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“Your loyalty warms me,” Vasteel said, no hint of mirth remaining. The words were festered around their edges. “Ill-placed as it is. Have I not given you everything, Mesrich? Have I not offered you the place at my side and shown you eternity?” The words shook. They rose in volume with each passing second. “WasInot also owed your loyalty?”

“Let them both go,” Thaddius begged, though there was little conviction left in his voice. “Please. Killme.”

“No pure Glacian muddies their blood and lives, Mesrich. Your death is not for bargaining.”

“My death…” Thaddius grunted, panting heavily. “Will be a welcome reprieve. So long as it departs me from your tyranny. Your greed.” A heavy silence followed. “You speak of eternity, but your fear is plain to me. Soon, your pure-bloods will dwindle, until this world is finally free of us, and the Mother will rejoice.”

A slow laugh began, and it was full of the fear Thaddius spoke of. “My,” Vasteel rumbled. “How far into madness you have fallen. Much further than evenIthought. Though you did try to warn me, did you not, Phineas? Was it not you that suggested I send him to the Ledge for Selection? That it would shake him from his reverie? Return his spirit?”

Phineas closed his eyes and lowered his head.

“It returned quite a bit more than we bargained for,” Vasteel said icily. The King’s anger seemed barely contained. “Though fear not, Mesrich. It was not Phineas who revealed your treachery to me. I have my ownacquaintancesin the Colony who bore witness to a pregnant human, visited by Glacians this night. Though the girl does not seem to be with child any longer,” he remarks, his tone dropping to a deadly timbre. “Where is it, Mesrich?”

“Kill me,” was his only answer, and then the crunch of his knees hitting the floor. “Kill me and let it be over.”

“Very well,” Vasteel said, his heavy footfalls finding Farra’s ears. He passed close by her, his talons glancing off the stone, and came to stand before Thaddius. “It pains me to know this is the last time you will kneel before me, Mesrich,” he muttered coldly, taking a sword from a nearby Glacian’s scabbard. “My only consolation is knowing that your offspring is out there still and that they will continue to pay for your stupidity.”

There was ringing sound as the sword passed through the air and then the hall was torn by the sound of pure anguish. Thaddius’ wings lay broken and bloody.

Farra faded, unable to hold onto her consciousness any longer. Her thighs were slick with blood that continued to flow from her, and it promised a kinder demise. She whispered Thaddius’ name, her heart splintering to pieces, and begged death to come.

“Take him to the Chasm!” Vasteel roared. “And push him in.” A frenzied cheering followed.

“As for you, Phineas, I am loathe to spill more pure blood–”

“Please!” Phineas begged. “Please, Your Grace. I’ll do anything. It was a mistake!”

“You will learn to heed your King again, Phineas. Or find yourself devested of your wings.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“You sink to the bottom of our ranks. Do you understand me?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Now,” Vasteel said, though his voice had become muted. Farra wasn’t sure she truly heard it at all. Was not sure if she were still there, in that realm of hell with mountain beasts. “Let us see what spark resides in this one.”

Farra was kicked onto her side.

And she fell.

Pain was absent.

But it was not death that relieved her. Of that, she was certain. She had touched death, seen its insides, and they were hollow. Death was dark and voiceless. It did not sing to her as she was serenaded now – lulled to sleep by choirs.

They sung of escaped sorrows.

They sealed her eyes shut.

They coaxed her to follow the current of this river to its end, where death would embrace her.

But this was not death. Death was bloody. Death was a freefalling abyss. Death did not lure its prey into its clutches, it wrenched the living from their perches and shut out the light. One had to fight to reach the surface again.

She felt the pressure against her lips, her eyes, warm tendrils of an indescribable substance holding them shut. But she could not breathe, could not find the will to try.

That matter was inside her now. Warming the inside of her nose and sliding down her throat. Searching… searching.

For what, she could not fathom. All that she had been made of had been left for ruin. Stripped from her.