”

  He would not let her future perish because of her compassion.

  “I am with you,” Meadow whispered, clutching his hand just as tightly.

  He let his desperation show. He didn’t hide it or excuse it away with a clever joke. She seemed to see it—the honesty. Her grip loosened.

  “Please,” Cade repeated hoarsely.

  She hesitated for one final moment, but then nodded. He felt a burst of warm energy spread from their intertwined grasp, and then she fled down the alley, past Hugh’s unrecognizable corpse.

  He let out a sigh of relief right as Helga reached the spot where he leaned against a large slab of stone.

  “It seems that strange girl was wrong,” Helga commented dryly as she looked down at Cade's labored breathing. “Death seems to have taken a nip and decided you tasted awful, isn’t that right, Stormhollow?”

  Helga followed Cade’s gaze and paled slightly at Hugh’s remains.

  “That seems… thorough,” Helga remarked with a cocked eyebrow.

  Cade laughed dryly, but it quickly devolved into a hacking cough. “Trust me. This was the only way to make sure someone like him stayed down. He’s had an awful habit of surviving things he shouldn’t be able to.”

  “Noted.” Her attention turned stony, and Cade fought to meet her unforgiving expression. “Now, where is it? Settle your debt or you die.”

  It wasn’t even a threat at this point, Cade realized.

  He felt the soul-curse’s final vestiges reach their end. The tournament was over. He likely had only minutes left before the curse activated. He swallowed hard. His blue eyes scanned the rubble, and he spotted the leather pack.

  Helga followed his survey and walked toward the bag. She tossed it to him, and he unclasped the iron-pressed buckles. His hand felt for the divine artifact, his tired fingers brushing against the Lifekeeper manual that had been so pivotal these past hours.

  For a breath, he thought it had fallen out. But there, at the bottom of his worn pack, was the Remnant.

  He gingerly picked it up, hating every second his skin was in contact with the vicious magic of Creation, he now knew. It had never been Life that had sealed the goddess of Destruction away.

  It was this energy—this antithesis to his very being—that had plagued him since stepping into that arena. It was why he’d passed out when she imbued all of the surviving champions with her magic that first day in the Tournament. Why her very presence was like a miasma to his body.

  She was poison.

  Cade offered the Remnant to his captor, and she took it with a long strip of cloth. He knew from experience that such a thin material could barely inhibit the object’s influence, but it was better than nothing.

  The moment the artifact left his grasp, his soul-curse tattoo flared to life. It burned as the powerful energy seeped out of his arm and dissipated into a golden mist above him.

  “I see your oath fulfilled, Cade Stormhollow,” Helga spoke in a formal tone dulled somewhat by her exhaustion. “And in honor of returning what was stolen, I declare your debt to Scorn to be settled.”

  The orc commander pinned him with a ruthless stare. Gold flecked with green burned in her eyes.

  “May we never see each other again,” Helga intoned.

  “I’d suggest getting the hell out of here, Stormhollow.” Helga said as she placed the Remnant in an enchanted box. “This city is about to collapse on top of itself. That goddess you unleashed seems pretty pissed at Life. Can’t blame her. That two-faced bitch is the worst.”

  Cade had half a mind to inform the orc on just how right her assessment was but decided against it. The truth was far more absurd than the millennia-old lie Creation had spun, and a comment from him wasn’t going to change that.

  Helga moved toward the edge of the city, leaving him there against the wall.

  “Have you seen my team?” he asked to her retreating back.

  Helga halted.

  “They’re dealing with Hugh’s crew as we speak. That assassin friend of yours is a terror to watch, even at Copper rank,” she called over her shoulder.

  “He’s not—” Cade started, but she’d moved on through a thick plume of smoke.

  He didn’t have time to consider her claim as a fierce gale kicked up beneath him. He only had a single breath to curse loudly before he was swept from off the ground and into the dust-choked air above.

  Dark clouds rolled across the sky like a rising tide, and he watched as below him countless citizens and travelers fled for the edge of the crumbling city. Along the coast that bordered Elysia, massive waves swallowed the docks and lower districts while geysers of lava and steam burst through the upper city blocks in uncountable clusters.

  The world was ending.

  There was no other explanation for all of this unrepentant and indiscriminate annihilation. The cyclone that encompassed him shifted suddenly. Cade whirled back toward the ground and noticed several other similar pockets of unnatural clouds deposit their temporary prisoners near the bottom of a massive crater in the center of this once-vibrant kingdom.

  The spell dissipated around him, and he was gently tossed onto the upturned soil next to every member of his team. He scanned each of them in quick succession.

  Gavin clutched at a wound to his left shoulder. Evie and Nora were holding hands and leaning on each other. Elena and Jer were adjusting the straps to the overladen packs, and Bunny was snuggled up against Rayka’s blood-soaked leg.

  When he saw his little sister, broken yet alive, it felt like someone had removed a god’s foot from his chest. Smoke billowed away from his passage as he rushed toward her, unable to hear the others’ calls of greetings or questions. There were only two people in the entire world.

  Cade sunk low, pulling his sister into a hug that could’ve crushed boulders.

  “Ooh! Cade, you’re going to make me look like that contortionist Jer dated if you squeeze any harder,” Rayka gasped out.

  He loosened his grip. Barely.

  Hot tears streamed down his cheeks as he stared at the ground before the one person he’d sworn to protect when he was just a little boy. He’d failed her, and they both knew it.

  “I’m so sorry, Ray,” he repeated over and over.

  “Cade. Cade, look at me.”

  The young thief couldn’t muster the courage to meet those blue eyes she shared with their mother.

  “Cade,” Rayka insisted, her voice taking on a steely edge.

  Warm hands lifted his chin, and he saw that fresh tears that mirrored his own gathered in her eyes.

  “I’m okay. I know you planned it all. Only one person on this hells-cursed could’ve planned a rescue mission that poorly,” she teased, grinning through the tears. “I’m just glad you didn’t get turned into a pile of soul-soup, or become one of that bitch’s personal love toys. We both know you wouldn’t survive being the submissive one.”

  She winked at him, and it was like the world had color again. He hugged her tightly again and then finally released her. She winced, the various wounds across her body clearly protesting the sudden movement.

  “You know I’m just waiting for the right woman to subdue all of this raw masculinity,” Cade jabbed back.

  Rayka Stormhollow rolled her eyes at her brother and punched him in the shoulder. He stood, the exhaustion from this shitstorm of a day settling back into his bones. His sister’s eyebrows furrowed and she scanned the rubble around them.

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  “Orro?”

  The way she said his name implied so much that he wanted to tease her about it immediately, but his own concern for his best friend won out.

  Together, they scanned for the assassin, his pulse quickening at the now-obvious absence.

  Before he could call out and question his team for Orro’s whereabouts, the darkly clad warrior stepped out of the smoky shadows, orange blade held out at his side.

  It dripped with a green ichor he didn’t recognize. Orro stooped and cleaned the broken blade on the corpse he just made, Jug’s massive bulk barely visible through the dense heat that originated at the bottom of this crater.

  Orro met his gaze from across the clearing and nodded his head once.

  “GOOD. COME, CHILD OF RUIN. I HAVE NEED OF YOU.”

  The winds shoved Cade forward before he could rush to his team.

  The divine magic kicked up down the steep slope, and he struggled to find footing beneath the loose rock and dark earth. Heat enveloped him, and it was like his entire body was inside a blacksmith’s forge. The source of the heat was unmistakable.

  Destruction, aglow like a breeze-kissed coal, stood over her ancient sister. Her skin was etched with the striations of magma over obsidian, her hair more flame than strand at this point.

  The goddess’ dark orbs remained fixed on Creation’s broken form, prismatic light pouring out of dozens of wounds in the fallen queen of Elysia. Cade slid to a stop a few feet away from the two sisters. One of Creation’s golden eyes glanced in his direction, and it was enough to convey the titanic weight of contempt she clearly possessed for him.

  “I… SEE YOU’VE BROUGHT A WITNESS FOR MY MURDER, SISTER,” Creation croaked softly.

  “OH, LIKE YOU DIDN’T BRING ALL OF OUR OLD SIBLINGS TO MY BURIAL, YOU ROTTEN CHILD,” Destruction replied dismissively.

  She gestured, and Cade was shoved to her side. The heat was nearly unbearable, and yet he could feel her restraint. Despite her nature, she withheld her wrath from him. Her bottomless gaze shifted finally from the fallen goddess and met his own wary expression.

  “I OWE YOU A DEBT,” the goddess intoned.

  “Oh, that’s alright,” Cade answered with his professional smile. “We can just call it even for helping my friends out by not—you know—killing them alongside everyone else.”

  Cade clapped his hands together and nodded at Destruction.

  “Seriously, no need to involve me in family matters,” the thief assured her. “I know how messy they can get.”

  Her obsidian features didn’t move.

  “OH, THIS IS A FAMILY MATTER, SON OF RUIN. YOU CANNOT CLAIM THAT TITLE, NOR MY POWER, WITHOUT INCURRING THE RESPONSIBILITY IT POSSESSES.”

  She pointed a wicked finger at Creation.

  “AFTER I DESTROY HER CURRENT FORM, TAKE HER TO MY DOMAIN IN THE SOUTH. ONLY THERE CAN SHE TRULY DIE. DO THIS FOR ME, SON OF RUIN, AND I WILL LET YOU KEEP THE POWER I’VE SHARED WITH YOU. NEGLECT TO FULFILL THIS SIMPLE REQUEST, AND THERE IS NO DOMINION OR HOLE DARK OR DEEP ENOUGH WHERE I WILL NOT SCOUR YOU AND ALL THAT YOU LOVE FROM THIS WORLD.”

  Cade nodded slowly.

  “YOU WOULDN’T DARE, YOU DISGUSTING WENCH!” Creation shrieked. “I AM CREATION! I AM NEEDED TO KEEP THIS WORLD FUNCTIONING. REMOVE ME AND IT WON’T MATTER HOW MUCH OF YOUR DOMAIN YOU RECLAIM! ALL WILL COME CRASHING DOWN AROUND YOU!”

  Creation tried to lunge at them, but she couldn’t move thanks to the thick cords of magma that strapped her to the ground.

  Destruction returned her ire to the deity at her feet.

  “MAYBE THIS WORLD COULD DO WITH A LITTLE CHAOS.”

  There was no prelude.

  No warning.

  One second, Creation’s head was attached to her wounded form. The next, it bounced off the ground, a razor-thin blade of magma now hilt deep where her neck had been.

  Even as he watched the execution of a goddess, Cade barely registered the golden pulse of energy sweep across the terrain in every direction. Creation’s body crumbled into radiant dust of greens and golds, each as bright as a miniature star for a breath before even that too faded into nothingness.

  Oblivion.

  Creation was dead.

  It was such a ridiculous notion that Cade fought to swallow a laugh.

  Movement caught his attention inside the dense plumes of divine smoke and mist. A tiny hand emerged and swept through the green and gold dust, and he took a step back in shock.

  There, sitting contentedly where Creation had just been, was an adorable child no older than three. She sat perched atop a dress made of leaves and wildflowers, a simple laurel braided into her blonde hair. The tiny girl possessed unnaturally large ears, but besides that, she was indistinguishable from any other young child Cade had ever met.

  “What in the actual hells is going on?” Cade heard Elena ask from behind them.

  “I CANNOT TOUCH HER IN THIS STATE. TAKE THIS CREATURE TO MY DOMAIN.”

  There was enough authority behind Destruction’s words that Cade was on the move before he fully understood what he was doing.

  The moment he knelt before the tiny child, he felt the power inside of her. It was raw and unfiltered, yet there was no denying that she was Creation. The same strange aura spilled off of her in wild and uncontained rivulets.

  Yet, even as he stood there for a few precious heartbeats, the aura faded into something of a dull glow. Subdued. Hidden.

  “NOW!”

  Where before it was a command, Destruction’s voice took on a distinct overtone that forced Cade into motion like nothing before.

  He knew on some primal level that if he didn’t move now, death and ruin would reach him. As gently as he could, he lifted the child and rushed back up the crater to where his team nervously waited for him.

  The moment he crested the small hill, the piercing boom of thunder clapped somewhere behind them. They all turned their attention as a golden figure of radiant energy slammed down in the pit next to Destruction.

  “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” the newcomer demanded with divine authority. “WHERE IS SHE?! WHERE IS MY BELOVED?!”

  The man’s gaze locked on the small child he held. His gaze returned to Destruction while a halo of radiant gold formed above his head. He rose into the air, glowing brighter and brighter with each passing moment.

  “I WILL CURSE EVERY LIVING THING YOU LOVE, WITCH,” the new god declared. “I WILL SEED THEM WITH ILLNESS, MALIGN EVERY CELL IN THEIR BODIES. I WILL VISIT UPON THEM COUNTLESS DISEASES AND RESCIND EVERY DROP OF MY POWER FROM THEIR BROKEN AND STARVING FORMS! I WILL RUIN YOU, DESTRUCTION, FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE THIS DAY!”

  Cade watched Destruction drink in the threats as if they were a balm to her soul.

  “I HAVE DREAMED OF THIS DAY, LIFE.”

  Life.

  That was the true God of Life.

  “I’VE ACHED TO SEE YOUR FACE AS I STEAL HER FROM YOU. YOU BOTH BETRAYED ME, AND I WILL NEVER AGAIN GRANT YOU MERCY. YOU WILL PAY FOR MY SUFFERING, STARTING WITH THAT PITIFUL THRONE YOU’VE NEGLECTED ALL THESE YEARS.”

  The ground erupted, and the distinct stench of Stephen’s domain filled the city. The god, Life, screamed in agony as his city exploded with the energies of undeath.

  Destruction seized the moment. Her obsidian fist connected with the god's face in a collision that seemed to make the very air tremble. The impact resonated across the battlefield, a thunderclap of divine violence that sent shockwaves rippling through the mortal realm.

  The unfortunate deity, caught off-guard by the ferocity of the attack, was hurled backward. His divine form carved a path through the rubble of his city, leaving a trail of devastation in his wake.

  Destruction, her eyes gleaming with wicked glee, wasted no time. She rose like a storm, her very presence causing the air to crackle with malevolent energy. With a sweep of her arm, she turned toward the sea, her trajectory marked by arcs of lightning that danced and writhed in her wake. Each bolt seemed to scar the very fabric of existence, leaving behind smoldering rifts in reality.

  Life shot from the rubble in which he’d been buried. His radiant form streaked across the sky, a comet of golden light intent on stopping Destruction's rampage.

  But fate, it seemed, had other plans.

  From the chaos of the ravaged city below, a third figure erupted into the fray. Clad in living shadows that writhed and pulsed with an otherworldly hunger, this new player moved with deadly purpose. In a blink, it intercepted Life, colliding with the golden god in mid-air.

  The impact was cataclysmic. Life and the shadow-cloaked entity crashed into a nearby city block with enough force to shatter the very earth itself. The buildings collapsed instantly, groaning in protest as they became nothing but brick and timber.

  Yet even as he grappled with this new threat, Life's determination remained unshaken. From within the cloud of dust and debris, waves of radiant golden energy continued to pulse outward. Each blast was aimed at Destruction's retreating form, a desperate attempt to halt her progress or perhaps to remind her that she hadn't won yet—that the battle, like the eternal cycle of creation and ruin, was far from over.

  As the divine conflict raged on, the mortal world trembled beneath the weight of their power. Elysia crumbled, landscapes were reshaped, and the very balance of existence teetered on a knife's edge.

  And, safe from this cosmic upheaval, Cade stood witness to it all. He was a mere mortal caught in the crossfire of gods, yet he was somehow, inexplicably, still standing.

  “It’s time to go,” Cade whispered to his team as he adjusted his grip on the baby Creation.

  His brain nearly shorted out when he remembered who it was that he held. “Nope. Sorry, I can’t do this. You are no longer Creation to me. You are…”

  He drifted off for a moment as they retreated toward the edge of the city near the ruined ports.

  “Chubbs,” Cade decided on the spot. “I hereby dub thee Chubbs.”

  “Did you seriously just name a goddess of one of the greatest dominions… Chubbs?” Nora asked as she jogged next to him.

  “Yep!” Cade answered. “Better that than a constant reminder of who we’re kidnapping.”

  “Is it really kidnapping?” Jer asked while he adjusted his packs so that they were easier to run with. “I mean, the next of kin asked us rather kindly to transport her to their home, right? We’re just really fancy and overequipped babysitters if you think about it!”

  “Sure,” Orro said as he jogged along with everyone else. “Keep telling yourself that.”

  The street ended in a sinkhole filled with rubble and half-collapsed homes. Cade carefully led them across a large crossbeam spread between two roofs on the brink of collapse.

  Chubbs giggled her delight and tilted her body at an awkward angle. Cade cursed and sent a quick burst of wind through his palm to correct their course before they tumbled into the ground far below them.

  Jer walked over the beam with obnoxious ease and grinned back at Cade.

  “It looks like the twins were successful,” Cade said as the team finished crossing the beam and continued down the decimated road.

  “Indeed we were,” Jer proclaimed with his hands on his hips. “Bernard and George are about to discover they’ve made a massive donation to our divine transportation services and childcare.”

  “How much?” Cade pressed, though a slow grin formed across his lips.

  “All of what was in their personal vaults, that’s for sure,” Elena chimed in with a wicked smile. “Those guilds are going to take a long, long, time before they break even again,”

  She tapped the side of her large bag, and it clinked appreciatively with the sound of coins rubbing against each other.

  “Well done, my friends!” Cade exclaimed. “Let’s get this tiny goddess to her sister, and then we’ll go spend that well-earned gold!”

  His entire team cheered. Even Nora smiled a bit at his antics, though she leaned toward him as the others congratulated themselves.

  “Do you truly intend to offer this little one to her sister for execution?” Nora asked in a whisper that carried a deadly warning with it.

  “No,” Cade answered quickly. “But we’ve got to let the scary magma lady think that’s what we’re doing until I come up with a way out of this new mess.”

  “I think that mess is about to get a whole lot messier,” Orro warned. “Getting out of the city is going to be difficult, even if it is just a ruin. There are still Lifekeepers everywhere.”

  Chubbs played in Cade’s hair, braiding and twisting it into a wild nest of knots. Bunny watched from his perch on Rayka’s shoulder, growling softly with indignation.

  “Tsk,” Rayka chided the little dragonling. “What am I, chopped liver? I can pet you just like he does. See?”

  She scratched furiously at the little dragon’s rump, and his irritated growl became a happy purr.

  “Hey, enough of that!” Cade warned her. “He’s still my dragon!”

  Rayka simply stuck out a tongue at him.

  Nora sighed. “Once word gets out what happened, we’re going to be fugitives. We’ll be ‘the ones who killed Life’ because that’s what everyone knew her to be. The truth won’t matter.”

  “Wait,” Gavin said reproachfully as Evie slipped her hand into his. “Does that mean we can’t tell anyone that I beat the Tournament of Life?”

  Cade took a second to realize the truth of Gavin’s words.

  “Dear gods, man! You’re right!” Cade clapped the man on his shoulder. “You’re the first champion of the Tournament in what, a few centuries? Most of them die at the end, right?”

  Gavin nodded glumly.

  “Well, how about this! The first town we find that has never heard of the Tournament of Life, we’ll order enough drinks to drown you in your lupine form and give you a proper celebration!” Cade declared.

  Gavin’s eyes lit up in what the young thief could only describe as earnest hope.

  “Really?!” he asked in an uncharacteristic squeak. “Will there be any chicken?”

  They all laughed.

  “It was a serious question!” he said.

  Cade looked behind them, Chubbs now firmly rooted to his shoulders as she placed several flowers that hadn’t been in reach into his hair. A wind ripe with the faint scent of vengeance rolled over his sweat-stained face, and he shuddered slightly. He met Evie’s knowing gaze, and she smiled sadly.

  “It’s about to get a whole lot worse, isn’t it?” he asked the short siren in a voice just loud enough for her to hear.

  Evie placed a consoling hand on his bicep and squeezed lightly. “You don’t know the half of it, Cade. We’re going to need to get a lot stronger if we’re going to stand any chance of surviving what hunts us now.”

  “Who’s hunting us?” Cade demanded just a bit too loudly.

  The rest of his team looked over their shoulders at Evie. The siren of the stars clutched her gnarled staff just a bit closer to her chest.

  “Everyone.”

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