Dreadgod (Cradle Book 11) (36)

Then a castle-sized gauntlet of amethyst armor. As Mercy’s mother strode through, her bloodline armor bled away to purple essence, streaming into the sky in a glowing cloud. Mercy released her breath, and her heart began to slow. Aunt Charity drifted through the air behind Malice, and she was still in one piece.

The Monarch wasted no time. The instant she emerged from the black portal, she turned in midair to address the flood of people beneath her.

“Flee,” Malice commanded, and Mercy felt the same compulsion to obey seize her as everyone else did.

She turned and ran. Most around her were running in a mad scramble, though some used techniques to leap, fly, or dash. Mercy found herself on top of Suu, pushing the staff as fast as it would go.

Her mother’s orders still held her, so she didn’t stop when she heard the Titan’s roar. But she did look back.

A black stone shoulder, large as a cliff, shoved through the shadowy mist. The Titan’s head came next, and its blazing yellow eyes met Malice.

Its spiritual pressure caught Mercy, making her staff shudder in midair and slowing the flow of her madra. Hundreds of people, closer and weaker than she was, fell like grass before a scythe. Their Remnants rose and were reduced to shining dust in the same instant.

The Dreadgod itself stared pure hatred at the Monarch. It strained to come through the portal, but it looked like Lindon trying to force himself through the crack in a door. The towering portal of shadow cracked and began to collapse, sending wisps of dark madra flying in every direction.

Malice hovered in front of the Wandering Titan. Her black hair drifted behind her like strands of night, black even against the skies of Moongrave, and she was nothing but a speck before the Dreadgod’s face.

The Titan roared, and the ground around the portal cracked. A building too close to the courtyard collapsed. More people fell.

Mercy herself felt the world go silent as something in her ears failed. She had thought the Titan was deafening enough when she fought it in Sacred Valley, but now she knew the difference between standing in the middle of an avalanche and having an avalanche scream at you.

Malice raised a hand, and Mercy heard the word with her mind and her spirit rather than her ears. It was the only sound she could hear.

“Close,” the Monarch ordered.

The pillar of shadow winked out.

Mercy hoped for a moment that the Titan’s head would be severed by the closing gateway, but instead it slid back as the opening vanished. The last pieces to disappear were its golden eyes, still locked on Akura Malice with hatred.

And hunger.

With the Titan gone, the weight on Mercy’s body and spirit lifted. She tried to turn Suu around, to go help the fallen people who had been injured but not quite killed by the Titan’s presence.

She couldn’t do it. Her mother’s command still held her.

Helplessly, Mercy continued flying to safety.





Sector Seven





Suriel drifted through the blue light of the Way with Ozriel at her side. He spent most of their trip humming, but her silence slowly quieted him.

“I am sorry, Suriel,” he said, moments before they arrived. “I did regret hurting you. I still do.”

“You could have told me.”

“Could I have?”

Her Presence spun out onto her shoulder and answered him. [No. After your disappearance was confirmed, Makiel kept Suriel under close observation. If she had known of your location, her actions would have conformed to certain patterns which—]

That’s enough, Suriel thought, and her Presence cut off.

Ozriel held up two manacled hands. “I shouldn’t be making excuses. I could have come up with a plan to include you, and it’s possible we could have deceived Makiel together. The success rate was low, but…”

He sighed. “…I still wish I had tried. Sparing you the pain would have been worth some more risk. And I didn’t expect to come back to all the worlds on fire.”

“I hoped you would show more remorse.” Suriel didn’t have the same rage as the other Judges—she understood Ozriel, at least to some degree—but she couldn’t say she wasn’t angry.

He could be forgiven for trying to solve an impossible situation, but he had tried to solve it in the same way he always did. By himself.

“It’s hard to hear about this level of destruction and not be grieved,” Ozriel said. “The difference between us and the other six is that we were grieving before.”

The Way shuddered around them as they crashed through a barrier. It shattered before them and didn’t even slow them down, but the barrier wasn’t designed to keep them out.

“That was made to detect Judges,” Suriel said. “They’re ready for us.”

Ozriel tipped backward as though letting himself fall into a pool of water. “No, they’re not.”

Effortlessly, he splashed into the closest Iteration.



Iteration 074: Spawn





Gerravon of the Silverlords remembered Ozriel.

The Reaper had been the most feared enemy of their organization for millennia, and hearing that Ozriel was back had caused many Silverlords to pull out of Abidan worlds permanently. But the Mad King insisted that the Reaper was not what he once was.

So Gerravon plundered Spawn, an Iteration rife with unique life-forms. His people gathered creatures from all over the central three planets, transporting biological samples into Void-striding transport ships the size of countries.