Voracia the Insatiable came back to the mortal town with a hole in her pride and a hunger sharp enough to split stone. Her own creation had taken her throne while she was away. The thing she had shaped from raw hunger now sat in her seat, and she carried the bruises to prove it. She wanted the throne back. First she wanted a crowd. A goddess does not return in silence. She followed the smell of grease across the square and found two girls eating at an outdoor table. The green one wore a red sports bra and rested a plate on her belly like a shelf. The purple one sat beside her in a tight dress, sipping and burping into the back of her hand. Belinda Burpwell tore into fried meat without looking up. Sara Socalong watched the street with flat eyes and said nothing. Voracia stopped at the edge of their table. Red skin. White hair. Black horns. Her own belly hung heavy over the spiked armor at her hips. The girls looked up. Belinda burped and kept chewing. Sara set her cup down. "You're blocking the sun," Sara said. Voracia smiled. "Move your table, little plates. I want the hall." She walked them across the square to a dining building with crystal walls and glowing beams curled like tentacles. She kicked the doors open and claimed the long center floor. Servers froze. Voracia snapped her fingers and pointed at the kitchens. Within minutes a bone-framed altar was dragged in and loaded with bowls of writhing alien greens, slabs of meat, and stacked pies. The spread ran the length of the room. Belinda whistled. Sara folded her arms. Voracia ate standing. She tore through the first bowls without sitting. She drained a pitcher, swallowed a whole pie in three bites, and kept going. Her belly pushed forward against the spiked armor and creaked the floor under her heels. Belinda stopped chewing halfway through a drumstick. Sara's flat face went still. Voracia finished the altar, every bowl, every plate, then planted her feet and let the burp out. It rolled through the hall like a bell strike. Crystal beams hummed. Glasses cracked. The stone floor under her split in a hard star, fractures running out from her heels in red, dust-filled lines. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "That," she said, "is a belly. That is a burp." Belinda set her drumstick down for the first time all day. Sara stood up slowly and stepped back from the cracked ground. Voracia turned for the doors. Word would move now. The thing on her throne would hear by nightfall that the real queen of gluttony had come home, and was walking toward it.

Voracia left the cracked dining hall with grease on her chin and the taste of pie still in her teeth. The throne was somewhere in this town, and every hour she wasted let the thing she had made gather more loyal mouths around it. She walked the streets and made people look at her. A baker pointed north when she stared at him long enough. A boy with a cart did the same. She followed the pointing fingers up a slope of black rock until the buildings thinned and the road bent toward open ground. The palace sat against the ridge like a slab pushed up from below. Dark stone. Carved geometry. Glowing veins ran through the walls in cold blue light, branching like cracks in ice. Purple sigils burned at the doors. She knew the shape of it because she had not made it, and that was the point. Her creation had built itself a house. She felt the air tighten before she saw anyone, the way a kitchen feels before a pot boils over. She stopped on the path. Behind her, Belinda Burpwell and Sara Socalong had followed at a distance, drawn by the noise of a goddess on the move. Belinda burped into her fist. Sara said nothing and watched the doors. A figure stepped out from the rocks to Voracia's left. He was tall. Black armor. A moose skull pulled down over his head, the antlers wide as a doorway. He carried a black sword as long as he was, the tip dragging a line in the dirt. He stopped on the path between her and the palace. "Voracia," he said. "I'm going to kill you. Then I'm going to eat what's left." He said it the way a man names a price. "No one should hold what you hold." Voracia laughed once, hard, and her belly shook against the spiked armor. "Wrong door, meat," she said. "The thing inside took my chair. You want a goddess, get in line behind me." Malachar Bonecrusher lifted the sword off the ground. "Line's here," he said, and swung. She caught the flat of the blade against her forearm. Sparks. The shock ran down to her heel and split the path stone. She drove her shoulder into his chest and they went down together. He was strong. She was hungry. She got a hand on the moose skull and twisted until the strap bit his throat, then rolled clear and came up panting. He stood slower than she did. Blood ran from under the helmet. He picked up his sword and stepped back into the rocks without another word. She watched him go and did not chase. She turned to the palace. The doors were the doors. She knew where her throne was now. Belinda spat in the dirt. Sara, behind her, said, "You're bleeding." Voracia wiped her arm and started walking up the path.

Voracia stopped two strides from the palace doors. Her stomach pulled at her like a fist closing on rope. She had not eaten since the dining hall, and the fight on the path had burned through what was left. Her hands shook against the spiked armor. If she walked through those doors hungry, her magic would sputter when she needed it most. Behind her, Belinda Burpwell wiped her mouth and waited. Sara Socalong stood with her arms crossed and watched the sigils burn. A voice called from the slope below. Dylan came up the path in his black polo and grey cargo pants, out of breath. He stopped in front of her and looked at the blood on her arm. "Not yet," he said. "You need to eat first. I built you something." He pointed back down the slope. A hall stood at the foot of the ridge that had not been there an hour before. Stone pillars. Long tables of glowing crystal. He had set it up while she fought. She wanted to argue. Her belly argued for her. She turned from the doors and followed him down. Inside, the table ran the length of the hall. Grotesque alien meat sat piled on platters that glowed from underneath. Dark roasts. Sliced cuts stacked like books. Bowls of fruit she did not know. Dylan pulled out the chair at the head of the table. "All yours," he said. "I'll bring more when it's gone." Voracia sat down and started with the closest roast. She ate with both hands. She did not pace herself. She tore through one platter, dragged the next one over, and kept going. Belinda watched with open respect. Sara turned away. Grease ran down Voracia's chin and onto the spikes of her armor. She finished a stack of meat, leaned back, and let out a burp that rattled the crystal tabletops and shook dust from the pillars. The air above her chest lit up. A pendant of light bloomed there, hanging from nothing, soft and bright and slow-turning. Her hands stopped shaking. The shake in her legs went too. She felt the floor of her power settle back under her, deep and full. She wiped her mouth on the back of her wrist and stood. "Better," she said. Dylan nodded once. He did not say anything else. She walked back up the slope with Belinda and Sara behind her. The palace doors were where she had left them. So was the thing inside. At the tree line to her left, a shape moved in the rocks. Black armor. Wide antlers. Malachar Bonecrusher had not gone home. He had circled back and waited for her to come out fed. He stepped onto the path with his sword in both hands and started toward her.