Page 64

Let the Gods Take Over

“ W hat in the fires! Let go, stop! What are you doing?”

“Shh! It’s time!” Acranta bounces in the dark, dressed in a daring strip of fabric across her chest and an equally bold piece around her hips.

Her hair is heavy with dried flowers and leaves, trailing down to her eyebrows.

Her arms jingle with bracelets and charms. “Up, up, up! It’s time, it’s time, it’s?—”

“For what?”

“Oh! Zau told me, and he knocked, and he?—”

“The offering ritual.” Jelethia steps into the light, her face deep gray in the shadows. “It’s already started. It sucks that we just found out. But if we leave now, we can still make it.”

“Do you get it?” Fax exclaims, though I can’t see him.

“Tonight is a cloudless full moon. The first in many lunar cycles! Can you imagine what kind of ceremony this will be? It’s going to be huge!

When so much time has passed since the last one, the ritual has to be grander, stronger, and more spectacular! All the masters will be there, and?—”

“All the masters?” I sit up and shove Salahfar, making sure he realizes it’s time to wake up.

“Netharu’el wouldn’t miss it,” Acranta says.

“When are the final trials? How much time do we have?”

Jelethia blinks. “Don’t worry. We’ll make it.”

We’re getting close.

Although it’s the middle of the night, the heat is relentless, searing against my skin, making it sting and prickle under the intense moonlight.

But it’s not the moon that burns. It’s the volcano.

The stones beneath our feet radiate a smoldering heat, and the landscape around us is a wasteland of dry and lifeless black rocks.

Below, the jungle canopy sprawls like a dense, breathing entity, shifting in the soft night winds.

In the distance, the steady thrum of drums. Closer, the sound of our breath, shallow and uneven. The soft clatter of loose stones dislodging beneath our steps.

“Almost there,” Salahfar murmurs, his voice thick with sleep.

He leads the way, but it’s apparent he’s struggling. His feet are dragging, his back slouched. As if, at any moment, he might collapse and start crawling instead. Or simply drift off to sleep.

No one answers. Everyone keeps moving forward. Sweat glistens on the star elves’ foreheads, catching the light like scattered gemstones.

Everyone’s dressed in something bold and revealing. Even me.

Acranta forced me into an outfit that barely qualifies as clothing, with more skin exposed than I ever thought possible.

More legs. More stomach. More chest. My hair is heavy with adornments.

One section is woven into tiny, intricate braids, and another is strung with jewelry.

Threads laced with snake fangs. Bands of python skin.

A sinew threaded with dried serpent eyes.

They’ve painted winding patterns across my arms, calves, and thighs. Serpentine coils entwined with symbols so ominous they should be venomous. I look like a savage. A warrior born from the jungle’s depths, raised among fanoxes and wolves, spears and ceremonial pyramids.

We reach the summit, where the mountain bends inward, perhaps plunging downward. The edge is still out of sight.

The drumming intensifies with each spark, saturating the air with a heavy, ominous presence. The atmosphere hums with the weight of death, as if the night itself is holding its breath, waiting.

As if the jungle is waiting for the ritual to erupt in full.

“Now.” Salahfar stops so abruptly that Acranta and I crash into him.

And we tumble. All of us. Over the edge, tumbling down the slope.

No!

Sharp stones. Dust. Grit in my eyes. Scraped hands. Rolling, rolling, rolling. Stars. Ground. Stars. Ground. Something blazing. Bright. Crackling flames. A low rumble. Voices. Stars. Ground. Stars. Ground.

We stop.

Silence. Everywhere around us. The drumming has ceased. The shouts have died. The flames flicker, but no one moves.

I lift my head, hands buried in hot ash, my cheek pressed to the earth. I cough out dust and soot, spit out grit. Acranta and Salahfar do the same, gasping beside me.

Where’s Fax? Where’s Jelethia?

Eyes, dozens of them, stare at us, as glossy black as the lava is red.

The molten rivers slither and bubble, carving jagged paths through towering rock formations, pulsing with heat and life.

We’ve fallen to the bottom of a crater—a vast, open pit with sloping walls.

The edges loom sharply, some jutting out like the serrated blades of drawn swords.

Everything is scorched black, shrouded in darkness, laid bare beneath the stars—stars that seem closer than ever.

The sky is vast and mighty. It stretches over the crater like a backdrop of white eyes against the suffocating void of the night.

The air reeks of sulfur, ash, fire, and blood. My heart pounds, pounds, pounds. I don’t dare move. Don’t dare breathe.

No one speaks. No shouts. No laughter. No commands to leave. No hands reaching to pull us up. Or?—

“What in the fires are you doing here, young elves?”

A voice. A man’s voice.

His skin is as black as coal, his horns are curved and imposing, and his dark gray hair is swept back.

Though half his scalp is bare, it’s marked with stark white Arzakean symbols. He steps toward us, briskly and furiously.

Behind him, the ceremony stirs. They don’t care that we’re here.

Figures shift through the firelight, bodies twisting, horns flashing, bare chests and short skirts flickering between the flames.

The drums pick up again, slow at first, then deep and pulsing.

Animalistic cries rise to the heavens, voices murmuring, feet striking the earth in a rhythmic beat.

They shove, spin, laugh, and scream, a writhing, tangled mass of limbs and motion.

And just a few elf-lengths away, the ground vanishes.

A sheer drop into a chasm that rumbles, smokes, and spews heat into the night. I can’t see the bottom, but I can feel it.

The air wavers, thick and boiling. Even the oxygen burns.

“Zel! Acranta!” Fax’s sharp voice echoes down the slope, mingling with the clatter of tumbling stones. “Salahfar!”

“Are you all right?” Jelethia is right behind him, her breath coming in fast, shallow gasps.

“Get out of here!” the man approaching us shouts. “Hurry, before the gods awaken! You can’t be here when?—”

“Oh, how precious. Isn’t that little Ipjgepaleg I see?”

Just hearing her voice sends a chill crawling down my spine.

I push myself to my feet and see her closing in. Iaxa Ir’Aki, flanked by her devoted followers, Pareetha Asacth and Hakode Nav’ari.

Iaxa is draped in crimson, her arms wrapped in endless bands. Pareetha wears sleek snakeskin garments, while Hakode’s hair is tangled with bones and thorns, a mess of gnarled branches and spiderwebs.

“Little Iaxa should hold her tongue,” I growl. “Before she loses it.”

“You’d be wise to listen to Zondan and leave while you still can.”

“Precisely,” Pareetha adds with a smirk. “Before the gods arrive.”

“As if you’d survive meeting them,” Hakode sneers. “You’re a sun elf.”

“Don’t talk to her like that!” Acranta lunges forward, shoving Hakode hard in the chest. “Oh, if you only knew how?—”

“What in all the fires?!” Hakode stumbles back, then swings, striking Acranta across the cheek. “Get off me, you fool!”

“Ladies!” Zondan’s growl cuts through the rising tension. “Enough! Acranta, you should know better than to attack?—”

A roar shatters the air.

The ground trembles, the sky quakes, and stones come crashing down like hail. The star elves drop to their knees, pressing against the scorching rock. Arms raised, voices rising in a chorus of wails and prayers, they bow toward the sky, their bodies trembling with reverence and fear.

I glance at Acranta. She stares into the fire, eyes wide and glassy, reflecting the twisting flames. The flickering light makes her irises look strange, almost otherworldly. The roar deepens, swelling and vibrating as her pupils expand.

“Get down, you fools!”

Iaxa grabs my arm and yanks me down onto the burning-hot stones. The others follow suit, scrambling to the ground. Acranta lands beside me, her expression anything but calm.

Is it a dragon?

I swallow hard, steady my breath, and let my body ride the powerful tremors. Then silence. The shaking stops.

Slowly, the star elves rise, smoothly and reverently, as if something sacred now lingers in the air. We hesitantly follow their lead, glancing around us.

“It’s too late now,” Zondan says, his voice harsh. “Come to the fire.”

“You should’ve left while you had the chance,” Iaxa sneers, shoving me. “Sun elves die from things like this. Don’t you understand that?”

“I’m not afraid of death.”

“You should be.” Her voice is cold. “You’re naive, Ipjgepaleg. And you don’t belong in?—”

“Be quiet, Iaxa.”

I’m the first to push through the crowd, slipping into the living circle around the fire. I match the beat of the drums, my steps blending into the rhythm, my movements mirroring the others. I force myself to ignore the roar that just tore through the night.

My eyes dart across the crowd, searching, searching, searching for Netharu’el.

I have to find him. I must warn him about Vaast. But he’s nowhere to be seen.

Neither of them is. The figures around me are more shadow than flesh.

Some wear masks, others conceal themselves behind paint streaks, vanishing into the firelit dark.

The others press in beside me, Jelethia at my left, a stranger at my right, and Iaxa just behind.

A woman, tall as Kathraanis, moves through the circle, carrying a bucket brimming with dark liquid.

She hums, murmuring as she scatters the liquid in wide arcs.

Droplets splatter the fire, the ground, and our legs. The color is deep red, almost black.

“It’s blood,” Jelethia whispers.

“From what?”

“Monkeys.”

The woman reaches us at last, her gaze sweeping over our faces before she plunges a hand into the bucket.

Warm, wet fingers press against my skin, smearing thick blood across my cheeks, forehead, jaw, and throat.

It coats my lips, seeps into my mouth and lingers on my tongue.

Tart. Metallic. Behind her, another woman moves through the crowd, her body curvy, her eyes sultry.

She stops randomly, pressing her mouth to strangers, kissing them deeply. No one refuses.

Has she kissed Netharu’el?

Would he refuse?

“If she tries to kiss me, I’ll slap her,” I mutter.

“Not if I do it first,” Jelethia grumbles. “Same goes for you. Don’t get any ideas.”

“Not a chance.”

The drumming grows louder, the dance more frenzied, but no one has yet broken from their place. Instead, they press against each other, moving in ways too intimate for a public ritual. The seductive woman reaches us, her lips curving into an unbroken smile. A bucket dangles from her arm.

“Open wide.”

I cross my arms, fists clenched. “Why?”

“So you can drink, my dear.”

Her voice is soft, fluttering like a butterfly in the sun. But her skin is black as night, her horns sharp, her eyes the raw red of fresh-spilled meat.

“Drink what?”

“Ingol’Zaa, the drink of the gods.”

“Is it blood?”

“Among other things.”

Her smile widens. She lifts a brimming cup and pours several gulps down my throat. The liquid burns like acid, searing through my throat, eating its way down to my stomach like fire.

As if I’m burning. From the inside.

Everything blurs. My ears ring. The drumming intensifies.

The world tilts.

She’s gone. I grip Jelethia, nails biting into her arms. She dances with me and throws back her head, howling at the sky. She spins me round and round, laughing and grinning wildly.

“Isn’t it amazing?” she shouts.

“What?”

“Isn’t it fantastic?”

“I don’t know.”

Behind her, I glimpse Acranta’s dark hair and Fax’s wide grin, his eyes glassy and unfocused. I search for Netharu’el. For Vaast. Where are they? They should be here. Shouldn’t they?

Everyone looks different now—unfamiliar, wrong. Their faces are twisted, their movements feral. The air thrums with a feverish energy, something alive. With every spark, the energy sharpens and spirals. There must’ve been something in the drink.

More bodies press together, their dancing shifting into something raw, primal. Sesta, are they…?

My breath catches.

They are.

Not just one or two. Many.

Right here. Out in the open.

Bent over, on all fours, moving like beasts, like apes, horses, deer, or elk. No shame, no restraint. Wild and unbridled, as if it’s part of the ritual. As if it’s normal. And no one reacts. No one even notices except me.

“Jelethia!” The noise swallows my voice. Fire crackling, drums pounding like a second heartbeat, and voices rising in ecstasy. The press of bodies is suffocating; arms, elbows, and sweat-slicked skin grind against me. The air is thick and stifling. The stench of heat and death coats my tongue.

I can barely breathe.

“What?”

“What in Saxx is?—”

“I can’t hear you!” she shouts, laughing, her body swaying in loose arcs. She stumbles into someone’s arms, rights herself, and laughs harder.

“What’s happening? Why?—”

“Just let go! It’s normal.”

“What’s normal?”

She grabs my hands and spins me, and the world tilts and lurches. My stomach clenches. My pulse hammers, erratic, too fast, too loud.

“This!” she cries, breathless with exhilaration. “This is the ritual!”

“People are having sex!”

“Yes! And?” She grins, pinching my cheeks as if I’m the ridiculous one. “Calm down. Just let go. Let the gods take your body.”