The woman walked up to Hogan, a number of her shining school of light still writhing, hissing, and whispering about her. She reached down and clutched at the golden square of the crown.

Hogan twisted in the monster’s grip.

Argoth felt the woman through the bond of the crown. It felt like something gnawing on his bones. She was breaking the crown.

How was this possible? This was a victor’s crown. It was supposed to be impenetrable. And then he realized the crown was, but the bond was another matter entirely.

The bond suddenly changed. The harmony that sang through him departed, replaced by something painfully off-key. Then the bond snapped altogether.

The Creek Widow cried out.

Argoth felt a great gust of his essence whirl up and away. The break had rent him. In panic, he tried to close up the leak.

Hogan grunted and struggled once more against the monster’s grip.

Argoth stemmed the break. A portion of his strength returned, but it felt as if a sword had just sliced through him.

The woman ripped the crown from Hogan’s head and tossed it aside. It landed only a pace or two from Talen.

The monster squeezed Hogan tighter, then shook him. And as it did, sparks of light fell from Hogan like pieces of ash to the floor.

“Unruly beast,” the woman said to Hogan. Her shimmering school drew around her, but not so tightly as before, for she was visible in their midst. She felt the side of her face where Hogan struck her with the chain.

She turned to the monster. “Hunger. Take him there.” She motioned to a place next to the rough figures on the floor.

The monster changed its hold on Hogan to clasp him firmly in one arm and got to its feet. Hogan struggled, but to no avail. The monster dragged him to the earthen bodies lying in their horrible rows on the other side of the chamber.

“That one will do,” said the woman.

The monster stopped and lay Hogan next to a rock and clay figure with a vicious muzzle. Splotches of dead grass sprouted from the side of the figure’s head and chest.

The woman moved close to the monster. She hovered over it. “This,” she said, “will be your first child. He’ll be more aware than you were, have more human memories from the start, be more intelligent, more powerful. You were a mishmash of many things; I couldn’t recover you whole. Not with the binding your original master had put upon you. But he is unfettered and pure.”

What was she talking about? Fear rose in Argoth’s mind.

“Separate the man,” she said. “Put his soul and Fire into the body of earth.”

At first Argoth could not believe his ears. Then the shock rolled over him. She was transferring Hogan’s essence-Fire and soul-to one of the still creatures on the floor.

“No!” he cried. “Stop!”

The woman turned to them. “You all will serve me,” she said, “with a lesser binding or with one of rock and stone. In your current bodies or that of another. I am now your master.”

Hogan struggled in the monster’s grasp. “Ke!” he called out. “River!”

Ke was already charging. But how could he? The breaking of the bond had nearly crippled Argoth. Argoth marveled at the strength in the boy.

Ke held Hogan’s chain in his hand. In a blinding motion, he drew back and struck at the monster with terrible ferocity. The chain wrapped around the monster’s neck.

Ke grabbed the chain with both hands and yanked it backward. Such a move would have ripped the head off a normal man. The monster jerked back, but it did not loosen its grip on Hogan. Instead, it reached up with one hand and tore the chain out of Ke’s grasp. Then it struck him with it full in the face. Ke fell to the floor.

“No!” shouted Talen. He held a knife aloft and charged.

The monster turned slightly when Talen got close and struck out in an almost lazy fashion. The blow made a sickening sound and sent Talen flying backward to land sharply on his side.

Talen gasped, rolled over, and tried to catch his breath.

The monster turned back to Hogan.

“Please,” said River, her collar still circling her neck. “We can come to an agreement.” But the woman paid her no mind.

“Nothing!” Hogan shouted. “Give her nothing!”

The monster covered half of Hogan’s face and head with one hand. It put its other hand on the face of the earthen figure.

The woman turned to the rest of them and spoke. Her voice carried like soothing music into his mind. “You cannot hide the one that was conceived and developed by my power.”

She held something up. It was the wisterwife charm Argoth’s sister had found on the chair in her bedroom. “Where is the one I planted? Where is the one that wore my might?”

Her words confused him. The one she planted?

Legs suddenly came shuffling in through the entrance to the chamber, feeling the wall as he went. “Sugar?” he called.

“You are such wild creatures,” said the woman. “Such difficult things to manage.” She motioned at Legs. “You fooled my servant with your ploy, but you cannot fool me.”

The ribbons of light obscured her face for a moment. “A new order is arising here,” said the woman. “One that hasn’t been seen in ages. The master that leads this harvest will rule empires. You will bring him to me.”

Argoth looked at Talen, who was holding his side in pain. Argoth’s mind raced. His sister, Hogan’s wife, had conceived wearing that weave. She had worn it through the whole pregnancy as the boy ripened in her belly. She had placed it upon Talen from the day of his birth.

They had all suspected he would be a prodigy: a restorer of lost knowledge, a champion. A gift from the Creators to help them fight their enemies.

He looked at the weave. Dear gods, what had they done? His mind snagged on something she had said: “this harvest,” she had said.

A great foreboding rose up in him. Snippets of ancient tales and lore flashed in his mind. Tales of devouring. He’d thought they were figurative. But he now realized they were literal.

“I have been calling,” the woman said. “I know he’s alive. I can feel him. He should have heard me. He should have come. But instead you hide him.”

“Lies!” shouted the Creek Widow.

“We shall see,” said the woman.

The monster turned back to Hogan and the earthen figure on the floor. Then the creature covered Hogan’s face with its massive hand.

Hogan twisted, trying to wriggle away, but he could not. He cried out and grasped the monster’s forearm.

“Be careful,” said the woman.

Hogan arched his back; he struck violently at the monster’s arm. The schools of light moved furiously, shining, shimmering, swirling around the woman, around the monster, around Hogan and the figure on the floor. Hogan jerked once, twice.

Argoth was paralyzed.

How could he fight this being? How could anyone when they didn’t even know what she was? The only thing he did know was that she was full of malice and that she wanted Talen. For what purpose, he could not guess. But she wanted him. And so she must not have him.

Argoth could not save Hogan, but he could rescue Talen from her.

He turned to River, who had almost worked the collar off her neck. “There is no way out,” he said. Even if they could find their path in the dark, they could not run fast enough to escape the monster. They could not fight it or its master with lore. “I used to think we could fight the thralls, but we cannot. Better to die free than live a slave to some horrible purpose in which we deliver our kind up on platters.”

River paused. He could see the anxiety in her bruised face.

“I do not have the strength, so you must deny her the one thing she desires. Put Talen beyond her reach. And then eliminate the rest of us.”

River’s eyes grew wide in dismay.

“I beg you,” he said. “Tell me another way.”

Death was their only escape. He wasn’t prepared to go through that doorway, but who ever really was? He thought of his wife, his daughters, and wondered if they still lived. He could not protect them now. He thought of Nettle lying on that table and the sacrifice that Argoth had recklessly wasted. Grief welled up in him.