Trenn broke the surface, gasping. Mountain breeze and sunscreen filled his nose. He slicked wet hair back from his face, blinking against the dazzling glare of a high noon sun.

  He hooked his elbows onto the weathered wood of the floating dock and hauled himself up. Water streamed from his skin—pale, unscarred, whole. He looked at his left hand. Five fingers gripped the cedar planks.

  He chuckled, a breathless, baffled sound. He sat up. The lake was a mirror of the blue sky. The pine trees of the Laurentians stood tall and green, untouched by rot or Red Gods.

  "You look terrible."

  Trenn spun. Elora sat in the Muskoka chair near the edge of the dock, her legs crossed. She was wearing a Kevlar vest and torn jeans over her swimsuit. She was smiling, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

  "Elora?"

  She leaned forward. Her face was wrong. It rippled like a reflection disturbed by a stone, her features sliding and glitching with static.

  "You look like one of them," she said, her voice sounding tinny, as if coming through a blown speaker. "Like the Wild Mage warlords infesting Montreal."

  Trenn frowned, looking down at his chest. "What? Warlords?" He tried to concentrate on her face, on her voice. "I’m just… I’m me."

  "Are you?" The static over her face cleared for a second, revealing eyes wide with exhaustion and soot-stained cheeks. "Because from here, you look like you’ve been to hell and became the Devil. You look like the things we're hiding from."

  "Hiding?" Trenn stood up. The dock swayed under a weight that shouldn't be there. "I thought you were safe. Mom said—"

  "Safe?" Elora scoffed, pointing at the horizon. "Seriously, bro? We’re dodging fireballs out here. Every inch of Montreal Island is being fought over by little tyrants who think magic makes them gods. They’re carving up the city, Trenn. They’re enslaving people."

  The blue sky flickered, turning smoky grey. "The world is on fire. You need to come and get us—like—yesterday. What are you waiting for?"

  "Trenn."

  He turned. His mother, Annie, stood at the end of the dock, a few feet from him.

  “Mom?” he whispered, as her face snapped into focus. “I… I think I remember…”

  She looked tired, her edges fraying into grey mist. She stepped forward and reached out, placing a warm hand on his wet shoulder.

  "What do you mean, remember? Are you saying you forgot about us?” She looked disappointed and surprised. “You’re the one who told us to come to this doomed island. You need to snap out of it and come get us," she whispered. Her eyes were terrified.

  “Right… You’re right! I just… I need power to kill the Red God. With its ichor, the Grimoire Mages—”

  "You need to remember who you are. You’re not a power-starved Wild Mage. You have purpose: you're my son. You're coming to save us, before the Shears finish what they started."

  "I am," Trenn pleaded, putting his hand over hers. "I'm… I got sidetracked. People… people died. I… I forgot…"

  Annie pulled her hand away. "You forgot? Trenn, that’s not like you. It’s your mutation, isn’t it? Your Wild Mage powers are a curse. They’re twisting you, making you into another hungry Warlord. Remember who you are."

  She looked at his hand.

  Trenn looked down. His fingers… they were gone from his left hand. “No… No! I’m not! I…” Gold scales erupted from his lower back as his gem-encrusted crocodile tail returned, cracking the cedar planks beneath him.

  "Stop it, Trenn! Don't bring a monster home," Annie begged, her voice fading into the wind. "Please."

  "Mom, wait—"

  The sun turned black. The blue water of the lake curdled into thick, black sludge.

  “Stop dreaming of mountain cottages,” Elora said as the world faded. “Meet you on Mount Royal—don’t be late!”

  Mara caught Trenn as his knees buckled. His weight bore her down into the black sludge. His skin felt clammy. His breath remained a shallow wheeze.

  “Elora…” he whispered.

  “He’s burning up,” Mara called out. “Almitad? What’s wrong?”

  “The reanimated corpse is pulling at his Mana Radiation. He’s strong. He’ll be fine,” she said, turning back to the giant undead creature.

  The mountain of grey scales behind them spasmed. A rhythmic thudding vibrated through the earth as the Gem-Croc found its footing and pushed off the ground.

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  Its giant eyes opened, shedding decayed scales. Green fire ignited within the empty sockets, casting a sickly radiance across the Wolf Kin’s startled faces.

  In Mara’s arms, Trenn convulsed. His back arched, and a ragged gasp tore from his throat as the cold, discordant hum of the Necrosis Element clamped onto his Mana Radiation.

  Deep in the dark of his mind, the Gem-Croc’s soul stopped its confused thrashing. It felt the weight of its own bones return. It felt the potential for motion. A low, psychic purr of satisfaction vibrated through their tether—Trenn’s finger twitched—the giant dead god convulsed from head to tail.

  The pups huddled behind Wutren as the pink and yellow moth landed on the dead god’s muzzle.

  The beast groaned, a sound like an echoing gurgling stomach. It became perfectly still, standing on four pillars of grey flesh, head hanging low, tail completely immobile.

  Zeen stepped back, his musket leveled at the emerald flames. "It’s a rotting carcass. What use is this against the Red God?"

  “Are you daft, boy?” Vavnaar growled. “Put a few Ratling canons on it, harpoons, maybe a ballista or a catapult…”

  Janaree moved to the back of the reanimated carcass. “And we’ll have no problem carrying our booty with that thing.”

  Zeen looked at the undead thing, his eyes widening. “We’re going to ride into battle on the back of a giant zombie?”

  “Won’t be the first time,” said Ezy, climbing down the Crusher. “We need to make a platform and strap it to its back. It’s going to take more work than the Scrapper did, that’s for sure.” She turned to Almitad. “So who’s in control of this? Trenn?”

  Almitad drifted toward the beast’s spine. Her teal robes snapped in the rising breeze. The last petal in her chest flared with an incandescent light that turned her bones into silhouettes.

  "Yes. He’s both the fuel and the driver. But I can help prepare the vessel.”

  She raised her skeletal hands. Her fingers hooked into the air.

  "SPLIT," she ordered, power returning to her voice.

  A sound like tearing leather erupted along the creature’s spine. The grey hide unzipped from neck to tail. Scales parted. Muscles yielded. The dorsal line gaped open, revealing the dark interior.

  The undead shed its skin like a coat falling to the ground, revealing putrified organs petrified in hardened ichor.

  A collective gasp came from the Wolf Kins.

  Almitad’s hands rotated outward.

  "INVERT."

  Percussive cracks echoed through the God’s Wake. The beast’s sternum fractured. The massive ribs snapped away from the chest and rotated upward. They locked into place, forming a jagged railing that framed the creature’s back.

  The ribs groaned as they hyper-extended, clicking into place with the finality of a prison cell door, forming a cage-like railing around the spinal deck.

  The Shepherd of Loss thrust her palms downward.

  "HOLLOW."

  A hiss of pressurized steam billowed from the thoracic cavity. The stench of vaporized organs filled the air—a thick, cloying fog of heated decay.

  Vavnaar recoiled. He stumbled back, his hand snapping to the hilt of his sword. His hackles rose, a ridge of stiff fur bristling along his spine. He stared at the floating lich with the wide-eyed, primal wariness of a wolf cornered by fire.

  Behind him, the pups doubled scrambled backward on their bellies, tails tucked tight between their legs, whining like frightened curs.

  Janaree and Wutren stood frozen. Wutren made a sharp, jerky motion over his chest—a superstitious ward against evil spirits—while Janaree’s grip on her pistols tightened until the leather creaked. They gagged on the rot and trembled at the magic.

  The slurry of rotten viscera vanished, consumed by necrotic heat. The morphed skeleton of the Gem-Croc became a pristine statue of sanded white bone.

  “Sow!” Almitad finished, weaving her fingers in the air.

  Thick, gangrenous threads erupted from the marrow of the exposed vertebrae. They writhed like living wire, lashing around the ball joints of the massive femurs.

  The black fibers tightened, snapping the limbs into a weight-bearing lock. They formed a complex, pulsing rigging of necrotic energy that replaced the vaporized muscle, ready to torque the massive bones into motion.

  "That… that will work," Zeen stuttered, his voice cracking with manic appreciation. He stared at the smoothed-out skeleton. "The ribs are structural roll-bars. It’s not just a corpse; it’s a chassis!"

  The Almitad faltered.

  The runes on her bones had faded. Inside her patchwork cage, the final petal detached with a stuttering light. It drifted between her ribs. The green glow had vanished.

  Almitad’s right hand detached from her arm, followed by the bone of her forearm. She lost a leg, and her skull drooped as the rest of her body collapsed into a pile of discarded bone and colorful cloth. Everyone stared, but it remained motionless—a heap of silk and bone, her porcelain mask atop it, staring at the sunless sky.

  Ezy and Zeen stepped hesitantly towards the pile of bones that, seconds ago, was the most powerful Hedge Mage they had ever met.

  Mara, Trenn in her arms, flexed her fingers. “No claws… she’s really gone…”

  “She was a formidable opponent,” whispered Vavnaar, his voice tinged with respect. “She was a powerful ally.”

  Ezy bent down and collected the undead Mana Bloom’s stem and pistil. “She died and came back. She died again. Each time, her sacrifice turned the tide for us.”

  “Who knows how many people she helped cross the World Between Worlds,” Mara muttered. “I bet they’re waiting for her, on the other side, to thank her for shepherding their souls.”

  Zeen closed his eyes and shook his head. He stepped closer and collected her skull. “She liked to make art out of bones. She didn’t believe remains were sacred… she believed they were a resource.” He sighed heavily, his thumb tracing the smooth curve of the cranium. “I think… I think I’ll carve something out of this.”

  He tucked the skull into his pack.

  In Mara’s arms, Trenn’s back arched with a desperate gasp, as if he had just broken the surface of a deep, dark lake. His eyes snapped open and wide.

  "Elora!" he gasped, the resonant pitch of the Sound Element fading from his bones as the Message spell broke.

  The Gem-Croc’s skeletal head snapped up, jaws clacking shut with a sound like a falling portcullis. The emerald flames in its sockets flared, roaring into a high, keening blaze that bathed the canyon in green light.

  The massive skeletal head of the Gem-Croc lowered, looming over Trenn until it filled his vision. The heat of the necrotic fire washed over his face.

  Trenn looked up.

  He stared directly into the twin infernos burning in the monster's skull. The green flames danced wildly, and deep within Trenn’s own wide, unblinking pupils, the fire was perfectly reflected.

  He wasn't looking at a monster anymore. He was looking at a war engine. And for the first time since he woke up in the river, he knew exactly where he needed to drive it.

  "I remember…" Trenn rasped, the green light dancing in his eyes. "We have to go. Now."

  I have been waiting to write this specific scene since I started Book 2. There is nothing quite like solving a logistical problem with a giant, necromatic bone-ship! RIP Almitad—she went out like a legend.

  State of the Story:

  We are officially in the final arc of the first trilogy! Bonds of Ruin: Scrap the Gods, Bind Their Souls will be getting its "Finished" tag soon.

  What’s Next?

  There will be a short hiatus for Trenn and the crew between Trilogy 1 and 2, but I am not taking a break.

  In this chapter, Trenn saw a glimpse of home—a Montreal torn apart by Wild Mage warlords. During the hiatus, I will be launching my next novel: Mana Bomb: Warlords of Montreal.

  While Trenn and Mara were fighting for survival in the Mana Forest, Earth was burning. This is not a "side story." This is the story of the destination—the home Trenn is fighting to reach and the battlefield he will eventually walk into.

  Follow Rom and Natalie, two Wild Mages who didn't get isekai'd, as they navigate the chaos of the Mana Bomb on Earth and face the Warlords that have risen from the ashes. Two worlds, one timeline, on a collision course. The stories will converge.

  If you enjoyed the madness of this chapter, please consider leaving a rating or a comment! It helps wake up the algorithm as we head toward the finale. Thanks for reading!

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