Valkyrie interlaced her fingers and crouched. Melancholia steadied herself on her wounded leg, placed one foot in Valkyrie’s hands, and straightened as Valkyrie heaved. Melancholia grunted and cursed, but eventually hauled herself over. Valkyrie used the air to give herself a little boost, and she joined Melancholia.

“There,” she said, nodding to a gap in the rocks ahead of them. She led the way, and Melancholia followed.

“Why?” Melancholia asked as they moved.

“Why what?”

“You know what. Why didn’t you let him kill me? Why are you doing all this for me?”

Valkyrie frowned back at her. “I don’t… I don’t really know. I’m sick of people dying, I suppose.”

“Even your enemies?” Melancholia said. Her eyebrow rose. “That’s ridiculous. The only point in having enemies is so you can defeat them, kill them, brush them aside.”

“Or give them a chance to redeem themselves.”

Melancholia smiled. “You honestly think I’m going to change my ways? I want to kill you. I want to kill everyone. I finally understand what death is. I understand its beauty, but I’m not stupid. I know very few people will share this view. You want to stop me from spreading the beauty of death. You think I’m the villain, don’t you?”

Valkyrie shrugged as she walked. “One of them.”

“And I think you’re the villain for trying to stop me. I have nothing to redeem myself for, because I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“You’re something of a sociopath, then.”

“No, I’ve just moved beyond what living people think of as important. Living is not important. It’s just not. Neither is dying, for that matter. But the two of them together, this wonderful stream of existence… Wait till you see it. You’ll wonder why you ever tried to stop me.”

Valkyrie stopped, and turned. “See, you’re talking, and in theory your words are linking up and making sense, but I still haven’t a clue what you’re on about. And even if you do have a deeper understanding of life and death than the rest of us, which I doubt, that’s still no reason to start killing millions of people.”

“I’m going to kill them because I can kill them, that’s all. Lives are meaningless.”

“I don’t think you believe that.”

Melancholia laughed. “Oh really?”

Valkyrie resumed walking. “I think, OK, for a moment, you glimpsed a great truth about life and death. Maybe your power surged in such a way that it pushed you a little further, opened your mind a little wider. OK, I can accept that. But that’s not how you feel now.”

“How would you know what I feel now?”

“Because you are running from Lord Vile, just like I am.”

She heard Melancholia’s smile fade from her voice. “I don’t fear death,” she said. “I just don’t want the inconvenience of it right now.”