Indicating the beginning of Judgment.
Panic will follow. Desperation. They will turn on one another in fear, reaching for whatever means promise survival, no matter the cost.
My hope—fragile as it is—is that they do not give themselves over to madness or despair. That they do not squander what little time remains because this is when what remains of mankind will truly be tested, and these final days will determine more than they realize.
They have only until the red moon fades to black, and then their time on this Earth ends—whether they are prepared for it or not.
A time of reckoning.
Then the final account will be taken.
And the Scale will decide who reigns.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Aftermath of Gods
Pollock
The Starfall
There’s no warning.
Just the sudden shift of his weight as he rolls, and the flash of fury in his eyes. His face is set hard with resolve, jaw clenched, gaze burning with malice as Lazreth slams both boots into my chest and kicks me free of his hold.
“Kahill!” His name tears from my lungs like shards of glass and tears from my throat because I know what this means.
For a suspended heartbeat, I feel everything at once—the violent compression of bone as my body curls forward, the brutal collapse of ribs, the way the air detonates from my lungs like it’s been torn free by a supernatural force. The heat of the star and the pressure behind me as I fly backward.
The sky and the Earth spin as I do. But I twist my head just in time to see Kahill and Lazreth already turning back toward their doom.
The star aims directly for him, a massive sphere wrapped in roaring unnatural flame, its godly radiance cutting through the space like it’s slicing through matter itself. The atmosphere warps around it, pressure rolling outward in visible waves.
The heat is unbearable as it floods over me.
The earth rushes up to meet me, and I hit hard, bounce like a stone across water, the ground tearing skin from bone. Every hot breath I pull in is a blade boiling my insides. My eyes can’t stand the heat and begin to grow hazy. Black bleeds in at the edges as they, too, burn. It’s utter agony, a searing of my skin, and no part of me is left untouched.
I roll again and again, each crash sending fresh pain through me. Instinct takes over. My fingers rip through soil and gravel as I fight to stop my momentum. I dig in with everything I have—hands, boots, nails. The ground shreds my hands. Gravel and packed earth bite into my knees as I finally catch on a rise in the fractured terrain.
That’s when the god strikes.
It hits like a fist from creation itself, flattening the place where Kahill lay and gouging a massive crater into the earth. Fire erupts. A violent ring of it roars outward, the sound so loud it reverberates and echoes back from the sky.
The land convulses.
It lifts.
It buckles.
What follows is a tidal wave, the ground rising in dissent. Debris and dirt rise a great distance away from the impact point, hurling rubble skyward in violent, uneven lines. Jagged seams rip open and race across the once-flat earth. Trees disappear, and others snap and fall. The nearby settlement is no exception. Buildings collapse as the ground opens beneath them.
I stagger into a run, lungs screaming, broken bones and all, because if I don’t, there’s a chance I will truly die here.
Bones grind against each other with every step, and the ever-present searing inferno from the star threatens to consume me as I stumble over uneven terrain. Flame licks up my back, eating through my cloak. My armor becomes a sweltering tomb, melting the skin underneath. Thick smoke fills my mouth and throat, and I cough hard as I push myself to go faster, leaping over fissures that are tearing open beneath my feet.
I glance back only once and see the crater did indeed land where predicted, and is now a blazing wound in the world. Fire and earth combine and coil upward in a ferocious spiral. The dying god pulses as though taking its last breaths, while at the same time devouring everything it touches.
I taste ash.
