I rise.
Twenty feet of rage and ruin, carved from nightmare and mountain. My eyes blaze like open furnaces. My breath hits the air and makes it shimmer. The world looks small now—too small. The trees shrink. The rocks seem like gravel. Even the moon itself feels close enough to grab and crush in my fist.
I don’t see friends. I don’t see enemies.
I see motion.
And I want to break it.
There are soldiers down below—dark elves in silver-plated armor, shouting orders. Humans too. Screaming. Firing rifles. I hear the shriek of cold iron and the hiss of spellfire. It means nothing. Sound is a blur, a smear. All I know is blood. All I know is motion.
I stomp forward. Every step craters the ground. My breath fogs the air. Something explodes near my foot—Charen’s doing, probably—but it’s like a fly biting my heel. I snarl and swing. A boulder the size of a merchant wagon flies from my hand and flattens a phalanx of archers. The trees groan. The mountain shudders.
I see Veeto waving, trying to yell something. Toad Knight is slashing at an ogre with his stupid little sword.
Then I see her.
River.
Running.
Toward me.
She’s screaming something I can’t hear, boots kicking up mud and blood and shattered armor. She ducks under a burning log, leaps over a corpse, and plants herself right in front of me.
Tiny. Breakable. Human.
I raise my hand. Not to crush her. Just—because that’s what this body does. It moves. It tears.
Then she says it.
“Come back to me.”
The words are soft. Fragile.
But they crash through the beast in me like a bullet through bone.
Come back.
To her.
I blink. And I see her—not as prey, not as noise, but as River. My River.
My chest heaves. The roar dies in my throat. My fingers twitch and loosen. The bloodlust doesn’t vanish—it never does—but it recoils. Retreats. For now.
Then I turn.
And I let it out.
I throw myself into the army lines like a god of vengeance. Elves scream as I stomp through their ranks, sending bodies flying like leaves. I tear a siege engine from the earth and crush it into splinters. A mage hurls fire at my chest—it sizzles but doesn’t burn. I swat him like an insect.
Bruce charges in, bellowing, his feathers puffed, teeth flashing. He bites through a command tent, tossing bodies like a wet dog shaking water.
Harriet slithers through the rear ranks, all six heads spewing clouds of green gas that choke even the necromancers. Tents collapse. Horses rear and bolt.
And Charen? That foul-mouthed bitch is riding the wind, dropping web-bombs that explode in sticky fire, latching onto war machines and shredding supply carts. Her laughter cuts through the smoke.
I don’t stop. I don’t think.
