Gavik’s chest implodes—ribs and flesh exploding, painting the grass with viscera in every direction. Wet splatters on Varia’s face—our face—but she never flinches. Not for a second. She watches every slow moment as Gavik’s knees buckle and his corpse falls into the grass face first. Horrified face first. No grave marker. No pyre. Nothing.

And the screaming in our head lessens. The fire, the images of death—they start to fade. Like someone ushering the horrible orchestra into another room and closing the door. It’s all muted. I—we—can think again, clearer.

We’ve destroyed.

We’ve obeyed.

And the screaming rewards us.

I feel Varia’s face smile. A delighted grin as she wipes pieces of Gavik off her cheekbone with slow ease, as her fear of the screaming turns to calculation. As she realizes the rules of it, the requirements.

“We don’t need anyone anymore,” she murmurs. “Least of all a maggot like you.”

She turns. Gavik’s gone. I don’t mourn him—he was no one worthy of mourning. But Varia’s words, the coldness and calmness in them, I mourn that. I feel it, deep down. I feel her sense of betrayal, her wounded trust, her aching love. All of it. All of it sadness like thorns, pointed out at the world.

And on the horizon of her mind, a roar. A roar, as the screaming comes back quickly, furiously, ravaging every thought in its path.

DESTROY IT ALL.

The morning breaks cold and snappish over Breych’s three ridges. Lucien wakes me, and I mumble my surprise.

“You’re still here.”

“For as long as you’ll have me.” He laughs. “Come now. It’s far past sunrise.”

Past sunrise. How long was that dream? It was a dream, right? No—it was reality. I saw Gavik die. Just like I saw Varia crawl out of the valkerax pile, alive and whole.

Do I even tell Lucien? His wound over his sister is no doubt still raw. And how can I tell him when I don’t even know why it’s happening? How do I tell him of the pain his sister is feeling, the betrayal?

One thing at a time, Zera. We’re in a warm bed now, with a warm boy.

enjoy this ease while it lasts, the hunger taunts. for it will not last long.

I push out the lingering dregs of the dream and sit up with a groan. “Why did you wake me?”

“Don’t we have something to do?” he asks.

“Yes. But I’ll have you know I’ve plucked out men’s eyeballs for far lesser crimes than this.”