It was a rough night. Volistad tried to insist that I go back to sleep, but there was no way that was happening. I had gotten us in charge of the tribe on a shaky claim of divinity. The people expected that kind of power, that kind of responsibility from me. There was no way I would stay curled up in the furs of Volistad's bed and sleep while he tore the village apart looking for any trace of other Eater-Spawn. We searched for hours, teams of rangers and Stormcallers going to every hut, down into every inhabited tunnel, searching for any trace of metal insectoid menaces. We didn't find any others. This had been a single attack, an assassination attempt. Was it meant for me, or was it meant for Volistad?

The easy answer was that it had been intended for me. But Barbas had specifically goaded me about Vol when he had sent his ‘messenger’ to speak with me. I already knew the real Barbas had been a little jealous of how attracted I was to the ranger- what could that little seed of envy have grown into now that he had been consumed by a malicious intelligence?

But even with the frantic, feverish search of the village, even with the threat of assassination, the night’s events had not been all bad. Being with Volistad had been amazing. He was strong but gentle to a fault, passionate and intense in equal measure. I wasn’t sure if sleeping with him had been the right thing for both of us at that time, but I was sure that given half a chance, I would jump his bones again. I needed it, I needed to feel him. I needed to feel human again, and he had made me feel like a normal woman once more. Sure, he had claws and dark bear’s eyes, and sure when he got excited he sounded like he was considering eating me, but none of that mattered.

What remained of the Elder's Council gathered around a fire that morning, each of us cradling steaming stone mugs of a potent fungal concoction that Volistad told me was a much-beloved stimulant. I sniffed it. It smelled evil, as if someone had melted down an old truck tire and mixed in the sludge with something entirely too sweet. But considering the way I liked my coffee, the smell was something I might be willing to overlook so long as it scratched that particular itch. I took a sip and was surprised to learn that it didn't taste at all like it smelled. It was a rich, savory flavor, completely different than that of coffee, but the difference didn't matter. It was hot and tasted something like roasted hazelnuts, and with every sip that I swallowed, I could feel just a little more wakefulness creeping into my mind.

Nissikul and Perwik seemed to have taken the news that Volistad was now the Deepseeker in stride. Neither of them had asked any questions. But based on what Volistad had told me of his predecessor, it might not have been as strange as it seemed. As near as anyone but Volistad and I knew, the Deepseeker had just appeared three generations ago and taken up residence on his little stone ridge above the village. He had always been a strange creature. To have him replaced so suddenly by Volistad was just a blip on a sixty or seventy-year history of lunacy. With Volistad in the Deepseeker's seat and Nissikul firmly in charge of the Stormcallers, the Council was almost complete. We still needed someone to take Vassa's place as the head of the priests, and a decision had to be made about our prisoners. Vassa was still locked in a tiny cell beneath the village temple, and Lot was under constant guard in his own hut. Vassa would probably be executed, but Lot was a difficult quandary. I didn't think he would cause any more problems. The wind seemed to have been firmly taken out of his sails. By all reports, he sat in his hut, unmoving, barely eating, just staring ahead. I supposed that it was a terrible feeling to realize that you had so utterly failed your people.

Perwik, apparently having drunk enough fungal tea to form complete sentences, cleared his throat. “Now then. Last night’s attack.”

Volistad responded smoothly. “An assassination attempt on the Akkandaka or me, most likely. I am already working on a magick to secure our borders against further incursions.”

Perwik blinked a few times, clearly caught off of his guard. Perhaps he hadn’t adjusted to Volistad’s new status so easily. “Er, good, Deepseeker. Have you an estimate as to when that will be complete?”

"Tonight. I have the basic theory down; it just needs some… fiddling." I smiled, forgetting myself. Vol honestly seemed a little surprised at his own acumen, and it was cute on him.

Nissikul smirked. “Don’t you think you’ve already done enough ‘fiddling’?”

Volistad almost spat out his tea. I snorted, feeling a self-satisfied smile creep onto my face. I nodded at Nissikul, acknowledging the point. She didn’t quite smile back, but the intent was there.

Perwik sighed. “Be that as it may, we still have the issue of dealing with the enemy. My rangers tell me that they’ve seen no sign of overt enemy incursion into our territory since that messenger arrived yesterday. But we cannot stay here and just wait for the demon, Barbas, to attack us. There have been two attempts on your life in a single day, Akkandaka. We have to take the fight to the enemy, and soon.”

“Do we even know where he is?” Nissikul asked, rolling the stump of her arm around in circles to stretch the muscles all around it. I noted that I hadn’t seen Thukkar today and wondered if she had any luck with him like I had with Volistad. I must have been thinking too loudly, because she rolled her eyes at me as if to say, Get on task, you horny fiend.

Volistad, entirely missing the body language between his sister and me, answered Nissi's question. "I have a pretty good idea where he's building his new tower. He made it clear that he was restarting Joanna's original project. He might even think he's serving their original mission."

“But he isn’t,” I cut in, quickly. “He isn’t in there. The face, the voice, it’s all a mask. That’s one of your Dark Ones out there, and we need to bring him down and put an end to him.”

“We need to bring him down alive,” Volistad corrected. “There is a way we can destroy the Dark Ones, forever. Barbas is the key. But we’re going to need to free him of the god that has consumed him.”

“Is that even possible?” I asked, sure that it wasn’t.

“My predecessor was convinced that it was,” he said evenly, meeting my eyes. I knew as well as Volistad did that Palamun, the god now combined with his mind, had designed the plan long before Volistad’s predecessor had been his host.

“If your plan doesn’t work,” Perwik began.

“It will.”

“But if it doesn’t, this could doom the entire tribe. Disturbing the Dark Ones is expressly forbidden for a reason.” He met Volistad’s gaze squarely.

Volistad leaned forward. “Look around, Elder. The tribe is already doomed. There are fifty thousands of us left. Just twenty years ago, there were sixty thousands. We haven’t heard from any other tribe since I was a child. We could be the last tribe of Erinye in the world.”

“Or there could be five-dozen more.”

“Or there could be no one else,” Volistad insisted. “If we just kill this enemy, if we bury him and seal him away, we’re still all going to die out, and soon. We can’t keep living this way. We can’t keep being prisoners of the cold and monsters Beneath. I’m telling you, if we seal this one away, the Dark Ones will just wait until we die out to try again. When we’re gone, who will remain to stop them?”

Perwik was angry now. “Surely the gods-”

“The gods are a lie!” I snapped, standing before I even realized what I was doing. I looked to Volistad and Nissikul for support, but they were both frozen in shock. They hadn’t expected this. I hadn’t either, but here we were. There was no way out but through. “I’ve met Ravanur, and so have they and she told us everything that had happened. She might have once been your Great Mother, but now she's little more than a glorified jailor. As for Palamun, you can ask Volistad where he's been all this time."

“Wait a moment,” said the Master Ranger, standing, a dark and vicious fury coming into his face. “Didn’t you come here claiming godhood? How dare-”

I surged forward and grabbed him by the front of his furs, lifting him up off of the ground with one arm and holding his kicking feet above the fire. "Listen to me, ranger. The gods are a lie. That doesn't mean your people don't need them. So no one outside of this room is going to find out the truth about Ravanur or Palamun. I will speak for the Great Mother, and the Deepseeker here will speak for the Father. The tribe may believe the lies and the legends because they need that faith to get them through the day."

I noticed that the corners of the Master Ranger’s boots were beginning to blacken, so I set him back down on the stone, and then stabbed my index finger into his chest, hard. “We’re not going to rob your people of their belief, but no one in this room gets to sit back and wait for two ancient people to save us. Ravanur and Palamun did everything that they could to save this people and the rest of the universe as well. They gave their lives up and consigned themselves to eternities of torment and futile struggling. It’s time to give them a rest. It’s time for us to take charge, and prove that our world is worthy of the sacrifices that they made. Do you understand?”

I waited for an answer, glaring at the old alpha predator with all the menace I could muster. The room was silent. Volistad and Nissikul were standing, but nobody moved. I could tell that Perwik was thinking about violence. But he hadn’t moved a muscle. It was time to bring him back in. “You did your people a great service already. Thanks to you, this whole mess hasn’t become something worse. We need your experience for what is coming next. Your people can’t do this without you.”

The Master of Rangers remained still for one long moment more before the fury went out of his face and his shoulders slumped slightly. “Alright,” he said, somewhat grudgingly. Then he showed the very tips of his fangs, and his voice dropped to a threatening growl as he added, “On one condition.”

“Name it.”

I assumed he was going to say something about how I would never raise my hand against him again. So I was completely surprised when his next words were accompanied by a highly amused smile. “You have to deal with the priests.”

The tension in the room broke, and we all laughed. I was relieved. The first step had gone somewhat smoothly. But this wasn’t the end, far from it. We still had a centuries-long war to win.