But what could he do? He could not fight her.

In anger, he reached forward and took the boy by the throat.

Talen tensed. The monster’s hands were rough with stone. But more unsettling still was the feeling of something probing along the seams of his being.

The monster readjusted its grip.

Talen prepared to fling himself wide.

Then he was lost, floating, in his body, but out of it.

Panic rose in him. He’d missed his chance.

“River,” he called.

With a roar like rushing water, a door burst open within him and another one behind it. He could perceive the chaos of the monster outside that first door, and beyond it, behind the second door stood the woman.

Beauty. Power. Like nothing he could imagine. A being worthy of his every devotion. He longed to make her happy. But the truth sang in his bones. He knew she was an illusion. Knew her promises would turn to dust. However, it didn’t matter now as much as it had only moments before. He just didn’t care.

No, he said to himself. The link between them must be magnifying her effect. He focused on Da and River, on the monster.

“You please me,” said the woman.

He basked in her gratitude and knew he was hanging by a finger. He was slipping, sliding, falling into a powerful river from which he knew he would never return.

He had to act quickly. He could not withstand this longing.

“Come!” he shouted into the roar of noise. “Come and take me!” He threw open the fabric of his being and poured himself forth.

The Fire coursed from him through the monster’s arm.

Talen ripped himself wider, a massive rent. The Fire crashed around him like turgid rapids.

But the monster simply swallowed it up.

“Yes,” the woman said. “That is good.”

How much Fire did it take to break a man? How much did it take to break a monster? Talen had no idea, but what he was doing didn’t seem to have any effect.

Talen opened himself as wide as he could.

Black spidery lines ran up the creature’s arm, spreading down its side and along its chest. But the creature showed no sign of breaking.

Fear rose in him. This wasn’t going to work. He’d been a fool! He should have run to Uncle Argoth.

He tried to pull away but could not.

But he didn’t really want to anyway.

No, Talen thought. No! He searched for more to give, to release all that was in him. And then he felt something slip. He had been standing in the rush, watching it flow by. Now he knew he simply needed to let go, to flow with the Fire.

“What is he doing?” the woman asked in warning. “Stop it. Close him up.”

Talen ripped the remanants of the wall that stood between him and the monster and let go. Pain shot through him, and instead of standing in the Fire and watching it flow away, the Fire picked him up, engulfed him, carried him like a piece of flotsam.

So much Fire.

The tips of the fingers of the monster lightened like ash. A wave of white passed up the creature’s arm.

“It’s too much,” said the woman. “Close him!”

The boy’s power was immense. His pool of Fire vast. Hunger had never felt such power in anything he’d ever eaten.

He hadn’t felt it in the Mother.

Power rolled off the boy and filled the room. He was a storm, and Hunger was desperately trying to devour it all.

The amount of Fire roaring through Hunger to his stomachs was astounding. But what shocked him was that, Lords, he felt pain.

But no, it was the Mother’s pain. How could that be?

The link, he realized. She used Hunger to wield powers she could not. And the link was exposing her to the heat of the raging Fire of the boy.

“It’s too much!” she said.

An idea shot through Hunger. Hope sprang forth.

“No!” she said and tried to break her bond to him, but Hunger held her fast.

“Release me!” she commanded.

“Never!” Hunger cried, and instead of funneling the boy’s raging might into his stomachs, he directed it all through his bond to the Mother.

Talen flowed forth. The Fire engulfed everything. His vision blurred. His body screamed.

The woman yelled but her voice was drowned out by the rushing of the Fire.

He felt her trying to close herself against him.

The monster’s arm and chest were now as white as ash.

Talen no longer watched the Fire. He was the Fire. He was a furnace, an inferno, a roaring, molten sea.

The woman yelled, commanded the monster to let go.

The creature ignored her.

“Here,” Talen said, “is my heart’s desire.” And he gave himself, every whit.

A patch on the monster’s face turned ash gray. Then all flashed a blinding white.

There was a deafening roar.

The woman screamed.

A huge blast cracked Talen’s world.

The shock tore the monster into pieces, flung Talen like a leaf, hurled the others in the room into the rock. The Creek Widow tumbled away and crashed into the pallid beast. The bowls of liquid light smashed into the walls.

Talen reeled and saw a body below him.

He expected to slam into the ground, but did not. He was floating above the scene.

He looked closer at the body on the floor, and realized it was his.

River coughed. She lay on the floor, tangled in her chains. She got to her hands and knees. “Talen,” she said.

“River!” he yelled.

But she did not respond.

“Sister!”

She did not hear him.

The fact of the body on the floor finally registered with him and Talen grew very silent.

He’d expected pain would vanish at the moment of death, but he hurt all over. He felt as if he’d lost something essential, a leg or an arm.

He looked about to see if the others were moving. Ke lay on his side, face to the wall.

Something caught him and tugged him around.

It was a hideous thing, all mottled blue with many twisting limbs and too many eyes.

“Save them,” it said in a voice of gravel. “My pretty girl. My wife. Unravel the mother’s binding.”

Talen tried to pull away, but couldn’t.

“Quickly,” it said.

A piece of the creature before him struggled, then broke away and flitted off over its shoulder. Talen knew this abomination was the monster. It looked nothing like it had in that body of grass and stone, but he knew that was because this was the many souls of the thing.

It pulled on him with violence and carried him to his body.

Another part of the monster wriggled free.

“Quickly,” it repeated. “She keeps them in the room where she sleeps.” Then it stuffed him back into his body.

Pain slapped him, left, and came back in earnest. Talen gasped for air.

Another part of the monster began to writhe.

A loud buzzing filled Talen’s ears.

The monster turned as if alarmed.

Something black darted past it.

“Find my stomachs,” it said. “The ones she already took. Unravel them.”

Something struck the monster, seemed to bite or bore into its back. The monster winced in agony, but continued to close Talen in.

“Loose them,” it said. “Set them free.”

Talen’s vision of this new world diminished like someone had drawn closed the mouth of a sack, leaving nothing but three horrid eyes. Then they too winked out and the monster, the wicked buzz, the motion and light-all of it vanished.

Talen gasped and choked in a mouthful of dust.

He couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. Lords, he hurt. Something was broken inside his chest, cutting his innards like a knife.

He rolled over and cried out at a searing pain in his ribs, a pain that stole his vision and turned it into a flash of light. “Merciful Creators,” he prayed, imploring, begging for help. “Da.”

But the pain was too great and his whole world went white.