chapter eight
bjorn
T he moment the first support beam buckles, I know this isn’t the gods.
This isn’t some divine reckoning raining down on the unworthy.
No—this is sabotage.
And I will find the one who dared.
Giselle is still draped across the altar, slick and laughing, wild-eyed from everything I just gave her. My blood. My breath. My wrath. She’s radiant in the ruin, but I move fast. My body coils, lifting her into my arms, and I leap from the stone just as a thick section of the canvas splits open overhead.
Flames lick across the tent like eager tongues, tasting every seam. Screams start to rise—real ones. Not the pretty kind. Not the ones we carve for pleasure. These are raw. Screeching. Ending.
The gods will not be pleased.
Tonight was for them. For Disting. For blood and sacrifice on their terms.
Not this .
I shove Giselle behind one of the bone-pillars still standing, my arm thrown across her as another support crashes down near the outer circle. The ground shakes with it. Screams split the smoke, and the flames leap higher as the canvas tears and folds in on itself.
Sparks shower down like molten hail.
Giselle laughs—of course she does—her blood-slicked face wild with glee, like the gods themselves just dropped a curtain for the final act.
But I don’t laugh.
I’m seething.
My hand curls around the haft of my axe, knuckles white, chest rising and falling like I’ve run a warpath. My jaw clenches so hard I feel it crack. My heart pounds with something ancient and furious.
This was our night. Their night.
The altar is still burning in the distance, half-swallowed by a wall of fallen timber. Blood paints the dirt in erratic lines. I can see them—bodies. Dozens. Crushed. Limbs bent the wrong way. A contortionist screaming beneath a collapsed iron wheel. A guest trying to drag their lover free, only to slip in the blood pooling under them.
A section of the crowd tramples itself trying to escape. Others are just... watching. Still moaning. Still aroused. Still believing this is part of the show.
But I know better.
This is sabotage.
Desecration.
I snarl low in my throat, like a wolf with a broken fang.
The gods gave me this night. Lux gave me this night. Disting. The feast of blood. The celebration of old ways. And someone— some coward —dared to ruin it.
I press a blood-soaked hand to the leather straps across my chest. To the rune carved there—? for Tyr, the god of justice. The one-handed. The sacrificed.
“I did not fail you,” I whisper through clenched teeth. “This was not my hand. Forgive me.”
I close my eyes, breathe through the smoke, and offer a second prayer—this one rougher, more guttural. A string of Old Norse slipping from my lips like a wound reopening. My voice is raw. Furious.
Behind me, Giselle touches my face, breathless and grinning like a girl drunk on war.
“Bjorn,” she gasps. “The gods aren’t angry. Look around.”
I glare at the chaos. The ruin. The screaming.
“They’re gorging,” she says, fingers curling in my braid. “Even the ones who didn’t come here to die are bleeding for them now.”
Her voice is soft but sharp, cutting through my rage with something fierce and bright.
I glance at her. My Valkyrie. My chaos.
She’s not wrong.
All around us, the gods feast.
And somewhere in the smoke, I know—we'll find the one who fed them best.
“They wanted this,” Giselle whispers beside me, her fingers brushing ash from my jaw, her grin wicked even through the smoke. “They want it all.”
I grunt, dragging her through the wreckage of the center ring. My grip on her is tight. Not because I doubt her—no, never her. But because I would carve a warpath through flame and ruin to protect her if I had to.
Around us, the tent groans like a wounded animal. One of the side beams slants dangerously inward, catching fire at the seams. The air is thick with the stench of burning fabric and flesh. Screams rise through it, some shrill with terror, others soaked in ecstasy. It's impossible to tell which is which anymore.
We reach the clearing between the side tents and the bar, where the smoke thins just enough to breathe. Half the tent is a ruin. The other half? Still alive. Still screaming.
The crew converges—staggered but whole.
Indie stumbles into view first, whip still clutched in one hand, a smear of soot smeared across her cheek like war paint. Her leathers are scorched at the edges, and there’s fresh blood running down one thigh—but she’s upright, fire in her eyes, jaw clenched like she just survived a battle and is pissed it ended early. The scar on her face—the one carved by her father—gleams red in the firelight, like the gods remembered it.
Lux is close behind her, shirtless, his chest streaked in soot and blood, hair wild and sticking to his face. He’s dragging a heavy metal beam clear from the path, gritting his teeth as he shoulders the weight.
“Indie,” he snaps, reaching for her, eyes raking over her like he’s scanning for wounds. “Are you hurt?”
She snorts, flinging her whip over her shoulder. “Takes more than divine fire and falling timber to kill me.”
He brushes ash from her collarbone with more care than I’ve ever seen from him—tender, almost reverent—and I see it then. Real concern. Not the performative kind he gives the crowd. No, this is something deeper.
I make a mental note to ask about it later.
Behind them, cirkies are dragging buckets toward the spreading fire, soaking cloth and dousing flames. The ones who weren’t crushed are moving like warriors now, slipping through the smoke with soaked towels, with water jugs, with grit.
To my left, Giselle brushes soot from her thighs, hair wild around her shoulders, eyes still gleaming like she’s ready for me to devour here all over again. She catches me watching and grins—all teeth and blood.
“Look who didn’t die,” Johnny crows, skipping into view, his coat half-melted at the hem, face smeared with soot and blood and what I hope isn’t brain matter. Alaska stalks behind him, leash trailing from his hand, her collar jingling with bones.
He throws an arm wide, gesturing toward the smoldering chaos.
“Well, that was dramatic.”
I ignore the sarcasm, scanning what remains of the center ring. Bodies everywhere—some moving, some not. Screams taper into gasps. The tent didn’t fully collapse, but enough of it did to kill at least a few hundred. The ring is half caved in. Torches still burn. The altar still smolders.
“What happened?” Indie asks, her voice sharp.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” I growl.
Johnny bounces on his heels, then leans in, all mock-theatrics and manic delight. “Wanna see something fun?”
He doesn’t wait for permission. Just turns, skips through the ash like it’s snow, and waves us after him.
He leads us to a beam near the center. The rope that once held it aloft? Cleanly severed. Not burned. Not frayed. Cut.
I crouch, lifting the ends in my palm, fisting them.
“This wasn’t collapse,” I snarl. “It was sabotage.”
“Guess who I saw creeping near the rigging about ten minutes before it all came down?” Johnny singsongs.
My head snaps up.
He points.
And there—through the settling smoke, framed by two cracked beams and the haze of blood and fire—is him.
The man in the fur.
Still standing. Pale chest bare beneath the heavy pelt. One hand at his side.
The other?
Stroking himself.
Right there in front of the wreckage. Touching himself slow and steady, eyes half-lidded, mouth curved like this death—this destruction—was the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
And gods help me, he’s not wrong.
He doesn’t hide. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even blink.
Then he reaches down, grabs a dead girl by the hair—yanks her head back, and finishes across her face like she’s an altar and this is his prayer.
Giselle gasps beside me, and then, of course, giggles.
Indie snarls something sharp under her breath.
Lux stares.
“He’s been here all night,” Giselle says, licking blood from her bottom lip. “Saw him in the blood tent. Didn’t even blink when I carved a man open.”
“He was there during the Eagle,” I growl, voice low. “Didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.”
Indie nods. “Watched me gut a man with the precision of a surgeon. Smiled the whole time.”
“I thought he was just some creep,” Johnny laughs, eyes wild. “Didn’t think he was gonna bring the roof down.”
“He wasn’t watching,” I murmur. “He was worshipping.”
Lux steps forward. “He cut the ropes. Caused the collapse.”
“To feed the gods?” Indie asks.
I look back at the corpses. At the flames. At the blood still running into the dirt.
“He gave them more than we planned,” I say, my voice low, thick with the weight of ash and blood. “More than we promised.”
Giselle steps closer, brushing soot from her chest with fingers still streaked in red. “So maybe he did us a favor,” she murmurs, like it’s a joke only the gods would get. “Intentional or not, they’re fed.”
The words hang heavy.
We don’t speak. Not yet. Because it’s all clicking into place.
He didn’t cut the ropes for the gods. He didn’t collapse part of the tent out of some reverent offering. He did it for himself. For the thrill. For the power of it. For the chaos.
And it worked.
He fed off the destruction like it was made for him.
Lux narrows his eyes, stepping forward as smoke coils between us and the wreckage.
“He’s like us,” he says finally, voice calm. Certain. “Or close enough.”
“Close enough to understand,” Indie mutters, dragging her fingers through her sweat-matted hair.
“Close enough to crave it,” Giselle adds, still watching the empty spot he stood in.
Lux gives a single nod and moves to approach.
“I’ll talk to him,” he says, tone unreadable. “See what he wants.”
He takes two steps forward.
And then?—
Gone.
The man disappears like smoke.
No sound. No movement. Just empty space where he stood, as if he was never there at all.
The fire crackles. The crowd stirs behind us—some sobbing, some laughing, some on their knees in the dirt, as if praying to something that just stepped out of the flames.
But none of us move.
None of us speak.
Because someone came to our show tonight not to participate.
Not to scream. Not to offer blood.
But to watch it all burn.
And whatever he came for?—
He took it.