Prologue

The Trickster

The Trickster drifted through the Space Between Realms in staccato bursts of motion, each one an eruption of starlight, created from the pure ignition of his Will alone. The void stretched infinitely in all directions, a canvas of black upon black, but every push left shimmering motes in his wake, hanging like afterimages of forgotten constellations before fading away into nothingness. He wasn't in any particular hurry—he was too old for that. But he was restless. And frustrated. And confused, most of all.

What in the System's decaying corpse is going on?

He had been in Tartarus for far too long. Tartarus. He had missed countless Cycles imprisoned in that screaming blackness within the distant corners of the Nether itself. So long that the centuries had blurred together into one, long howl. His Siblings had banished him in the hopes that the prison would break him, grind him down and leave him as something less than a god. And they had come close. Closer than the Trickster was willing to admit.

A splinter of pain blossomed in his chest, like a shard of glass he couldn't dig out. Betrayed by his own blood kin. And all because of a single vision from Madame Friday: the Lady of Chains. A vision of his betrayal and the ruinous ripple effects. A crime uncommitted, a sentence already served.

He laughed. The sound like shattering champagne glasses singing in harmony with a Winter's breeze.

No, the irony hadn't been lost on him. That now, on the sole premise of another of Friday's visions, he was catapulting himself through the void on a mission to uncover some plot—another betrayal amongst the Thirteen.

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Perhaps it was only a desperate sense of self-preservation that propelled him forward? He certainly held little love for his Siblings after what they had done. And he intended to get his revenge on them. Their doom would be at his hands, and his alone.

The Worlds drifted past him like islands glimpsed through a thick mist. Most of the Realms were husks, devoid of life and Will alike. Nine Dead Worlds, scattered across the graveyard of Worlds, remained. They still dimly twinkled with signs of life. Then there was Earth, the current battleground for this Cycle's Games. And finally, there were the three dormant Seed Worlds, waiting to become ripe for the picking. I don't need Friday's visions to foresee our ultimate demise, he thought. It was there in plain sight. Only three System Seeds remained. Only three more opportunities to reap the harvest that came with a Realm ascending to the Realm Beyond.

The Trickster extended his Mind, feeling for the Realm Beyond, only for his mental hand to slam into the spiritual barrier. Ah, right. The Pact. Each Cycle, during each Contest, the Pact governed, setting forth the rules of the Contest. The first, and most important of which, was that none of the Thirteen can directly interact with the Contest or directly oppose each other. There were strict restrictions on the influence they could each levy on the Contest. He had his own machinations at work this Cycle. Some of which he was already seeing play out in Earther's flowering Iteration. A vine pushing through the stone. In time, it would break the entire Contest.

The second rule was agreeing that they would all be cut off from the Realm Beyond until the end of the Games, when the host Realm would be integrated into the existing System network. It prevented any of them from accessing the powerful beings that lay there, some that even rivaled the Thirteen in power. Their only access would be Earth and the Dead Worlds.

As he approached his target destination, the void around him eventually shifted into something deeper, heavier. At its edge lied a shape as large as a mountain range and as white as old bone under moonlight. A lion, if a lion could swallow galaxies, sprawled across the black endlessness of space, tail flicking in lazy arcs. Its eyes were closed. And the Trickster could barely notice the faint, purring rumble of the lion's steady breath rippling through the darkness.

The Trickster drifted closer, careful not to wake it too soon. "It's been a long time, old friend," he breathed.

The Beast didn't stir. Then, its brow split, soundlessly, revealing a single vertical red eye in its forehead that burned like molten glass.

It Who Watches the End was awake.

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