I should’ve been outside, socializing with Grace and James instead of hiding in a tent. There was no good reason for me to be in here—at least, not one Grace would understand. After all, James hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Maybe he would have, if I’d given him the chance. Or maybe I’d smashed a lamp on his head for no reason. I was so lucky he hadn’t pressed charges. 

My stomach twisted at the sound of footsteps. I’d half-hoped Grace would forget about me, but no such luck. The tent flap unzipped as I forced a semblance of a smile onto my face. 

Bent over, Grace’s waist-length black braid slipped forward over her shoulder. She smiled, crow’s feet forming on her tan skin. Trust my cousin to always have a genuine smile at the ready, even after five hours of hiking through mosquito-ridden forest. 

“You ready? Everyone’s itching to get to the ruins and tell scary stories.” She wiggled her fingers in a very un-scary way. 

My answer was a resounding ‘no,’ but saying it out loud would only start an argument. 

Before I could formulate a less direct answer, Grace grabbed my arm and tried to drag me out of the tent. It didn’t work very well, given that I was nearly a foot taller and fifty pounds heavier than her. 

“Come on, everyone’s waiting.”

“I’m not going. My feet are killing me, I’m sick of the bugs, and I’m sick of-” -the people. But I couldn’t tell her that, because they were her friends, and she would take it way too personally if I told her I didn’t like making small talk with six strangers, my ex-boyfriend, and the classmate who’d been avoiding me all year. 

She pouted. “Liiiza, you promised.”

“I promised to come on a ‘small hike.’ I didn’t promise to walk my feet off.”

“But it’s just half an hour, twenty minutes if we’re quick.”

“That’s an hour round trip.” 

She batted her eyelashes, which were naturally long and thick. “Pretty please, for the birthday girl? I know you’ll love it. The ruins are so cool, just like the stuff you paint all the time. You’ve got to see them.”

“I’d rather you just take a picture for me.” 

“It’s not the same. Come on, if you’re tired of walking, I’m sure James would carry you. He’s been dying to talk to you all day.” 

“I wouldn’t want to bother him. I’ll just stay-”

“He won’t mind.” She leaned back to call, “James, Liza’s feet hurt. Could you carry her to the ruins?”

“No problem,” he called back with a voice that sent chills down my spine. 

I scrambled out of the tent as he reached us. “I’m fine, really. You don’t have to-”

He shook his head, and a leaf fell from his short, touseled hair. “It’s no problem.” He reached for my arm with a muscular hand.

I jumped back. “Don’t touch me.” My stupid voice was shaking like he’d come after me with a knife. Fighting to keep my tone level, I added, “I’ve got a bad cold.” For once, I was grateful for my allergies as I convincingly sneezed into my elbow. For added—and unfortunate—realism, strands of snot clung to my face and arm. 

James took a step back with a grimace. Grace rushed to pull a pack of tissues from her bag. I cleaned my face, glad that my snot seemed to have dissuaded James from coming any closer. I could’ve done without the other disgusted glances aimed at me, but it wasn’t like I’d been close to Grace’s hiking friends, anyway.

“Let’s head out,” James called to the clearing at large. As we headed out, he took the lead with Grace and Rowan—a lanky redhead who’d been my friend in art class before he stopped talking to me for no apparent reason. 

I drifted toward the back of the group. 

“Hey, come up here,” Grace called over her shoulder. 

I briefly debated the merits of ignoring her before trudging toward the front of the group. Of my limited options, I would’ve rather walked between Grace and Rowan, but the two of them stepped aside to make an obvious gap between her and James. Avoiding it would’ve brought questions that I didn’t have the energy to answer right now, so I reluctantly filled the gap.

James immediately started blabbering about how much I would love the ruins, but I zoned him out by daydreaming about my OC. 

Mark was based on these weird recurring dreams I’d been having for months. Not that I could really complain about a handsome blue alien man monopolizing my dreams. He was even a good kisser, which was the one thing about him I hadn’t told Grace. She would tease me to no end if she knew. Then she would bring up her romantic comic idea again, and I would have to invent another excuse why I couldn’t draw the scripts she wrote.  

It wasn’t that she was bad at writing; it was just that… she had a very different taste in literature than I did. We both liked fantasy, but her fantasy had a lot more brooding vampires and steamy romance scenes than mine. I wasn’t super comfortable drawing anyone in steamy scenes, especially not my dream boyfriend. 

Thoughts of Mark kept me entertained until we reached a clearing in the trees. A stone slab formed the floor of the clearing, but there were no ruins to indicate if there had ever been walls or a ceiling. 

James moved across the slab and stopped in an engraved circle near the far edge. “Everyone stand in one of the circles.”

“Why?” a petite girl asked. 

“Trust me, this’ll blow your mind.” 

As I moved to a circle of my own, I looked closer at a design carved in the stone. There were ten small circles around a larger circle that had symbolic writing in it.

“Now hold hands,” James instructed. 

I fought the urge to scowl. Holding hands with sweaty people was almost as bad as hiking with James. At Grace’s pointed look, I took her hand and the hand of a stranger. Everyone else did the same, forming a perfect circle. Every small circle was filled with a person. No one was left out.

I leaned toward Grace to whisper, “Did you make sure there were ten people just so we could do some-” I wanted to call it a ‘stupid ritual,’ but I didn’t want to upset her. “-interesting bonding activities?”

“Huh? No, James organized it all.” She shrugged. “He said ten people was the perfect amount for what he had planned.”

Weird.

James cleared his throat. “Repeat after me. Make sure you say it right, or we’ll have to start over.” He paused to make sure he had our attention. “Vis Ortai te osal-”

I repeated with the others, curious as to what he hoped to achieve. There were some odd superstitions about the ruins, but none of them had anything to do with standing in circles or summoning a demon—which was what it sounded like we were trying to do. 

“-na kesam-”

We repeated. 

“-visi letat.”

Again, we repeated, and I thought that would be it. But apparently not. 

“Osalka vis na Vangorn!”

As soon as ‘Vangorn’ left our mouths, the letters carved in the stone began shining with an otherworldly violet light. Several people cursed and moved like they were trying to back up, but they stayed in their circles. I let go of sweaty hands to try myself, but my feet might as well have been glued to the stone for all they moved. 

“What the f—- did you do, James?” a guy shouted. 

James grinned at me from across the circle. “Hey Liza, you know that place you’re always painting—the one with the dragons and lizard people-”

I wished I’d never shown him that. 

“-well, it’s all real.” He laughed, even as the light in the stone grew too bright to look at. “All we needed were ten descendants of the Ortai, and we can actually go there. We can be gods! And goddesses, of course.”

Everyone was looking at him like he was crazy. Which he definitely was, because non-crazy people didn’t superglue their friends’ shoes to the ground. 

A howling wind started up as objects bathed in violet light rose from the middle of the circle. A pickaxe flew toward the petite girl. As soon as it touched her, she disappeared. 

People screamed, but I barely heard them over the wind. A harpoon flew at a guy, and he disappeared. I tried to yank my feet out of my shoes, but they were glued in place. When did James have the chance to do that? How had I not noticed before now?

I looked up as a lance touched Grace’s outstretched hand. She disappeared. James, myself, and two other people were the only ones left. As soon as I counted, another one disappeared. Then James. 

A pole topped with a metal disk flew toward me, and everything went dark.