She felt its gaze upon her, piercing her skin and becoming a part of her, melting into her mind and casting Nomi aside. She sighed and slid down against the wall, but something closed around her chest and beneath her arms and held her there. Her head dipped and she saw the black flesh of the Fallen God. Each hair on that skin twitched and waved as if smelling or tasting, and something rippled beneath like a bag of snakes.

When she looked up, she stared into its face. You are fallen, she thought, because though she had never seen anything like it, its expressions were more human than she could have ever believed. Its six eyes exuded a sense of release. Its mouth hung open, dry lips cracking up and out in a triumphant grin. When its voice came, it shook the world, and it uttered dark promises she could never understand.

It lifted her and held her suspended above the roofless structure. She looked around at the storm—molten rock spewed from the places where pipes had once hung, the lake was a chaos of waves and violent steam columns, rocks cracked and tumbled from the walls and roof—then she turned and looked for the Sentinels.

They were still there. A few stood below and to her left, still on the shores of the small island. Others had turned to flee. A couple made it to the far shore; several were washed away by waves. Whether they drowned or were killed by the things living there, Nomi could not tell. She looked back down at the Sentinels that had remained. None of them had eyes for her. She and her unborn child were meaningless to them now, because their charge had arisen. She realized that they were talking, clicks and groans that she could barely hear above the chaos of destruction from around the cave. They seemed suddenly very determined and calm. Her skin crawled. Her breath came short and hard, and at first she thought the Fallen God was squeezing her tightly. But the claws around her were loose, suspending rather than holding her.

It rose, Ramus clasped in another of its several hands. Limbs writhed above and around it, more forced against the ground below, and it turned its great triangular head to look at the Sentinels.

One limb snapped forward and sliced a Sentinel in two. The others stood their ground, and when the God drew its limb back, it had turned from black to gray. But the God laughed—a terrible sound that made Nomi scream for the first time since it had emerged—and shook its arm. It shifted back to black.

They're trying, she thought. Doing their best to remember the words they were given to guard against its release. But they've changed too much.

The remaining Sentinels stepped forward, striving to form their mouths into shapes more used to uttering cries and hoots than complex sounds.