Tragedy.

I recognized that fatal pain inside her right then.

And right now, I have to go for the jugular.

“Where is Colter?” I demand, gripping her hand tighter. “Where is your brother? Did you mutilate your own twin, your own flesh and blood for your vanity—?”

She breaks out of my hold, her palm striking my face in a sharp slap.

Head canted sideways, I feel the burn of her heartache, my skin alive with the searing sting. I focus on that pain, allowing it to sober me further.

Just as suddenly, Devyn’s hand seizes my throat in a firm clutch. Nails biting into my skin, she draws my face close to hers. For one second, I glimpse behind the perfect, beautiful mask she wears. In the quickening beat of a drum strike, I see the hurt, the grief veiled behind the drugs in her shimmery eyes.

“You think I give a fuck about some ancient god or his brainless followers,” she hisses. Shaking her head, she laughs breathlessly. “I wanted to give you all your answers, Halen. But—” She slowly and deliberately releases my throat. “I think you should die with your mystery.”

As quickly as I break through to her, she shuts me out. She’s a master.

A shiver coasts over my naked skin, and as Devyn backs away, she reaches out to the woman holding the chalice. Her eyes stay trained on my face as she brings the cup to her mouth and drains the contents.

When she drops the cup to the earth, her eyes are glassy, her features slack.

She’s gone.

Devyn raises her arms, the fire seeming to snap and rise higher at her command. “I will take it freely or by force, but I will take it, Halen.”

“What happened to choice?” I demand of her.

“You already made yours. Now you’re here. At least you were given one.” She whirls toward her devoted subjects. “Hear me,” she shouts. “We willingly gave up our worldly possessions, our mundane lives. A test of our devotion.”

The horned people around the circle of fire groan and pound their chests in answer.

Devyn spins around and around, arms outstretched. “And you know the word,” she cries, her voice pitched high, carrying over the drumming. “I love those who do not first seek behind the stars for a reason to go under and be a sacrifice, but who instead sacrifice themselves for the earth, so that the earth may one day become the Übermensch’s.”

I recognize the recited passage from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Devyn uses the wordage, twisting the meaning, to control her higher humans.

“The Primal Man sacrifices himself, tearing free of worldly constraints, in order to be reborn, to recreate himself,” she says, her glassy eyes settling on me. “This is the way to our divine immortality.”

I push forward, staring her in her bloodshot eyes as I search my memory for a passage to combat hers, any purposeful words I can use to get through to these people. “Zarathustra stated, ‘This is my way, where is yours?’” I shout, “thus I answered those who asked me ‘the way,’ for the way, that does not exist’.”

I turn to face the victims, these people who have been misled, following literally blindly, offering pieces of themselves to achieve Devyn’s misguided wisdom.

“This is what you believe?” I ask of them. “Nietzsche defined it so damn clear that there is no formula or path to follow, that each person must seek their own way. But you’ve followed hers. You’ve sacrificed yourselves for her way. Can’t you see the failed logic in that?”

The eerie moans ascend higher, the flames popping against the dark abyss of this hell. The higher men fall to their knees in frenzied worship of their priestess. They’re too far gone, lost to depravity as they fuck and worship and submit to their will.

“You have no idea what they’ve suffered to be here,” Devyn says.

Then, with a defiant smile, she tilts her head. The dark tresses of her hair spill over her bare shoulders as she oscillates in sexy rolls of her hips to the rhythm of the swelling drumbeat. Her body gyrates, succumbing to the drug in her system, her movements becoming frantic, and a band of fear cinches my chest at the powerful sight of her.

She touches the antlers affixed to her scalp, caressing the bone as she dances closer to me. “Nietzsche was such a misogynist,” she says. “Overman. A ridiculous translation. I prefer Over-woman. As the Maenads, the fucking followers of the god themselves, were in fact women. Figures a man would try to rewrite history for his own vanity.” She spits the word back at me, her dark eyes alighting on my naked skin. “Your profile was wrong on that, profiler. My vanity has no place here.”

“Dance with me,” she urges, clasping my waist and drawing me toward the center of the ring of fire.

Smoke curls up toward the open ceiling of the cavern, and I follow the billowing trail, anxiety a claw constricting around my lungs as I breathe in the smoky air.

As Devyn coaxes me into an erotically sensual dance, I flash back to the ritual when Kallum endeavored to do the same, luring me into the frenzy.

“Where they have some,” Devyn says, motioning her head languidly to her higher men, “you have every aspect of the Übermensch, Halen. At first, I envied you that. Your connection to the primordial pain. But then, every path is unique, just as you said. And then there you were, amid my ritual ground, my answer.” Her eyes shine fiercely in the glow of the fire. “My path.”

She drapes her forearms over my shoulders, her eyes listless, her body rocking in seductive waves. For the briefest moment, I yield to her desire, allowing myself to be swept up in her embrace, trying to connect with her, where I can reason with her…

I stop, motionless.

The Overman’s ultimate weakness was always their humanity, what they needed to sever to fully ascend. I’ve been trying to reach Devyn’s humanity…but that’s no longer possible. She’s succeeded in concealing it beneath drugs and her delusion.

Torn over the knowledge that I’ve already failed, the pain point is realizing I have to turn her over to authorities like this.

Her body stills as she looks deeply into my eyes. “I’m offering you eternal reprieve from your suffering. I even liberated you from the vile sorcerer, the wicked pharmakeus. I made it so he’ll finally do the time you know he deserves. I’m giving you everything you wanted.”

She braces my face between her palms. As her glassy eyes track my face, I allow her to press a tender kiss to my lips, embracing the connected sorrow between us, before I pull away.

“Devyn,” I say, gliding my fingers over her soft features. “I promise, I’m going to get you the help you need. I’ll be there. I won’t leave you.”

Her expression twists, a mix of uncertainty and her dazed state giving me the advantage to turn in her hold and elbow her side. Dropping to my hands and knees, I crawl toward the perimeter of the circle and rake my fingers through one of the alchemic symbols.

“No,” Devyn shouts.

She drops to her knees beside me, her obsessive-compulsive nature triggered at seeing the defaced symbol. While she attempts to fix the marking, I claw the earth and pitch the dirt into her eyes.

She releases a furious, shrill scream that activates her herd.

“Fuck.” I shove past her and dart toward the lowest hedge of flame. I blink hard, clearing my vision of the tracers streaking off the sparks as I glance around at the blind men and women feeling their way toward the center of the circle.

The woman holding Devyn’s staff makes a sluggish move toward me, and I duck and grasp the long wand at the base, snatching it free of her grasp. I run toward the fire, holding my breath when I reach the wall of flame, then dart through to the other side, where my clothes lay in a pile.

Breath ragged and lungs searing from the smoke, I tie my shirt around the end of the shaft. “Come on…” Once it’s secured, I thrust the staff into the flames. My shirt catches fire.