As before, the winged demons came, this time a pair of them, scything past, blade wings slashing at her from each side. She ducked the first one, feeling its passing narrowly overhead, but that only steered her right into the path of the second. From a squatting position, she exploded upwards to leap over it, but one leg was too slow.

Her real leg. It lingered as it always did, for it was the one that could propel her while the other was a dead weight. This time, her real leg lingered too long.

Pain rocked her. Pain she’d felt before. Pain that had changed her forever, forged her with fire and steel, made her stronger. Except she didn’t want to be forged again. She’d barely survived it the first time.

She collapsed, staring at the point where her leg ended, ragged skin, bone and tendon leaking blood. The pain vanished. She felt nothing, and knew she was going into shock.

She didn’t care. Because it was over, all of it. She’d never find her father, never get the opportunity to look him in the eyes and tell him everything she’d longed to tell him over these last twenty years.

All that time spent making herself strong, wasted.

Where was Ludo? Had he met a similar fate? Or were the Crystal Quarters a happy place of sunshine and rainbows? For all she knew, Ludo was having a glass of ale at this very moment, chatting up an attractive barkeep. In a way, she hoped he was.

They came again, the winged shriekers, a full trio this time, darting toward her, growing bolder as if they sensed the kill was near. The temptation to throw herself over the edge was palpable; being crushed on whatever stony bottom awaited her couldn’t possibly be worse than being cut into pieces by the demons.

But then she remembered that girl she’d been, lying in the dirt as black ash fell upon her like snow, her leg burned beyond recognition. She remembered how helpless she’d felt, not unlike how she felt now. She remembered how much she’d hated that feeling, like her very existence depended on the kindness of another, how she couldn’t even stand up, couldn’t walk or move or even breathe.

Not without help.

She hadn’t felt that way in a long time, years upon years. She’d built her entire life, her entire person, on never being like that again. And she refused to feel that way for a second longer. If she had to endure the worst agony of her life and rebuild her body from wooden splinters and scrap metal, she would rise from the ashes again. Or she would sure as void die trying.