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  “Any time, hon,” said Mid.

  “You got it, baby!” said Georgia.

  “Even if this all goes badly,” I continued, “and everything falls apart, I will treasure the memories of fighting the good fight with all of you.”

  Without a word, White Buffalo stepped forward and took my hand. Then, she hugged me, her willowy, warm body pressed tightly against mine.

  The others joined the hug, too, piling on around me…and I smiled. On the verge of a verdict that could end my life as I knew it and end the lives of all humanity…far from my home and the people I’d known and loved for so long…without my powers or any idea what the future might hold…I at least had that moment to savor. To keep me from going through the crucible. To keep me from falling apart when I needed most to keep myself together.

  And maybe that, in the end, was all that truly mattered in the world.

  Chapter 29

  Back in the amphitheater, back on my mark, I waited nervously for whatever was coming next.

  The crowd was restless, too, talking and shifting on their benches…though I couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad one. As usual, the women of the Ancestrum kept their intentions to themselves.

  If only Gaia 2 would do the same. Standing on her own mark, she cleared her throat loudly to get my attention. When I finally looked her way, she pointed an index finger at me, then gave me a thumbs-down as if I’d already lost the trial.

  I win. She mouthed the words, overpronouncing to the hilt for my benefit. You lose.

  There were so many things I wanted to say, so many gestures I could have offered, but I contented myself with ignoring her and turning away. If she was the winner here, I wasn’t going to make her victory sweeter by showing her she was getting on my nerves.

  She cleared her throat again and again, but I didn’t look. I was done giving her the satisfaction she so desperately craved.

  Finally, the triple chime sounded, indicating the trial had resumed. Everyone in the amphitheater stood, looking solemn.

  I heard familiar footsteps behind us then and looked back to see Drusilla approaching through the doorway in the wall at the back of the stage. With all the regal bearing in the world, she glided to the throne and took up her gavel.

  “Let us finish this.” She banged the gavel hard on the arm of the throne and sat. “We, the Ancestrum, have made our choice.

  “Let it be known that we did not make it lightly,” she said. “We discussed this matter with all due gravity and considered the concerns of everyone involved.

  “In the end, however, we were so divided, a clear-cut mandate was impossible to achieve,” continued Drusilla. “Neither side won the majority…not even by a single vote.”

  My gaze met Gaia 2’s, and for once, I could tell we shared the same reaction: surprise and disbelief.

  Neither of us had won…or had we?

  “We talked some more and voted again…but the result was the same,” said Drusilla. “After the third time yielded the same outcome, we realized a tie was the best we could hope for. The Ancestrum is deadlocked.

  “Given the nature of this crisis, however, we cannot be content with inaction,” said Drusilla. “We cannot fail in our responsibility to resolve this conflict one way or the other.

  “Therefore, we have, in a way, made a decision. We made a choice without betraying the intent of our membership.

  “This, then, is our verdict.” Drusilla rose and walked down to stand between Gaia and her twin. “After considering whether to support Gaia Charmer or Gaia Grenoble—and, therefore, humanity or Mother Earth—we the Ancestrum choose…”

  I held my breath, ready to burst from the stress. I didn’t know what Gaia 2 was doing, didn’t look, didn’t care.

  “Both.” Drusilla spread her arms, gesturing at both of us. “We choose both.”

  Both? Gaia 2 mouthed the word with disgust. How?

  I just shook my head. It didn’t make sense to me, either.

  “These women, these champions of opposing viewpoints, will be given the chance to settle this themselves,” explained Drusilla. “We will return them to Mother Earth and let them determine the winning solution by fighting it out.”

  Suddenly, Gaia 2 was grinning, confident she held the winning hand. After all, I had no powers anymore.

  But her grin didn’t last.

  “To ensure they each have the same chance at victory, their power levels will be equalized,” said Drusilla. “One will be boosted.” She gestured at me. “And the other will be diminished.” She gestured at Gaia 2, who was scowling. “To equalize things further, we will ensure each woman has a connection to Mother Earth and all her resources.”

  Now that wasn’t equalizing at all. I knew Mother would side with Gaia 2, leaving me at their mercy, even with restored powers.

  Drusilla may have anticipated my concern. “In the interest of fairness,” she said, “each woman can enlist whatever allies she chooses—though the Ancestrum must of course remain neutral in this regard. These women will not be penalized if others come to their aid.”

  When I glanced at my people in the front row, Ebon and Georgia both grinned and gave me double thumbs-up signals.

  “When one of these women achieves a decisive victory over the other, the Ancestrum will reconsider its verdict,” continued Drusilla. “At that time, if so decided, we may restore full power to the winner and also deploy our own combined might in support of her goals…even if it means the fatal exposure of the Niche and its inhabitants.

  “That is our decision,” she said, lowering her arms to her sides. “And it takes effect immediately.”

  Women approached the stage from the audience, headed our way. Gaia 2 stepped off her mark, looking angry and panicky.

  “Wait!” she said. “You can’t diminish me! I have a job to do for Mother!”

  But no one seemed to be listening.

  “Prepare yourselves!” Drusilla raised her arms overhead. “You’re about to fight for what you believe in.” As she said it, bright bolts of lightning crackled out of her fingertips. Thunder rumbled overhead among the low-hanging clouds.

  Suddenly, her lightning lashed out and connected with Gaia 2 and me, stabbing us each in the chest. We both screamed at once, transfixed by the searing heat spiking into our bodies.

  There was so much pain, I was barely aware of my feet leaving the stage. Gaia 2 and I rose up in the air, connected through the bolts whipping out of Drusilla’s body.

  “First, the power transfer!” Drusilla shut her eyes and threw her head back. The lightning surged, and Gaia 2 and I spun, cartwheeling in midair. “We divide it evenly between you. Each of you will have half the rightful charge of an avatar.”

  Slowly, we stopped spinning. If Drusilla was right about me being powered up, I was too dizzy and in too much pain to tell the difference.

  “And now, we must send you on your way.” As Drusilla said it, a hole opened in the sky, quickly expanding from a pinprick to a portal. A beam of sunlight shot through it and punched down to the stage between us, bleaching the weathered gray stone with its brilliance. It was the first sunlight I’d seen since arriving in the ever-gloomy Niche.

  “A word of warning to you both!” said Drusilla, looking up at us. “Be on guard, for the action has already begun, and you will arrive in the middle of it.

  “Your friends, who will come after you, will also be deposited in harm’s way. There is no place of safety where you are going.” Drusilla scowled. “It is literally Hell on Earth.”

  Just as I wondered where she was talking about, I felt myself drifting upward. Gaia 2 was doing the same, though she was twisting and kicking up a storm en route.

  “Good luck to you both,” Drusilla called after us. “Whichever one of you wins, this is history in the making. Epic history!”

  “Get her, Gaia!” Georgia shouted from below. “We know you can do it!”

  “Humanity’s depending on you!” hollered Ebon. “Show ‘em what you�
�ve got!”

  “Saving the world’s what you do, hon!” said Mid.

  “And we will join you in the battle!” shouted White Buffalo. “We will stand by your side in the fire and blood!”

  I watched as they all shrank in the distance, tiny figures among the multitude of the Ancestrum in the amphitheater. Gaia 2 and I rose higher and higher, closing in on the portal above.

  We were almost there when she flipped the bird at me with both hands, laughing in the sunbeam streaming down.

  Then, we were both sucked over the threshold, zipping out of the Niche and back into the world we’d left behind.

  Chapter 30

  I am still powerless.

  That was what I thought as I plunged from the portal, hurtling toward the ground far below.

  I reached out into the world around me, straining to connect with any part of it and save my life—but there was nothing. A vast stretch of green ground spread out below me, scrawled with blue streams, scattered with boulders…and none of it answered my call.

  I was as cut off as I’d been before going to the Niche, and I was about to die because of it.

  A figure dropped into eyeshot then, floating easily to the ground like a falling leaf. It was Gaia 2, and she looked completely unruffled and in control.

  “Hi, sweetie!” She had to shout for me to hear her over the rushing wind. “Looks like I won’t have to lift a finger to win this shit after all!”

  She gave me a fluttery wave, then drew her arms and legs in tight so her body was like an arrow. She angled herself downward and shot away from me, flashing off toward the sun-bathed landscape.

  As for me, I continued my uncontrolled plunge.

  Again, I reached out with all my might, fishing for some connection, no matter how tenuous. The world still felt utterly dead to me, hopelessly closed off. Either Drusilla had lied about my powers being restored, or something had gone wrong, or…

  Time delay.

  Without warning, I came alive again. My awareness of my surroundings flooded back all at once, filling me with every kind of sensation. It was as if, after too long in absolute silent darkness, someone had switched on all the lights and noise again…and all the smells and tastes and textures as well.

  It was so overwhelming, I barely hung on to my focus and thoughts. It was hard enough as it was, with the ground racing toward me.

  Seconds before impact, I reached down and threw open a sinkhole in my path. As I dove into it, the hole deepened before me—and dirt sprayed from the sides to cushion my fall.

  The deeper I went, the deeper the sinkhole got. The spray of dirt gradually thickened, breaking my fall little by little…until, finally, I came to a stop, face down in the depths of the hole.

  And as I lay there, a smile crept over my face, because I could feel it all again. Every grain of dirt in that pit was coming through loud and clear, as if it were shouting through a megaphone.

  And I could feel the dirt below it, too, and the mud and the clay and…

  My smile darted away, replaced by a scowl. Not far away, I could feel something moving with irresistible force, pushing up toward the surface—something massive and powerful and superheated. Probing further, I found other indicators of my location, other characteristic features of the place where I’d landed. I recognized them clearly from my days as the human avatar of Mother Earth, when the world’s secrets (most of them, anyway) had been laid bare to me.

  I suddenly understood exactly where I was and why Mother and Gaia 2 were starting the extinction of humanity here. It all made perfect sense.

  Because the largest supervolcano on the planet had been waiting under Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming for untold ages, the power and pressure in its magma chambers building for just such an occasion. If Gaia 2 and Mother triggered it, the resulting eruption would blast gases and debris into the sky with terrible force. Its eruption, I knew from my time as Mother’s avatar, would also set off a chain reaction that blew the other volcanos in the Ring of Fire that roughly encircled the Pacific Ocean. All those volcanoes erupting at once over such a vast region would turn the atmosphere into a seething bubble that rained down fire and poison on all points of the globe. Before long, all but the tiniest, hardiest life would perish, choking on fumes or buried under ash or melted by showers of blazing hot cinders.

  Humankind did not stand a chance against that. I probably didn’t either…but I had to try.

  Frantically digging around at the bottom of the pit, I widened the shaft and turned myself around so I was facing up instead of down. Then, I started gathering power underfoot, pulling together a charged stream of earth to propel myself out of the hole.

  Within moments, I was ready to break loose of the pit. I took a deep breath, about to launch myself up and join the fray.

  That was when the walls of the pit suddenly collapsed inward, covering me with dislodged dirt.

  Burying me in silent darkness like a lifeless corpse.

  Chapter 31

  Finally, I understood what it meant to have half my power.

  If I’d had it all, if I’d been the woman I used to be, I could’ve burst free of the collapsed sinkhole instantly, with only a thought. Instead, I had to work to part the fallen soil and push myself up through the tube, taking moments to clear a pathway and get myself to the surface.

  I came up tired and pissed, emerging like a zombie from a grave. Crawling out on all fours, I spit dirt, cleared my eyes, and heaved in one breath of fresh air after another. Truly, I felt like shit…but I had a job to do.

  I pushed up to my knees, determined to get in the game—even as the ground rumbled under me. Looking around the vast meadow where I knelt, I saw the earth buck and ripple like ocean waves, flat land rolling into hills. Pressing my hand on the ground, I felt the cause of it—the magma chambers expanding like balloons, bubbling up on the verge of eruption.

  Gaia 2 stood among them, arms outstretched, conducting the volcanic build with a blissful smile on her face. Her powers were limited like mine, but Mother Earth was on her side; I could feel Mother’s imprint from a distance, nursing the magma pockets from dormancy into states of excitation, ready to blow.

  Stopping her, stopping them, seemed like an impossible task…but I had to try. I wasn’t about to let humanity go up in smoke without a fight.

  Even if I had to die trying.

  Reaching out, I grabbed hold of a nearby rock the size of a fist and hoisted it off the ground, then sent it flying straight toward Gaia 2. She moved at the last instant, but it still winged the side of her head, stunning her.

  She staggered and tried to shake it off, but I grabbed another rock, and another, and hurled them at her. One thumped into her gut, making her double over, and the other cracked her left knee. Even as the second one hit her, though, she whipped around and spotted me.

  “Bitch!” She flung one of the rocks back at me, then dropped to a crouch and laid her hands on the ground.

  I stumbled back, ducking the rock—and felt a telltale tremor in the ground underfoot. I leaped aside and rolled away, just as a geyser of superheated water burst out of the ground where I’d been standing a second ago.

  Again, I felt Mother’s imprint in that action, ejecting the steaming water from underground. Just as I’d expected, this fight was two against one…and more lopsided even than that, since one of the two siding against me was a planet.

  After evading the geyser, I ran a serpentine pattern across the ground between me and Gaia 2—but another fresh geyser nearly caught me, and another after that. Gaia 2, meanwhile, hailed pebbles my way, hitting me more often than not. I responded by flinging a spray of creekbed mud that blanketed her from head to toe.

  “I’ll kill you!” She pawed at the mud, furious.

  That moment, with her guard down, was the perfect opportunity for me. Focusing all my power on the ground underneath her, I tried to open a fresh sinkhole, just as I’d done to save myself from the fall.

  It felt as if the gr
ound was going to give…and then it didn’t. Resistance from below held it firm, stamped with the unmistakable signature of Mother Earth.

  “Damn!” Frustrated, I closed the distance with a final sprint, barreling toward my enemy.

  Unfortunately, she cleared enough of the mud from her face to see me coming. Hunching, she threw out a shoulder and met my charge with one of her own.

  We collided with shuddering force and toppled to the ground.

  Rolling back and forth, we grappled as the earth rumbled and crunched under us. I shot blow after blow through her defenses, and she did the same to me.

  “Give up, bitch!” she howled. “Take my offer and join forces with me!”

  “I’ve got a better idea!” I told her. “Why don’t you join forces with me?”

  Still, neither of us gave in. Bruises and blood erupted as we churned over the grass, acting out our most violent intentions toward each other.

  And then, the ground itself erupted as magma pockets burst through from deep underground into the bright light of day.

  Chapter 32

  Vents of the supervolcano were finally cutting loose, spewing blistering hot lava and smoke in the air. They were far enough away that we weren’t instantly scalded into oblivion—but close enough to signal that closer eruptions were coming soon.

  Gaia 2 laughed as she landed a solid punch square in the middle of my face. “Here it comes, bitch! The biggest volcanic eruption in hundreds of thousands of years is about to turn the planet into a giant bubble of ash and smoke!”

  I responded by sinking a knee deep in her gut and throwing her off as she doubled over in pain. Rolling to my feet, I kicked her hard in the side and did it again, making her flinch and cry out.

  Then, I reached out with my powers and brought up bands of hard-packed dirt around her, locking her down. Grunting and squirming, she fought to escape, but the bands kept her planted in place.