Yorl swallows audibly. “It’s— The valkerax is already waiting for us, just before the gate.”

Suddenly a hot breath billows out and over us—so close it could probably slip its head out of the gate easily. But it doesn’t. It just waits, and breathes, and then asks in its eerie voice, “Does it hurt, when the Starving Wolf dies?”

Yorl and I duck beneath the gate warily, and the celeon drop it closed with a frantic thump. The valkerax slithers back a little as I walk away from the gate, following behind me.

“Yes. But I’m used to it by now.” I shrug.

“We die only once,” it says. “But you die forever. That is your duty.”

“It’s a treat,” I agree, then realize sarcasm might not be the way to go with a valkerax, seeing as I can barely communicate with it at all. “Wait—why is dying my duty?”

The sound of something heavy whipping through the air, and then, “Life is a garden,” the valkerax insists. “In which death is required to flourish.”

mad fool, the hunger sneers. speaking of things it has no power over.

Bile rises in my throat, and the strangest part is I’m not sure why. Anger, confusion, sadness; all of it whirls in my head.

“Are you telling me I deserve being Heartless? That suffering is my duty?” I clench my fists. “That my mother and father deserved to die so that I could become one? Or are you just spouting nonsense again?”

There’s a long silence wherein it doesn’t offer anything else. I breathe in. No matter how incensed I am, this isn’t helping teach it Weeping. Priorities, Zera.

“Do you have a name? Something I can call you by instead of ‘Hey, valkerax’?” I ask.

There’s a moment of silence, and then, “Evlorasin,” it says, drawing the syllables out with its ancient, raspy voice.

“Evlorasin.” I try it on my tongue as I settle down in the arena cross-legged. I hear Evlorasin curl around me, long sinewy body circling over the dirt in all directions.

I breathe in, feeling the emptiness in my chest with every inch of my being. Lingering in this moment, and only this moment, clears out my head from the valkerax’s angering words. It’s nice, somehow, to practice remaining in the silence, even if it is gods-know-how-many feet below the ground and enclosed with a bloodthirsty valkerax barely kept at bay. To breathe and let everything else drift into the background—Lucien, Varia, the war—and just focus on the familiar void of my own unheart is the closest I’ve come to experiencing true peace in a long time.

I try to detail how to breathe, and the valkerax does the best it can while pained, and for a scarce moment its huge breaths even out completely, dulling to quiet inhales and exhales.