Note to self: never use an explosive magic arrow to dissect a frog. Bad for equipment. Worse for laundry.

  My bow hand still tingles, raw from the snap, and what’s left of my string hangs in sad little curls. The stink of roasted swamp meat clings to my hair and fishnets, no matter how hard the self-cleaning enchantment tries. And the cavern? A Jackson Pollock of slime, rock dust, and frog parts.

  I dig through… guts. Actual guts. Biology is Lenora’s thing—I only learned enough to scrape by in class—and right now everything looks like frog stew gone wrong. My fingers slip on something warm and rubbery before closing on the medical pack. It comes free with a wet slurp, trailing green, snot-thick ooze that strings between my knuckles. At least the zipper’s still shut. Small mercies.

  A low moan pulls me toward Lenora. My boots skid, arms pinwheeling as the floor slicks under me like greased glass. One stumble, two—half a dozen graceless slides later, I drop hard to my knees at her side. She’s pale. Too pale. More blood inside the frog than in her.

  I fumble open the pack, rip free a healing potion, and tip it to her lips.

  Lenora’s hand flutters weakly against mine. “No,” she rasps, voice shredded. “Tourniquet…” her fingers twitch toward the ruin of her leg.

  “Shite.” First Aid 101: stop the bleeding or the patient dies. Potions 101: set bones and clean wounds before you heal, or the body locks everything in place—crooked and dirty.

  My hands shake as I yank the laces from my boots. They come away slick, stinking of frog guts. I grab a jagged shard of bone from the floor—don’t think about where it came from—and twist it tight above her knee. Blood flow slows, seeping instead of spurting.

  My chest hammers. “Okay… bleeding’s down. Now—how the hell do I set the bones?”

  “Just… get the bones close,” Lenora whispers, breath rattling. “Rinse… with water… The potion will do the rest.”

  I nod, throat tight, and follow her instructions. My gut twists as she bites down on the filthy leather handle of her pack, muffling her own scream, while I pull and prod the splintered bone back into her leg. The sound—wet, grating—will haunt me.

  I dig out a bottle of saline and mutter an apology as I sluice the wound. She chokes back tears, groaning against the leather strap, but doesn’t let go.

  One crimson potion goes straight into the ragged gash, fizzing as it soaks the wound; the second I tip between her lips. She swallows, eyes squeezed shut.

  Her breathing steadies—barely. “Go to Frankie next,” she orders, voice hoarse.

  “Tess—”

  “Is buried under the corpse of the frog,” Lenora cuts in, her clinical tone a thin mask over the fear in her eyes. “You need Frankie free if you want any chance of getting to her. If she’s even alive…”

  “She lives,” I say with enough conviction to turn my own fear into something that sounds like confidence. I scoop up the medical bag and stagger forward—no, not walking. Skating. Each step is a slide, left then right, across a slick, shifting rink of blood, guts, and whatever the frog last swallowed.

  If it were ice, it might almost be fun. But the stench—rotting algae and coppery iron—claws down my throat and churns my stomach with every breath.

  Jenny groans as I swerve to a halt, sluicing a wave of gore across the frog’s carcass. She glances up, pale, then bends double and vomits. “You’re… smiling,” she manages between heaves.

  “Survival reflex,” I mutter, forcing my lips into a grimace instead. “How’s Frankie?”

  “Feeling a little short on the right,” she quips, her voice thin but steady. There’s pride under the pain, the kind of pride only a protector could have: she did her job. Jenny is alive.

  I follow her gaze downward and my stomach flips. A makeshift tourniquet bites into her ankle, cruel and tight, just an inch above the ragged end where her foot should be. Her jaw tightens as she notices my stare. “Don’t look at that,” she rasps. “I stopped the thing from swallowing her. That’s all that matters.”

  “A bit over the top, but good job saving Jenny. Now—where’s your foot?”

  Frankie blinks at me, incredulous.

  Jenny’s finger wavers as she points past me to the far side of the cavern. “You… blew it up.”

  “Frack!” I spin, almost losing my footing. My eyes sweep the gore until I spot it: halfway across the cavern, the frog’s jaws gape like a prehistoric exhibit, lips and tendons still attached. Wedged in the crook—Frankie’s missing foot, still in its boot.

  Jenny calls, “Where are you going?”

  “Off the deep end,” mutters Frankie.

  I ignore them, skating through coils of reddish-brown intestines and between white lumps of maybe-lungs. The stench is a wall—rot, bile, and pond-scum breath. I slide to a stop at the gaping rows of teeth. The boot is holding the jaw open. If I take it out, the teeth will snap shut. Simple… I just need a heavy bone or stick… except all the useful bones are back at the beast.

  Shite. My head spins as I plow my fingers through my hair.

  “Use a rock,” calls Frankie.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Idiot. Rocks, clubs, bones, sticks—hit it until it breaks is not the solution to everything!

  “Wedge it on the other side, ya daft fool,” she adds.

  Oh. Why didn’t I think of that?

  I skate to the side of the cavern and begin lugging rocks. If one is good, three are better. With an application of muscle and brains, I brace the far side of the jaw open. Then squat over the gore, brace my feet on the lower jaw, and pull.

  Nope.

  I change my angle and try again. It shifts slightly but refuses to move.

  Another rock. More leverage. Then I see the problem: the teeth angle inward. My yanking and pulling is only driving the teeth deeper into Frankie’s foot.

  Carefully, I climb inside the jaw, brace myself, and pull.

  The jaw crunches down on the rocks with a splintering crack as I flop onto my back, ducking out of the way. Now I’m inside what’s left of the frog’s head. It stinks—pond rot, ozone, and something like spoiled eggs. How did this thing live with itself?

  I am not going back out through those teeth. Like it or not, the only way out is through what used to be its throat.

  Yuck.

  I push Frankie’s foot ahead of me as I slither through the narrow hole. Slime and gunk fill my nose, pour down my chest, squeeze like toothpaste around my waist and into… yeah, best not to think about that.

  Frankie damn well owes me one after this.

  Several minutes later, I’m back beside my friends, using another bottle of saline to sluice mud and gunk from the end of Frankie’s stump and the remains of her foot.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then—”

  “Because Jenny loves you,” I say. “Because you’re my friend.” I jam her foot into place and rip the cork off a healing potion. “Because I don’t know how to give up.” I drizzle the potion over her ankle. “Because we need you—preferably whole. If not, then as much of you as we can have.”

  “Damn, Commander, I didn’t know you cared,” Frankie deadpans, then groans. “Punk in a powder keg, that hurts!”

  My eyes stay fixed on the bone as sinew and muscle knit themselves back together with each drop of precious potion. Steam rises off the wound, the smell of iron and frog-rot clinging to the air. “Jenny! Get another bottle ready.”

  Seconds later she fumbles one into my hand. I shove it back. “No—you take over.”

  “What? Why?” She gags, spits to the side, then steels herself and begins drizzling potion as my vial empties.

  “Because Tess is still in there somewhere.” I turn without waiting for her answer and dive headfirst into the smoldering ribcage. Heat and ash sear my skin, the stink of charred flesh filling my nose. The world narrows to smoke, sparks, and the desperate drive to reach my friend.

  A whisper—faint, almost familiar, but twisted by an accent I don’t know. It might be Tess, but…

  “Ael’sha. Veyrth an’vala. Drathen me cal’tir.”

  “Tess? Is that you? Are you okay? Where are you?”

  My palms shove into something that yields like a wall of meat. Do frogs even have diaphragms? The stench sharpens, thick and gagging, but so does the sound—Tess’s murmurs rising, prayer or prophecy, I can’t tell.

  “Seylen me dra’vora Inanna-majra!”

  It doesn’t matter. She’s close—left side. I dig, rip, claw. A nail tears loose. I don’t care. One last shove and the flesh parts.

  And there she is. Broken. Bloody. Breathing.

  “Tess! Oh, thank God!”

  Tess’s eyes snap open and lock with mine.

  Golden light floods her irises—rippling, twisting, then weaving itself into a ribbon that folds, spins, and becomes an infinity sign… no, a M?bius loop, turning endlessly without end.

  Her lips move. It’s her voice, but not her language. It feels like Norse and Gaelic and Latin thrown into a blender and poured out smooth—familiar and alien at once.

  A meaning presses against my skull, not heard but understood:

  I am become the Prophet of Inanna, the Goddess of Life, Love, and the Sacred Feminine.

  I am she who brings balance to the Second Core.

  I am she who sees all time, who remembers what is yet to come

  , and what must come if our children are to live.

  Care for me, dear friends, while I learn at the feet of the Goddess.

  My breath catches. “What? Tess?” I shout. “Jenny. Anyone. She is alive. I need help.”

  A rhythmic tap echoes through the corpse. Low, like a giant stepping. A dancing giant.

  Far away, Frankie’s frantic voice carries. “What are you doing, lass? Stop. You are going too—”

  WHOMP.

  The carcass shudders. Bones rattle. Muscle tears.

  “Princess. No.”

  WHOMP.

  Crack.

  A pencil of light brushes Tess’s face. Her eyes drift closed and a soft, peaceful smile blooms.

  THUMP.

  The corpse splits. Glitter falls like snow.

  “I told you it would work,” Jenny says with a smug grin. She stands with a curved bone in both hands like a club.

  “Princess, it is one thing to split rocks,” Frankie grumbles.

  “I am going to work on splitting water next.”

  Frankie throws up her hands. “Damn it, girl! Look at ya—used all your power, can’t hardly stand, and me in no fit state to catch you.”

  Jenny stumbles, then straightens, eyes lighting up. She claps her hands together and sings out, “Ooooh! Pop-up!” She squints, then reads in her best royal herald voice: “Congratulations! You have unlocked the skill: Sonic Rend!”

  She flourishes the rib like a scepter. “Your sonic attacks gain plus fifty percent power and may cleave through non-living matter.” She bows. “Which makes me the undisputed Queen of Splitting Things.”

  Frankie groans. “I have created a monster.”

  “You are starting to sound like Catalina,” Jenny pouts, then brightens as she looks at me. “Come on, Lizzy. Let us get Tess over to your girl-slash-boyfriend. She has been fretting like an old hen since you dove in.”

  “I am worried about Lizzy adding herself to my list of patients,” mutters Lenora.

  “I’m fine, dear,” I call in my best Lucille Ball impression. “I just need a good wash.”

  “Right,” deadpans Lenora. “Well I’m not, so why don’t you drag Tess out of there and then come over here and doctor me for a change?”

  I smile and begin shifting what’s left of the corpse off Tess. Jenny joins me, and half an hour later we’re back at the shore of the underground river. We wash—well, Jenny and I wash—then I scrub Lenora clean while Jenny babies Frankie. Together we float Tess into the pool, the water swirling pink around her as the last of the frog’s gore lifts away.

  Her chest rises and falls in shallow rhythm, steady but fragile, each breath a whisper against the silence. She’s alive—thank God—but her eyes stay closed, lashes trembling only once before stilling again.

  I cut away the tattered scraps of her clothing, and my hands freeze.

  Tess has always had tattoos: the Inanna rank star etched into her hip, the curling designs down her arms and legs. But this… this is new.

  A golden eight-pointed star blazes just below her collarbone—the very sigil of Inanna, Venus’s star, carved into her flesh like a brand of destiny. A lioness reclines across her left breast, not lounging but poised, alert, every muscle coiled with power. On her right, Inanna herself sits upon a golden throne, eyes forward, as if daring the world to deny her. Symbols sprawl across Tess’s torso—spirals, crescents, shards of cuneiform script I don’t recognize—flowing together in a pattern that feels both sacred and utterly alien.

  Jenny’s breath catches. She leans close, her finger trembling above the star. Her voice is hushed, reverent, almost prayerful. “The Star of Inanna… the lion, her throne… it’s her blessing, Lizzy. She’s been chosen.”

  My gut knots. The words Tess spoke inside the frog’s carcass echo through my skull—Inanna’s voice braided with hers, promising prophecy and doom. A miracle? Maybe. But miracles usually come with a price.

  “Anything’s possible in VR,” Jenny whispers, as though afraid to break the spell.

  I swallow, my mouth dry. “My question is… will she still have them in the real?”