"You are my champion," she says again, and this time there's weight behind it "You've been chosen to represent me in the Game of Ascension."
That name hangs in the air like a storm cloud.
I raise an eyebrow. "Is that... like a magical Hunger Games situation?"
She doesn't smile. "The Game of Ascension is no game. It is the will of the pantheon."
She starts to walk or glide, really around my room as she speaks, the hem of her ever-shifting gown never touching the floor.
"The old god the one who sits on the Throne Eternal has grown weary. After eons of rule, he seeks no more power, no more immortality. Only peace. But before he steps down... he must name a successor."
I sit frozen, a blanket half-twisted around my legs, watching this literal goddess pace like she's giving a lecture on divine succession in my shoebox dorm room.
"The gods cannot choose among themselves. So we have called for champions, mortals drawn from many worlds to our world, to Florence."
"And this… Florence?" I ask, the word slipping into my mind from somewhere deeper than language.
Her eyes flash with approval. "It is there the champions will battle and scheme. It is there the old king will fall and the new ruler will rise."
I run a hand through my hair, trying to ground myself in something tangible. The desk lamp. The radiator clicking in the corner. My physics notes. Reality.
"So let me get this straight," I say. "An ancient god wants to die, but before he goes, he's making you lot fight over his job by throwing humans into a deathmatch?"
She doesn't even blink. "Correct. The last champion standing wins. Their god ascends to rule the pantheon… and the champion is given a choice."
I glance at her. "Let me guess a crown or a wish?"
This time, she does smile. Just a little.
"You can rise to godhood… or have your deepest desire granted."
A beat of silence passes. My throat's dry. My mind races, torn between disbelief and some terrible, instinctive certainty that this is all real.
"Why me?" I whisper. "I'm just a broke physics student with a job at a grocery store and a fear of group presentations."
Deyinara steps closer, her voice now lower, almost intimate. "Because gods don't just need warriors, Jack. They need survivors. Strategists. People who see the world differently."
She raises her hand but then pauses, her violet eyes narrowing ever so slightly.
"Before you go," she says, "there is one final choice."
Her hand lowers, and with a flick of her fingers, three motes of light appear in the air between us, each pulsing gently, like living stars. One burns crimson, one icy blue, and one deep emerald.
"These are my blessings. Each grants you power unique, rare, and yours alone. But every blessing comes with a cost."
I stare at the lights. "What kind of cost?"
Her expression shifts not cruel, but solemn. "Magic is not free, Jack. For each blessing you choose, you must give up something of yourself. A memory. A part of your body. A piece of your soul, perhaps. The greater the gift, the greater the sacrifice."
The motes spin slowly, humming with restrained power.
"Choose carefully. One blessing may not be enough. But too many… and you may not recognise who you are when you arrive in Florence."
My mouth is dry. I glance at the lights, then at her. "And if I take none?"
Her eyes soften just a little. "You will go as you are unarmed, unprotected. But whole."
It's a test. A trap. A chance. I can feel it in my bones. Power at my fingertips… but how much of myself am I willing to lose for it?
She tilts her head.
"So, Jack Johnson… what will you trade?"
And with that question lingering in the air like a blade above my neck, the room goes quiet the stars pulsing patiently, waiting for my answer.
I look at the lights those glowing motes, spinning like planets caught in orbit and something inside me clicks into place.
I should be afraid. I am afraid. But fear isn't the loudest voice right now.
It's clarity.
If I'm going to be dragged into a battle where gods use mortals like chess pieces, where death is guaranteed for almost everyone involved… I'm not showing up empty-handed.
I point at the red light. Then the blue. Then the green.
"All three," I say, my voice steady. "I want all of them."
Deyinara's expression doesn't change immediately. The motes flare, just slightly, as if they heard me as if they're pleased.
"You understand what that means?" she asks. There's no triumph in her voice. Just gravity.
"I do," I say. "You said a memory, a body part, a piece of my soul. Fine. Take what you need."
She steps closer now, close enough that I can feel the magic radiating off her like heat off sun-baked stone.
"Then speak your sacrifice."
The words leave my mouth like they've been waiting there all along.
"My left eye."
The red mote flares.
"My left hand. Up to the elbow."
The blue mote pulses colder, sharper.
"And… my left leg. Above the knee."
The green mote brightens, almost mournfully, as if it knows what that cost will feel like.
For a moment, silence. Even the air feels still, like the world itself is weighing my decision.
Then Deyanira nods, solemn and unflinching. "So be it."
She raises her hand and this time when her fingers touch my forehead, there is no warmth. No comfort.
Just light.
A terrible, brilliant, tearing light.
I scream or maybe I don't. Maybe the sound is swallowed by the magic roaring through me, reshaping me. The world around me rips away like paper in a storm. The stars implode. My dorm room, my bed, my body they vanish.
I'm falling.
No. Transcending.
Fire licks through my veins, cold wraps around my bones, and something deeper than pain begins to claim what I've offered.
I feel it. My eye gone in a flash of heat.
My hand wrenched away with a cracking snap of bone and unmaking.
And then my leg. It's not severed. It's erased.
I am being remade.