Misery slashes through Wynter as she takes in the obvious shame in her mother’s face. How her narrow-faced father won’t even look at her. The monarch, priestess and Elfin Council eye Wynter with cold silver eyes, their gazes raking over her demonic wings. She pulls her wings more tightly around her trembling form, wishing she could blot out her existence as the crowds’ words ring in her mind. Winged refuse! Demonic filth!

The Marfoir drag her toward the circle of runes then jerk her onto her knees. She lets out a squeak of pain as her kneecaps collide with the white marble.

Bereft and shattered, she glances up to find the high priestess taking her in with pitiless eyes, a gleaming crown on the holy woman’s long, snowy hair, its silver wrought into the shapes of the Shining Ones’ sacred flock of starlight birds flying in a transcendent swirl. Sacred silver runes mark the high priestess’s flowing alabaster garments.

“Your child, I believe,” a Council member intones, glancing condemningly at Wynter’s father, who is peering down his long, pale nose at Wynter with an expression of revulsion.

Her father grimaces and points at Wynter as she trembles, crumpled on the ground. “That thing is not my child,” he bites out, sharp as glass through Wynter’s heart. “She is an abomination. We have repented for forming her and performed a Sacred Erasure of her stain.”

The high priestess nods approvingly. “You have honored the Shining Ones’ holy edicts, and now we will erase her, as well.” The priestess strides toward Wynter, silver rune stylus in hand, then gracefully lowers herself while Wynter cowers, trembling on the ground. The priestess gestures in the air with a flick of her graceful finger.

Two Marfoir glide forward and take rough hold of Wynter’s wings. The second they touch her, a gray mist shrouds Wynter’s empathic vision. She cries out in terror as the Shadow opens multiple eyes in the swirling gray and smiles.

Horror leaping, Wynter stages a futile protest as her wounded wings are forced open and she gasps, the pain of it sending sparks through her eyes. The high priestess grabs hold of Wynter’s ragged tunic collar and wrenches it down.

“No, please!” Wynter cries out as her tunic’s front is torn partially open to reveal the Zalyn’or imprint fused to her skin.

“We have brought the Deargdul creature here,” the high priestess intones to those assembled, “to purge her from our midst in this life and the next.” She levels her zealous gaze at Wynter. “The Holy Zalyn’or will never again be worn by a cursed Deargdul.” Then she raises her stylus, presses its tip against Wynter’s Zalyn’or imprint and murmurs a runic spell.

Sobs wrack Wynter’s body as her Zalyn’or shimmers then morphs to a three-dimensional necklace, a sting racing along her bruised skin.