I Demanded Rain From the Sky Lord, He Demanded My Surrender

The air was thin and tasted of dust. Each breath was a dry scrape in Alaina’s throat, a reminder of the endless, empty blue sky that pressed down on them. A sky without clouds was a sky without mercy. It was the Sky Lord’s sky, and he was a bastard.

Her worn leather boots crunched over the desiccated remains of what was once a forest floor. Now it was just dirt, cracked like ancient pottery, and a carpet of brittle, brown leaves that shattered into powder with every step. The trees around them were skeletal fingers reaching for a heaven that had long since abandoned them.

“Another hour,” she said, her voice a low crackle. It was a lie. It would be as long as it took.

Beside her, Cullen shifted the weight of the unstrung bow on his shoulder. He didn't bother to reply, but she felt his disapproval like a physical weight. He was a slab of a man, built of grim pragmatism and scarred muscle, and his patience was wearing as thin as the soles of their shoes.

“They’re fading, Alaina,” he finally said, his voice a low rumble that didn’t carry far in the dead air. He nodded back at the dozen figures trailing behind them. They were a miserable collection of ghosts—gaunt, hollow-eyed, their movements slow with the deep lethargy of starvation. Each one was a burden on her soul.

“They’ll fade faster with empty bellies,” she shot back, not breaking her stride. Her eyes scanned the path ahead, searching for any sign of life. A track. A broken twig. Anything. “We saw the tracks. It’s close.”

“The tracks are half a day old. The deer could be on the other side of the gods damned mountain by now. We need water. Rest.”

“We need food,” she snapped, her own hunger a sharp, angry thing coiling in her gut. She ignored the dull ache in her thighs, the burning of her lungs. Weakness was a luxury, like shade, or a full night’s sleep. She hadn't afforded either in months. Not since Oakhaven.

The memory was a festering wound. The smell of rot and despair, so thick it was almost sweet. The sight of families huddled in their huts, not even bothering to swat the flies that crawled on their faces, their eyes vacant as they waited for an end that was already upon them. She had been too late then. She had argued for caution, for waiting, and they had all starved. Never again.

“Fuck your rest, Cullen,” she muttered, more to herself than to him. “Rest is what gets you killed.”

He grunted, a sound of weary resignation. He knew the ghosts that drove her. He’d helped her bury them. He fell into step beside her again, his sharp eyes sweeping the woods with a soldier’s vigilance. He might disagree with her methods, but he wouldn’t abandon his post.

Ahead, through a stand of withered birch, she saw it. A flicker of movement. A pale brown flank. Her heart gave a painful lurch. She raised a hand, a sharp, silent command. Behind her, the shuffling stopped. Every eye locked onto her.

Hope was a dangerous, fragile thing, but in that moment, it was as real as the hunger. The deer was thin, its ribs stark against its hide, but it was meat. It was life. It was a reason to have walked all this fucking way.

Alaina unslung her own bow, her movements fluid and economical, wasting nothing. She met Cullen’s gaze, and for a second, their disagreement was forgotten, replaced by the single-minded focus of the hunt. He gave a short, sharp nod, his hand already reaching for an arrow.

She crept forward, placing her feet with excruciating care. The ground was a minefield of dry twigs, each one a potential alarm. The wind, what little of it existed, was at her back—a curse. One wrong shift and their scent would carry. The oppressive silence of the forest was suddenly her enemy. The deer lifted its head, its large ears swiveling. It was alert, wary. It had survived this long by being smarter than the things that wanted to eat it.

Alaina froze, her muscles screaming in protest. She held her breath, her world narrowing to the space between her, the deer, and the arrow she was about to nock. This was it. This had to be it. There were no more villages to scavenge, no more hidden caches of grain. There was only this blighted wood, the barren sky, and the gnawing, endless hunger.

Just as she began to draw the bowstring back, the buck’s head shot up. It stamped a hoof, its black eyes wide with alarm, and bolted. Not away from them, but deeper into the blighted woods, toward a ridge where the trees grew thicker, their dead branches clawing at the sky.

“Fuck,” Alaina breathed, the word a puff of dusty air. The chance was gone.

“It’s spooked. Let it go,” Cullen whispered, his hand on her arm.

She shook him off, her gaze locked on the path the deer had taken. “No. It didn’t see us. Something else startled it. It won’t go far.”

Without waiting for his protest, she pushed forward, breaking into a low, ground-eating jog. Her body screamed, but the image of the deer—of fresh blood and rendered fat—was a more potent fuel than anything she’d eaten in a week. She could hear Cullen cursing under his breath as he followed, the rest of their party struggling to keep pace.

They moved deeper into the woods, the landscape growing stranger. The oppressive silence was replaced by a low, dissonant hum that seemed to vibrate in her teeth. It was a sound that didn't belong in nature. Then she saw them.

At first, it looked like frost clinging to the bark of a dead oak, a bizarre sight in the relentless heat. But as she got closer, she saw it wasn't ice. It was a cluster of sharp, semi-translucent crystals, growing out of the wood like a cancer. They pulsed with a faint, sickly green light, and the air around them felt thick and oily. The tree itself was unnaturally decayed around the growth, the bark blackened and brittle as charcoal.

The deer’s tracks led right past it. Alaina slowed, her hunter’s focus momentarily broken by the sheer wrongness of the sight. A few paces on, another tree was afflicted, this one almost entirely encased in the glowing, crystalline formations. They looked like jagged teeth erupting from the inside out, poisoning the very soil they grew from.

“Alaina. Stop.” Cullen’s voice was flat, devoid of its earlier frustration, replaced by something much colder. Fear.

He grabbed her shoulder, his grip hard enough to make her wince, and physically turned her to face him. He wasn't looking at her; his eyes were scanning the alien growths that now seemed to be on every other tree.

“What is this?” he demanded.

“I don’t know. Magic,” she said, her own unease a cold knot in her stomach. She tried to pull away, to refocus on the tracks. The deer was their only concern.

“This is not the Sky Lord’s power,” Cullen said, his voice a low, urgent hiss. “This is earth magic. The wrong kind. We’re too far east. This is Fae territory. Or worse, land Emmet is trying to claim.”

The name Emmet hung in the air between them, heavy and dangerous. The Earth Lord. A rival power, and one whose cruelty was said to be far more intimate than Jasper’s detached tyranny. His followers were zealots, their bodies warped by the gifts he gave them.

“We turn back,” Cullen stated. It wasn’t a suggestion. “Now. We leave the deer. We get the hell out of these woods before something finds us.”

Alaina looked from his grim face to the path ahead. Through the corrupted trees, she could see the deer. It had stopped by a stagnant creek bed, nervously tasting the air. It was within bowshot. So close. The thought of turning back now, of returning to the hopeless faces of her people with nothing but another failure, was unbearable. It felt like dying.

“No,” she said, her voice quiet but unyielding. “The Fae don’t give a shit about us. We kill the deer, and we’re gone before they even know we were here.”

“Are you fucking insane?” Cullen’s grip tightened. “This magic is a warning sign. It’s a border. We cross it, and we’re not just trespassers, we’re a message. An insult to whoever claims this filth. They will make an example of us.”

“I’d rather be an example with a full stomach than a ghost who died of caution,” she snarled, ripping her shoulder from his grasp. She met his furious gaze, her own burning with a desperate, reckless fire. “Oakhaven was cautious, Cullen. Look where it got them.”

His face hardened at the mention of the village, the accusation hitting its mark. He took a step back, his expression a mixture of anger and genuine fear for her sanity. “This isn’t the same. That was starvation. This is walking into a god’s fucking jaws because you’re too stubborn to see the trap.”

She ignored him, turning her back on his warning. Her world narrowed again to the deer, the bow, the arrow. The sickly green glow of the crystals cast strange shadows on the ground, but she forced them from her mind. It was just a deer. It was just a meal. It was all that mattered.

She nocked the arrow, the familiar scrape of feather against wood a small comfort. Her fingers found their place on the string, the sinew biting into the calluses on her fingertips. She drew the bow, her back and shoulder muscles tightening into a familiar, powerful line. The world was still. The sickly green light of the crystals seemed to dim, and the humming faded into the background. There was only her, the arrow, and the thin flank of the deer. A single heartbeat. A single breath. A life for a dozen others.

She was about to release when the sky fell.

It wasn't a sound at first, but a pressure. A solid, physical weight that slammed down from above, buckling her knees and forcing the air from her lungs in a choked gasp. The arrow flew wild, skittering uselessly off a rock. An instant later came the noise—a deafening roar like a mountain collapsing, a sound so violent it felt like it was tearing the air apart.

Then came the cold. It was a vicious, predatory cold, not the gentle chill of winter but the absolute zero of a void. It bit through her worn leather tunic and into her skin, so sharp it felt like being flayed by a thousand invisible knives. The oppressive heat of the drought was annihilated, replaced by a cold that froze the sweat on her brow and stole her breath.

The world dissolved into a maelstrom of dust, dead leaves, and pure force. She was thrown sideways, hitting the hard, cracked earth with a force that knocked her head against a root. Stars exploded behind her eyes. Around her, people were screaming, their cries whipped away by the wind before they could fully form. She saw one of the foragers, a man named Thom, lifted off his feet and hurled into a crystalline tree trunk with a sickening crunch.

It was over as quickly as it began. The roaring pressure vanished, leaving behind a ringing silence and an atmosphere so frigid it hurt to breathe. The unnatural cold clung to everything, a residue of immense power.

Alaina pushed herself up, her head throbbing. Her limbs felt like lead, and the cold had sunk deep into her bones, making her shiver uncontrollably. She spat a mouthful of dirt and grit, her ears still ringing. The rest of her party were scattered, groaning, slowly picking themselves up from the ground. Cullen was already on his feet, his face pale, his gaze fixed on the sky. He held a hand out to help a woman near him, his movements stiff.

Alaina’s first thought was the deer. Her eyes snapped to the creek bed where it had stood. It was still there. But it wasn't standing.

The animal lay in a broken heap, its neck twisted at an impossible angle. Its slender legs were splayed, shattered. It had been slammed into the rocky earth with such force that its ribcage had burst open, spilling its guts onto the dry ground in a steaming, bloody mess. The kill was absolute, brutal, and utterly wasteful. A prize snatched away not by a rival predator, but by the indifferent cruelty of a god.

A presence lingered in the air. It was a clean, sharp magic, as different from the cloying earth-rot of the crystals as a lightning strike is from a fungus. It felt vast, empty, and arrogant. The Sky Lord. Jasper.

He hadn't just scared the deer away. He hadn't simply asserted his domain. He had seen their desperate little hunt, their pathetic mortal struggle, and he had crushed it for his own amusement. He had killed their hope and left the carcass to rot as a reminder. It wasn't an act of governance; it was an act of contempt.

Alaina stared at the ruined animal, the sight of the wasted meat a physical blow to her empty stomach. The cold in her bones was nothing compared to the ice that flooded her veins. It wasn't just the presence of his power she felt; it was the intent. The casual, dismissive cruelty of it. He was a boot hanging over their heads, and every so often, he chose to press down, just to feel them squirm. The air still tasted of his power, of ozone and altitude, a personal signature left at the scene of his petty crime. She felt his awareness like a physical weight on her shoulders, a distant, mocking gaze from his throne of clouds, and a rage so profound it almost choked her rose up to meet it.

“Get up.” Cullen’s voice cut through her fury. He was beside her, hauling her to her feet. His face was a mask of grim efficiency. “Staring at it won’t bring it back. Check on the others.”

The command steadied her, shoving the rage down into a hard, cold knot in her gut. She nodded, her body aching as she forced herself to move. The party was a mess of scrapes, bruises, and shock. Maria had a dislocated shoulder, her face white with pain as Cullen brutally snapped it back into place. Thom was dead, his body wedged between the tree and the sharp crystals that had impaled him. Another casualty to add to their ever-growing list. They left his body where it lay. They didn't have the strength to carry their dead.

They gathered in a tight, shivering huddle, the unnatural cold a constant reminder of the power that had just swatted them aside. The silence was thick with despair. Another failure. Another death. And for what? A demonstration of a god’s petty dominance.

“Everyone here?” Cullen asked, his voice rough as he scanned the faces. His eyes stopped, counting again. “Wait. Where’s Leo?”

A fresh spike of fear, colder than the lingering magic, shot through Alaina. Leo. A boy of twelve, all lanky limbs and quiet determination, who had been trailing at the back of the party. A frantic scan of their small group confirmed it. He was gone.

“Leo!” she yelled, her voice raw. Only the rustle of dead leaves answered.

They spread out, calling his name, their voices tight with dread. Alaina pushed through the corrupted trees, her eyes darting into the sickly green shadows cast by the crystals. She found him behind a thicket of dead thorns, curled at the base of the largest crystalline growth they had seen yet—a gnarled, pulsating mass of jagged green points that had consumed half of an ancient oak.

He was on his side, shivering violently, his breath coming in ragged, shallow pants. He didn’t seem to be injured from the downdraft. He was just… sick.

“Leo,” she said, dropping to her knees beside him. She reached out to touch his forehead and recoiled. He was burning up, a dry, searing heat radiating from his skin that had nothing to do with the day’s weather. His eyes were wide and unfocused, the pupils dilated to black pits. A thin line of blood trickled from his nose.

“He’s over here!” Cullen’s voice was close behind her. He knelt on Leo’s other side, his expression hardening as he took in the boy’s condition.

Leo’s gaze drifted to Alaina, a flicker of recognition in their depths. “It was… pretty,” he whispered, his voice a dry rasp. He tried to lift his hand, and Alaina’s blood ran cold.

His right hand, the one lying palm-up on the contaminated soil, was no longer fully flesh. Tiny, sharp shards of green crystal were erupting from his skin, piercing through his fingertips and the back of his hand like a grotesque second set of bones. The skin around the growths was dark purple and swollen, and thin, black veins snaked up his arm from the affliction, visible beneath his pale skin. He must have touched it. He must have reached out to the glowing, alien beauty of the thing that was now eating him from the inside out.

Cullen let out a string of quiet, vicious curses. “Gods damn it all.”

Leo whimpered, a low, agonized sound as another tremor wracked his small frame. His fingers twitched, and a fresh crystal, no bigger than a grain of rice, broke through the skin near his knuckle, slick with blood.

The others had gathered behind them, their hushed calls dying on their lips as they saw the boy. A woman gasped, another stifled a sob. This was not a fever they could break with damp cloths. This was not an injury they could bind. It was a poison, a magical plague working its way through him with horrifying speed. The slow, grinding death of starvation had been their constant companion for years, a familiar enemy. This was something else entirely. It was alien, aggressive, and fast. The blighted forest had given them a new way to die, and it was so much worse.

Alaina looked at Leo’s face, contorted in a mixture of pain and confusion. She saw the terror in the eyes of her people, their last embers of hope extinguished by this new horror. The deer was forgotten. The Sky Lord’s cruelty was a distant thunder now. The immediate threat was here, growing in the boy’s own flesh, a testament to her failure to heed Cullen’s warning. The weight of her choice settled on her, heavy and absolute, crushing the air from her lungs. They were trapped between a tyrant in the sky and a cancer in the earth, and time had just run out.

Alaina stared at the glistening, bloody crystals pushing their way out of Leo’s hand. Each tiny movement he made seemed to coax them further out, a gruesome birth of stone and flesh. The black veins were darker now, stark against his fever-pale skin, a map of the poison’s relentless march toward his heart. This was Emmet’s power, the rot of the earth made manifest. A slow, creeping dominion that turned living things into monuments of corrupted magic.

She looked away from the boy, her gaze lifting past the hopeless faces of her people, past the blighted canopy of the forest, and up into the vast, empty blue of the sky. Up there, somewhere in a citadel of cloud and wind, sat the other god who was killing them. Jasper. He killed them with drought, with starvation, with crushing indifference. He had just murdered one of her party and destroyed their food with a flick of his wrist, an act of casual, arrogant power.

One lord poisoned the ground beneath their feet. The other lord held the sky hostage, starving them of the rain they needed to live. They were being ground to dust between two warring deities who didn’t even have the decency to acknowledge their existence as anything more than insects.

For years, she had led them through the shadows, scavenging, hiding, running. She had taught them to be ghosts, to leave no trace, to ask for nothing and expect less. And this was the result. Thom’s broken body rotting against a tree. Leo being eaten alive by magic. A slow, miserable extinction in the dirt.

A cold clarity cut through her grief and despair. Hiding was a losing strategy. It was just a longer, more pathetic way to die. Her rage from before, the hot fury at the ruined deer, returned, but now it was different. It was no longer a fire; it was a shard of ice in her gut. Cold, sharp, and focused.

They could not fight the crystals. They could not fight the Fae. They could not make the rain fall or the crops grow. But there was one thing she could do. She could stop hiding. She could stop cowering in the shadows and waiting for the boot to fall. She could walk right up to the boot and demand it stop crushing them.

It was insane. It was suicide. But it was an action. It was a choice. And in a world that had stripped every choice from them, that alone was a weapon.

Alaina got to her feet. The movement was stiff, every muscle protesting, but she stood tall, forcing the shivers from her body through sheer will. Dirt stained her tunic, blood crusted on her temple, but her eyes were clear and hard.

“We’re done,” she said. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through the murmurs of fear and grief like a blade. Everyone looked at her, their expressions ranging from confusion to exhaustion.

Cullen, still kneeling by Leo’s side, looked up at her, his brow furrowed. “Done with what? We have to get him back to the camp.”

“No,” Alaina said, her gaze sweeping over the faces of her small, broken family. Maria, clutching her reset shoulder. The others, hollow-eyed and filthy. “We’re done with this. Done with hiding. Done with scavenging for scraps while they kill us for sport.”

She pointed a trembling finger, not at Leo, but at the sky. “He wants to be acknowledged as our lord? Fine. He’ll have an audience.”

A thick silence fell over the clearing. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

Cullen rose slowly to his feet, his face a mask of disbelief. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m going to see him,” Alaina stated, the words tasting like iron and ozone. “I’m going to his citadel. I’m going to stand in front of the great Lord Jasper and demand he either do his duty and cleanse this land, or give us the means to survive in it.”

Cullen stared at her as if she’d just grown a second head. “Are you insane?” he finally spat, his voice a low, furious growl. “Did you not just see what he did? He killed Thom. He slaughtered that deer just to mock us. He’ll vaporize you before you get within a mile of his mountain.”

“And what’s your plan, Cullen?” she shot back, her voice gaining strength. “We take Leo back to camp? To do what? Watch him die? Watch the rest of us starve? Watch more of us get picked off one by one? We’ve been living your plan for five years, and all it’s gotten us is a graveyard.”

“My ‘plan’ has kept us alive!” he roared, taking a step toward her. “Longer than anyone else. You don’t walk into a storm and demand it stop raining, Alaina. You find shelter. He is a force of nature, not a man you can bargain with.”

“He is the one who withholds the rain,” she countered, stepping forward to meet him, their faces inches apart. “He is the one who let this poison seep into his lands. That’s not nature, that’s negligence. Or it’s malice. Either way, I’m going to make him look me in the eye and answer for it.”

“He’ll kill you,” Cullen said, his voice dropping, each word a heavy stone. “It’s suicide.”

“Then I’ll die,” Alaina said, her voice breaking with the sheer, terrible honesty of it. “But I will not die here, in the dirt, watching a child turn to stone. If I die, it will be on his doorstep, and my death will be an accusation. That is a better death than this.”

She held his furious gaze, unwavering. Around them, the others watched, trapped between her mad resolve and his brutal logic. Their eyes flickered from Alaina’s defiant face to the whimpering, shivering boy on the ground, the living proof that their current path led only to ruin. The choice was madness or despair, and Alaina had just dragged them all to the brink.