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Envy meets Sorrow’s gaze and calls out to her. Through the stars, he calls out to all of them, to all of their friends.

Are you ready for the truth?

Because he is. He’s so very ready. But he needs them to be as well.

He senses the collective pause, from wherever each of them stands. Twisting, he catches sight of this rebel band, positioned at various intervals. Somehow, they find his gaze, collective realization dawning.

But how do they tell the stars they’re ready for truth? And how will the stars answer? How will the celestials prompt the change?

There’s only one way to find out. When they incline their heads, Envy twists back to Sorrow, who nods. Together, they make a choice.

They stop shooting. Eight sets of weapons lower.

As the battle rages, their band waits.

The dragonflies sense it first. Dumping their riders, the creatures scatter.

As the hemisphere begins to rattle like loose pebbles, every god and goddess stalls. Trepidation crawls up Envy’s spine. Had they misjudged? Done the wrong thing?

From a distance, he detects Malice’s words. “The fuck…?” the rage god draws out while tugging Wonder close and starting to retreat with her.

Andrew is less subtle. And much more deafening. “Ohhhhh shiiiiit!” Defying his limp, he hauls ass toward the stargazer fortress. Snatching Love’s hand on the way, he hauls the baffled goddess with him while yelling at everyone, “Foreshadowing! Motifs! Myths! Run! Run-like-fuck-get-out-of-the-open-the-stars-are-answering!”

All right. This isn’t the response Envy had expected.

Staying their weapons, all combatants register the constellations detaching from above.

Just like that, the world changes shape.

Just like that, the stars fall.

29

Sorrow

The sky collapses.

As the constellations break apart, asterisks plummet like comets. Great globes of lights arc from the canopy, spearing the universe in sharp, white blasts. Thousands of immortal heads tilt, a colony of faces unhinged by the spectacle.

Sorrow follows the trajectory. The memories string together, freezing her in place.

Grenades whistling above mortal soldiers. Mine fields detonating. Bodies tangled in barbed wire.

Except this isn’t the human realm. These aren’t grenades. And they don’t whistle.

They’re celestials, and they chime like serrated discs of silver—polished yet piercing reverberations that grow louder and louder as they cannon toward the cliffs. Though both are almighty, stars in the Peaks are infinitely smaller than those of the human realm. However, the former possesses a greater radiance, even from an impossible distance.

The spectacle is mesmerizing and so magnificent that it takes her seconds to remember: Anything that falls will eventually land.

With the first crash, the ground ruptures. The single star punches the earth, its crater spewing lambent shards across the summit.

The world revolves. Sorrow vaults off her feet, soars through a funnel, and hits the grass. She shrieks the instant her hip slams into the ground, her molars jostling in her skull.

Batting hair out of her face, she glimpses a riot of incoming asterisks. They rain down, cannonballing from the firmament.

Archers roll like marbles while others scramble to dodge the maelstrom. Some deities tumble over the grass. Some sprint, evading the celestials.

Constellations slash their way from the canopy, drive their ancient fists against the cliffs, and then splinter into fragments. Every descent causes the landscape to quake. Sorrow struggles to rise on all fours, then tosses her head this way and that, frantically scanning the panorama.