The return of Brtet’s inhabitants was a far gentler event than whatever had occurred beneath Inea’s palace, when there was still a palace. Brtetsias’ control was fortunately sufficient that she deposited all the gods close to Derzina that she might explain to them what had happened. Or at least those few parts of it that she understood.

As she was doing so, she felt a jolt of panic; Atasimon had not returned. Trying to keep calm, she paused in her explanation for a moment and considered immediately returning to Brtetsia. But reason prevailed, and she decided that if Atasimon had waited this long she could wait a little longer.

Resuming her hurried recounting of events, Derzina found that Inea and Xanathel followed along just fine, while Gorthar limited himself mostly to groans and grunts. She asked him if they shouldn’t attend to his wounds first, but he waved her off, claiming to be fine.

Once she’d told Inea the broad strokes of what had happened, the goddess made a quick announcement to the many people of Brtet who were doubtless rather confused at this point. Inea told them a simplified version of what had happened, putting much emphasis on their victory, and little on any of the more confusing details. She concluded by asking that they all return to their homes and wait for the next announcement. Only then did Derzina reveal Brtetsia to the assembled gods.

The diminutive goddess stepped out before her assembled peers; her eyes bright with interest.

“Hello,” she said, “I am Brtetsia Omun, named by Derzina Omun for the city of Brtet in which I was born. What are your names?”

“I am Inea, Lady of the Splendorous Host,” Inea said, cutting off Xanathel as he opened his mouth. “And this was once my city, before it was stolen from me by this scoundrel.” She gestured towards Xanathel, who only smiled politely at the insult.

“While I have the honour of being Xanathel,” the dark-haired god said, “Lord of the Creeping Dark.”

They both paused at that point to give Gorthar a chance to introduce himself.

“I’ve had enough of bickering children,” he muttered, “let me die in peace.” Still muttering under his breath, he staggered off on his own. Derzina considered going after him, but he was sure to refuse her aid and she didn’t want to leave Brtetsia alone with the other two gods.

Brtetsia turned to Derzina and asked, “Am I supposed to have a title like that?”

“Not yet,” Derzina said, “they’re generally acquired later in life.”

“Oh okay.” Brtetsia went to stand before Inea, craning her neck to look up at the much taller goddess. “How did you acquire your title?”

When Inea shifted in place in lieu of replying, Xanathel answered for her. “She didn’t. She never received one before the merging, so she gave herself one in the early days of our city.”

Inea stared daggers at him while Derzina wished she could have joined Gorthar, she was also beyond tired of the gods’ petty fighting. Hopefully Brtetsia wouldn’t think this was a proper way for gods to behave.

“Am I allowed to live here?” Brtetsia asked.

A collective hush fell across Derzina and the gods. Derzina had no idea how to answer, it was really not her place to decide such things. She was certain if the question had been posed before Inea’s downfall, the goddess would have demanded Brtetsia’s service in exchange for her joining the city. However, now that the order had shifted, no one seemed to know quite what to do.

Several moments passed before Xanathel finally spoke. “Are you willing to serve and protect the people of Brtet? If so, then I see no reason why you shouldn’t be allowed to stay.”

“Serve and protect?” Brtetsia echoed. “I don’t know if I can do either of those things.” She looked to Derzina. “Can I?”

“I would assume so,” Derzina said. “You are a god after all, though I know little of what you’re capable of.” Certain that the little goddess’ knowledge of such scarcely exceeded her own, Derzina decided to offer a little test. She pointed to the abandoned building where she’d concealed Brtetsia. “If that whole structure was somehow a threat to the city, what would you do to prevent it doing any harm?”

“I don’t know. How would I know that?”

“I realise you don’t yet know, but think about it. Try to use whatever power you have within you to achieve what you wish.”

Though she had almost no personal experience with such power, that was more or less how she’d heard the process described by Paladins when she was training to become one.

“I’ll try,” Brtetsia said, closing her eyes. Her whole body faded away, growing insubstantial, and the building did likewise. They turned to faint lights, then shadows and finally vanished altogether. Derzina was wondering if the goddess had disappeared for good when they popped back into existence, though the building remained gone.

Brtetsia admired her handiwork with a look of wonder. “It’s gone?”

“It certainly appears so,” Derzina said, waving her arm through the now empty space. “What did you do?”

“I’m not sure, I just focused on making it go away.” The little goddess shrugged. “And, well, it did.”

“Quite the impressive feat,” Xanathel said, punctuating his statement with a muted round of applause and a friendly smile. “If you’re capable of that much, I’m sure you’ll be of great use to our city. We’d be happy to have someone so capable helping us.”

Derzina was sure he was only doing it in hopes of gaining another ally, but she was still glad to see Brtetsia accepted so easily and Derzina finally began to relax. Meztraxia and his army were gone, along with the heart. Everything else seemed of little importance next to that. All that remained was to return Atasimon from wherever she’d ended up.

“It looks like you have a place to call home now,” Derzina said, “which I’m glad to hear, but there is one thing I still must ask of you. There was another goddess, or at least part of one, that dwelled within me. She was taken from this world along with the others but never returned. Do you have any idea what might have happened to her? Or if you can bring her back?” Back from wherever it was they’d all gone. Had the building gone to the same place?

Brtetsia shrugged. “I brought all the gods back, are you sure she was one?”

“I’m certain. Are you sure you don’t know what might have happened to her? Where could she have gone?”

“I’m not sure, you should see for yourself.”

“Wai—" Derzina didn’t even manage to finish the first word of her objection before she was whisked away from the world she knew.

The sky was gone, replaced by endless black, and all around here sat a great host of demons atop ground formed of a strange mirrorlike substance that made everything appear doubled. Derzina darted away from the armoured demon sitting before her only to stumble over another behind her. Hopelessly surrounded and thinking she must surely be dead or about to be, Derzina lashed out blindly.

When nothing happened, she looked around to see that none of the demons had moved a muscle or reacted to her presence in the slightest. They were all fixated on the same single point. Derzina turned to see what so entranced them and beheld a globe formed of a thousand-thousand dancing purple lights. Every demon sat facing it, though those closest to it were slumped over.

“I’d suggest you avert your eyes,” called a voice, “unless you wish to end up like them.”

Heeding their advice, Derzina instead sought out the speaker. Naked to the waist, with most of his exposed flesh raw and bleeding, Meztraxia stood amongst his soldiers. There was a large hole straight through his chest, the edges covered by smooth flesh. Suddenly confronted with the scourge of her home, Derzina felt a surge of hatred tinged with fear. But, perhaps owing to the strangeness of this place, it soon drained from her as she realised he hadn’t the slightest intention of fighting. Assuming he even could with the current state of his body, it looked as if he were having trouble remaining upright.

“What happened here? Where are we?”

“This is all the doing of that,” he said, pointing toward the lights, while carefully avoiding looking directly at them, “which once resided within me. As for where we are, I have only a faint idea. We are elsewhere from our own world; that’s about as much as I’ve been able to discern.”

“That’s the Heart of Imistala?” Derzina asked. “I thought it could only absorb magic.” Whatever was happening here implied another sort of capability entirely.

“As did I. It seems we were both mistaken. Why have you come here? How have you come here?”

She was tempted to refuse to answer any more of his questions, but that seemed unproductive. Much as she hated him, he was trapped now, and denying him would serve no useful purpose. Spiting him solely for the sake of it held a certain appeal, but ultimately, she decided it was better to communicate with him for now.

“I have come searching for Atasimon, who did not return along with the others. As to the how, I was sent here by Brtetsia, a goddess born from the very event that transported you here.”

“You seek Atasimon as well? Then it seems we share a purpose. Though,” he showed his teeth, brown and rotting, “I imagine we have very different intentions.”

“And what is it you wish of her? To end her life?”

“Hardly. I wish to take what is left of her that I might be whole again. Or if not whole, at least more than a walking corpse.”

Derzina exhaled through her nose, amused despite herself. “Then our purposes are not so different after all. Have you had no success in locating her?”

“None, though I assure you it’s not for want of trying. I’ve walked far across this empty place and screamed until my throat was scorched. Wherever she is, she either cannot answer me or would rather remain hidden.”

“Does that come as a surprise to you?” Derzina asked, scowling at the decrepit Demon Lord. “You’re her enemy, in case you’ve forgotten. And mine as well for that matter.”

“That we are, though that doesn’t mean we cannot treat one another with some measure of honour.”

This time Derzina couldn’t help but laugh. “What concept do you have of honour? You destroyed my city and butchered the men, women and children who lived there. And over what? A grudge?”

“A grudge? That’s one word for it. You tried to wipe our world from existence, do you expect me to turn a blind eye to that atrocity?”

“There wasn’t a single person living in Brtet that had anything to do with that.”

“Perhaps not, but their ancestors and the gods who shelter them did.”

“That does nothing to excuse the devastation you’ve wrought,” Derzina said hotly.

“Would you have done any different? If you were attacking our lands, would you spare the children? Or the elderly? I doubt it; you’d be a fool to do so. Such mercies are the purview of idiots and madmen.”

“You’re right. Given the chance, I would have killed every last one of you and not lost a bit of sleep over it.” He was right, they were similar in that regard, albeit in few others. But even if they were exactly the same, it changed nothing; the demons still needed to die.

“I would expect nothing less. I assume this means you intend to leave my men and I here, to be consumed by the heart?”

“Of course, why would I not?”

“I could offer you peace, or even the service of my men, in exchange for our freedom.” Before Derzina could refuse his absurd offer, he continued. “But I know you would never accept or trust us to keep our word, nor do I begrudge you that.”

“Then what else do you propose?” Derzina asked, confused. What else could he possibly offer?

“Nothing else, I’m afraid. Much as it pains me to admit it, you’re free to leave us to our doom and there isn’t the slightest thing I can do about it. I have been defeated completely and utterly by you and your godling.”

“We may have engineered your fall, but we had little hand in your defeat. It was the wizard, Araveena, that we have to thank for our victory. Without her, we could never have gotten the heart away from you.”

“And this is how she’s rewarded for her service?” A bark of crazed laughter erupted from Meztraxia’s lips. “It seems a most ungracious end, unless being the first one consumed by the heart was exactly what she wished.”

Derzina frowned, hadn’t the wizard returned with the others? Or had humans and gods not included her? Though if what Meztraxia said was true, it may have been too late to save her regardless. She felt a pang of sadness at the wizard’s death, she’d been instrumental in their victory and she’d seemed a righteous ally. Feeling a renewed desire to get out of here before she met the same fate, Derzina set off in search of Atasimon.