The lumber yard shuddered as something struck the forest beyond the tree line.

  Dorian felt it through the machine first. The vibration climbed from the steel frame, up through his boots, rattling his knees and teeth before the sound even reached him. He released the controls without realizing it, hands hovering uselessly as the ground settled.

  For a single, suspended moment, the world froze.

  Workers halted mid-motion. A man halfway through a step stopped with his foot still raised. Another held a log in both hands, muscles locked, eyes already snapping toward the impact site. No one spoke. No one had to.

  The saws kept whining.

  Their steady roar felt wrong now, obscene against the sudden silence of the people. Dorian became acutely aware of every sound: the belt whining, the motor churning, his own breath loud in his ears.

  Time dragged. Gut-wrenchingly slow.

  Something stood up from the crater.

  It emerged from the trees in a blur, bounding from trunk to trunk for momentum. Where its hands struck bark, the wood blackened and smoked. In less than three seconds it tore through the forest and burst into the clearing.

  It stopped at the edge of the yard, deliberate.

  The thing straightened, stretching to its full height as if taking inventory.

  Eight feet tall. Shoulders broad enough to block a double doorway.

  Three arms. Two on the left, one on the right. Each hand ended in four evenly spaced fingers, too symmetrical to be natural.

  Its face made Dorian’s stomach drop. Empty sockets where eyes should have been, and a grin carved too wide across its skull. Three rows of glassy, white-hot teeth gleamed inside its mouth, radiating heat that shimmered the air around it.

  Dorian didn’t need anyone to say it.

  It was a Starspawn.

  Someone screamed, “Scatter!”

  The spell broke. Workers bolted in every direction. A man near Dorian fumbled for his phone, hands shaking as he dialed. Deep down, they all knew it didn’t matter. Help wouldn’t arrive on time. They were already dead.

  The Starspawn finished its silent assessment.

  Then it moved.

  It sprinted toward the nearest fleeing worker faster than a racehorse, heavy feet slamming into the earth in a steady rhythm that felt like the ground itself had grown a heartbeat.

  A woman ran for the yard’s shop, legs pumping with everything she had. She was almost at the door when the Starspawn backhanded her mid-stride.

  The impact sounded like a car crash.

  She hit the wall hard enough to leave a dent, bones shattering, skull rattling against wood. A short, involuntary yelp escaped her as the air was crushed from her lungs.

  Before her body could even slide down the wall, the Starspawn was on her.

  Three arms wrapped around different parts of her frame. With the indifferent strength of a predator playing with its food, it tore her apart.

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  Blood splattered the wall and door. It also covered its ashen body but then hissed and vanished, evaporating like water on hot concrete. The stench hit a second later, thick and nauseating.

  The Starspawn devoured what remained without pause, its maw incinerating flesh as it chewed. When it finished, it turned, already searching for its next prey.

  Two men arguing near the saw caught its attention.

  Like an adult chasing toddlers, it bounded toward them with horrifying speed.

  They ran for the circular saw. The creature closed the distance almost instantly.

  Its right arm swung wide. One man ducked beneath it.

  The Starspawn’s lower left arm unfolded, reshaping into a four-pointed spear. It drove forward and skewered the second man clean through.

  Its upper left hand clamped around his head. The palm glowed brighter as it pressed in.

  “Alex, NO!”

  Dorian screamed the name before he realized it was him screaming.

  The grip tightened. Bone gave way like rotten fruit.

  This wasn’t the plan.

  They’d talked about this happening and thought up fantastical scenarios for how to survive. None of it mattered. No plan survived contact with the enemy, especially not something this inhuman.

  Dorian’s heart crashed into his gut. His lungs locked. The smell of burning ash and scorched flesh filled his nose, sharp enough to make him gag.

  He froze.

  His mind went blank.

  Then a chill crawled up his spine, sharp and electric.

  I can still do this.

  His next actions felt automatic, like an out of body experience.

  He stepped back, squared his stance, and charged.

  The impact was like tackling a bonfire.

  Heat slammed into him, searing his skin as his shoulder drove into the Starspawn’s torso. It hadn’t expected resistance. Maybe arrogance, or perhaps an inability to comprehend that something so small could fight back. Dorian’s momentum, the creature’s lazy footing, and blind luck carried them both backward.

  Into the saw.

  The machine screamed as the blade bit into the Starspawn’s body. Dorian rolled away in a desperate scramble, barely avoiding being dragged in with it.

  Pain detonated along his left side. His shoulder wrenched, white-hot agony flaring through what he was sure was a dislocation. His skin burned where he’d made contact.

  It didn’t matter.

  He staggered back, heart hammering.

  The Starspawn thrashed for a moment, then stilled.

  Dorian Harker had killed a Starspawn with his own hands.

  The first in history.

  At least, the first not aboard a star battleship guarding the crack in the Sun.

  The corpse radiated heat, enough to make the circular saw glow a dull red. Then the body began to collapse, disintegrating as whatever held it together finally failed.

  The stench and weight of it all hit Dorian at once.

  He doubled over, retching.

  When it was over, only four things remained.

  A pile of black ash.

  The Starspawn’s glassy teeth, cooling rapidly.

  Alex’s broken body.

  And something else.

  An orange crystal rested on the ground, no bigger than Dorian’s palm. It pulsed slowly, rhythmically. With each beat, he felt a pull deep in his chest, a wordless, insistent tug.

  He took a step toward it before he realized he was moving.

  It must be scorching hot, he thought distantly.

  His hand twitched anyway.

  The urge wasn’t rational. It bypassed thought entirely. Before he could stop himself, his fingers closed around the crystal.

  Pain exploded through him.

  Fire surged into his veins, searing and unbearable. He cried out, collapsing to one knee as his body burned from the inside out.

  And then beneath the agony, something else bloomed.

  Elation.

  Release.

  Power.

  For twenty agonizing, blissful seconds, both sensations consumed him. Then it was over.

  The crystal was gone.

  Dorian sucked in a breath and realized, dimly, that he felt…good. No, better than good.

  Fantastic.

  The burns on his arm had faded to pink scars. His shoulder slid back into place with a wet pop somewhere in the storm of sensation. His skin felt firm, alive in ways it hadn’t been in years. It was like he’d spent his entire life breathing through a straw and had only just taken a full breath.

  Strength flooded him. Muscles tightened and flexed as if forged through years of hard training. His senses sharpened. The world felt clearer.

  And he wanted more.

  The hunger hit like a drumbeat.

  The pain didn’t matter. The fear didn’t matter. He wanted that power again. He wanted to tear apart every Starspawn that dared touch Earth. He wanted to become unstoppable.

  The thoughts didn’t feel entirely like his own.

  He didn’t care.

  His gaze fell on Alex’s body, and his phantasmagoria cracked. Tears burned at the corners of his eyes.

  “Pay back your enemies a hundred-fold,” he whispered, a joke line Alex used to throw out when they’d play video games together. It tasted bitter now.

  He thought about burying his friend.

  A pang of hunger discarded the thought as he lifted his misty eyes to the sky and froze.

  Meteors streaked through the atmosphere, trailing fire. Dozens. Hundreds.

  Something had happened to the blockade around the crack in the Sun. It should have taken them months to reach Earth.

  “Why weren’t we warned?”