Deka moaned beside me, trying to speak magic, but he kept stuttering. I struggled to stay on my knees. It would have been easier to just lie down and die. But I forced my head up, trembling with the effort, as Kahl took a step toward Itempas.
“You’re not the one I would have chosen,” he said, his voice shivering. “Enefa was the original target of my vengeance. I would thank you for killing her, in fact, but here and now, you are the easiest of the Three to kill.” He stepped closer, raising a hand toward Itempas’s face. “I’m sorry.”
Itempas did not back up or drop to the ground, though I saw how the ripple of power around Kahl pressed at him. It likely took everything he had to stay upright, but that was my bright father. If pride alone had been his nature, no force in the universe could ever have stopped him.
“Stop,” I whispered, but no one heard me.
“Stop,” said another voice, loud and sharp and furious.
Glee.
Even with my failing eyesight, I could see her. She was on her feet as well, and it was not a trick of the light: a pale, faint nimbus surrounded her. It was easier to see this because the sky had grown overcast, stormclouds boiling up from the south as a brisk wind began to blow. We could no longer see the Maelstrom, except in snatches when the clouds parted, but we could hear It: a hollow, faint roar that would only grow louder. We could feel It, too, a vibration deeper than the earth that Yeine had shaken. A few hours, a few minutes; no telling when It would arrive. We would know when It killed us.
Itempas, who had not stepped away from Kahl, stumbled now as he turned to stare at his daughter. There were many things in Glee’s eyes in that moment, but I did not notice them for staring at her eyes themselves, which had gone the deep, baleful ember of a lowering sun.
Kahl paused, the God Mask turning slightly as he peered at her. “What is it that you want, mortal?”
“To kill you,” she replied. Then she burst into white-hot flame.
All the mortals nearby screamed, some of them fleeing for the stairs. Itempas threw up an arm as he was flung farther back. Ahad, beside her, cried out and vanished, reappearing near me. Even Kahl staggered, the blur around him bending away from the sheer blazing force of her. I could feel the heat of her fire tightening my skin from where I was, ten feet away. Anyone closer was probably risking burns. And Glee herself…
When the flames died, I marveled, for she stood clad all in white. Her skirt, her jacket—dear gods, even her hair. The light that surrounded her was almost too bright to look at. I had to squint through watering eyes and the shield of my hand. For an instant I thought I saw rings, words marching in the air, and in her hands… no. It could not be.
In her hands was the white-bladed sword that Itempas had used to cleave apart Nahadoth’s chaos and bring design and structure to the earliest iteration of the universe. It had a name, but only he knew it. No one could wield it but him; hells, no one else had ever been able to get near the damned thing, not in all the aeons since he’d created time. But Itempas’s daughter held it before her in a two-handed grip, and there was no doubt in my mind that she knew how to use it.
Kahl saw this, too, his eyes widening within the mask’s slits. But of course he feared it; he had disrupted the order of all things, bringing the Maelstrom where it did not belong and claiming power he had no right to possess. In a contest of strength, he could endure, even against Nahadoth and Yeine—but there is more to being a god than strength.
“Control,” said Itempas. He had drawn as close as he could, anxious to advise his daughter. “Remember, Glee, or the power will destroy you.”
“I will remember,” she said.
And then she was gone, and Kahl was, too, both of them leaving a melted, glowing trough across the Whorl’s grassy plain.
Then two more streaks shot across the horizon in that direction, moving to join the battle: Nahadoth and Yeine.
Without Kahl’s power to crush me, I struggled to my feet. Damned knees hurt like someone had lined the joints with broken glass. I ignored the pain and grabbed for Deka, then dragged him over to Ahad. “Come on,” I said to both of them.
Ahad tore his eyes from the dwindling, shining mote that his lover had become. In the distance, plates of spinning darkness swirled out of nowhere, converging on a point. A massive, jagged finger of stone shot up from the earth, hundreds of feet into the sky in seconds. The second Gods’ War had begun, and it was an awesome sight—even if, this time, it would leave far more than just the mortal realm in ruins.
“What?” Ahad looked dazed when I gripped his arm.
“Help me get Itempas,” I said. When he simply stared at me, I jabbed him in the ribs with my gnarled fist. He glared; I stepped closer to shout into his face. “Pay attention! We have to go. With that kind of power in play, Glee won’t last long. Nahadoth and Yeine might be able to stop him, I hope, we can pray, but if not, he’s going to come back here.” I pointed at Itempas, who was also staring after Glee, his fists clenched.