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As I do so, Okot appears, wafting across the creature’s tentacles toward me.
“You!” I snarl. “Was this your plan all along?”
The god shakes his head in what I assume is an approximation of sadness. “It could have been different,” he says mournfully. “We could have been allies, but you left me no choice, Deka. My brothers intend to relocate your kelai a few days from now.
“While you and yours remain here, I will oversee the relocation, and then I will steal your kelai out from under their noses.”
“So what did you need me for?” I snarl.
Okot shrugs. “I wanted to be your ally. To create a new world with you. It is lonely, you see, to be a god without a pantheon.” He manages to seem almost remorseful as he continues: “It truly is a pity we could not be friends. I can see why my counterpart favored you.”
“And I can see why she hated you!” I spit back.
Okot only shrugs, a rippling of his entire body. “If I possessed the capacity for human emotions, I would undoubtedly be hurt. Let us stop now. I will give you one last small mercy.” He wafts closer, his eyes gleaming white as they peer into mine.
He’s trying to hypnotize me, trying to take control of my mind. But I won’t let him. Since the vale wraith is holding me in place, I can’t look away. So I do the only thing I can—I grasp my atika by the blade, letting its sharpness bite into my palm. Letting the pain center me in the present. Keep me from being ensorcelled by the power in Okot’s eyes.
Gold begins sliding down the hilt, my blood, dripping from the cut I’ve made.
Okot, thankfully, does not notice. “Sleep now, Deka,” the god intones. “And never again wake.”
I immediately flicker my eyes closed, pretending to sleep, but to my surprise, Okot doesn’t disappear that very moment. Instead, he says one last thing, a sentiment so low, I almost don’t hear it. An unexpected yearning, coming from a god like him.
“I truly wish we could have been allies,” he whispers. “Together, we three could have changed the world.”
With that, he’s gone.
And I’m left in the darkness, the vale wraith’s tentacles writhing around me. When I flick my eyes open again, it’s to a sight from my deepest nightmares. The vale wraith has Li almost to that colossal mouth now. One more slither of a tentacle, and my friend will be consumed.
“LI!” I shout, fully unsheathing my atika.
I twist in the wraith’s grasp with a strength and swiftness I did not know I possessed, slicing off the tentacle around me with one smooth movement. Then I’m running across that moist, soft body toward Li, who’s in a deep sleep, his face peaceful despite the enraged screams the vale wraith is now making.
Even wounded as it is, the creature keeps trying to feed. Its tentacle pulls Li higher and higher, that mouth gaping wider, the teeth gleaming sharper.
“LI!” I shout. “LI! WAKE UP!”
But there’s still no answer, not even when Ixa lunges out of the darkness to throw himself against Li’s unconscious body. That blue-green scent cloud is wrapping ever tighter around Li, dousing him in a veritable mist of pheromones. He’s lost to the world now.
Unless…
I sink into the combat state, suddenly grateful my friends aren’t wearing the infernal armor that used to be their daily uniform. Each one contained a small portion of my blood, which kept me from using my abilities on them.
Now, however, they’re completely unprotected.
“Li,” I say, putting every bit of power and compulsion I can behind my voice. “WAKE UP!”
My friend immediately gasps upright, his eyes disoriented. “Wha? Huh?” he asks, glancing around. Then he sees the vale wraith. “What in the name of—”
“EXTRICATE YOURSELF!” I shout, another command.
Li obeys my command with alacrity, immediately twisting to wrest himself from the vale wraith’s grasp. When the wraith lashes more tentacles at him, he slices through them automatically, his body fueled by pure instinct now.
But even that isn’t enough. Yet more tentacles hurtle Li’s way.
“IXA!” I shout, but I shouldn’t have even bothered. My blue-scaled companion is already darting across the writhing appendages, nimbly avoiding their ever more desperate movements, as he makes his way toward Li, who’s stabbing at yet another tentacle with his dagger. He twists it so that it embeds deeply in the slimy mass of muscle and skin.
The vale wraith screams again, a shatteringly high-pitched sound, but it’s nothing compared to a deathshriek’s cries, so I ignore it as I turn to my other friends, breathing to connect to the Greater Divinity’s power once more.
