CHAPTER 11

Game Over

As they fled Margaham’s Game, Marrill stood with the rest of the crew at the railing of the Kraken’s stern, watching the Lost Sun continue his slow march onward. When he reached the edge of the massive game board, he didn’t even pause before stepping onto the Stream, walking across its surface as though it were solid.

Destruction flowed in his wake, the world crumbling behind him with each step. Crumble wasn’t the right word, she told herself. It was more like the entire Stream was pouring into the void the Lost Sun had created in a torrent, a massive waterfall, straight into oblivion.

Even as she watched, the void grew larger, expanding outward in all directions, slowly devouring the Stream. This was their worst-case scenario. This is what the crew had been trying to prevent ever since they’d first run into Serth in the Gibbering Grove, so long ago. The rise of the Lost Sun. The destruction of the Pirate Stream. And it was even more terrible than she’d imagined it could be.

“What happens to it all?” Marrill asked in a small voice, unable to look away from the creeping emptiness.

Ardent sat at a table behind her, hunched over the Map to Everywhere and examining it closely. He didn’t even look up when he answered her. “It is destroyed. Utterly.”

The rumor vines at the ship’s stern echoed his words softly, as though even the plants understood the solemnity of the situation.

The thought of so many worlds—of so many possibilities—destroyed struck terror in Marrill’s heart. She didn’t understand why anyone would want to cause such a thing. “But why would the Master do that? Why unleash the Lost Sun and destroy the Stream?”

Ardent lifted a shoulder. “To finish what Serth began, I imagine. The Master seems to have been operating as Serth’s second in command after all.”