Rosheen struggled uselessly against her bonds and let out a wordless protest as Padric once again stumbled with pain, his shirt and skin splitting from another incorporeal blade. He bled freely, but he continued to climb.

“Then Jerrod masters you still. You remain his puppet.”

Slouch Hat’s jaw gaped wide as the girl screamed with fury. Padric’s cry of agony overpowered her rage as his skin erupted with dozens of red cuts. He fell to his knees, his clothes sodden with his own blood, but still he reached for Pocket.

“I pitied you,” Padric said with a quivering voice, but Rosheen could see the set of his jaw and knew his grin remained steady, defiant. “But now I see your place will forever be his servant. His plaything.”

The girl did not answer. She had ceased laughing. There was silence.

Padric took Pocket’s hand in his own.

Rosheen recoiled as something sprayed heavily across her face, forcing her eyes shut. The liquid was hot and she tasted copper as it dripped into her mouth. She shook her head roughly, clearing her vision. Her mouth dropped open at what she saw, but no sound came forth. Padric clutched desperately at his ruptured throat, his fingers grasping feebly at the thick life’s blood pumping between them. He fell forward, choking and his head came to rest on the stair where Rosheen lay, bound by webs and frozen by horror. They looked at each other and her world shrunk to his face, struggling in an ever deepening pool of red. The apology stayed in his eyes even after the life fled them.

The blood spread across the stair towards her. She let it come, waiting for her own death. But the grief would not kill her. No matter how much she wished it.

He watched them all die. All except the piskie, who now lay trapped and forgotten. He had known her. Her, and the rest. But they were nothing. They were not his purpose. He turned back towards the husk and once again it spoke with the voice of a girl.

“Kneel.”

He did as she commanded.

“How fitting that I may have my freedom as I take my vengeance. Receive your birthright, seed of Jerrod. Receive it and die!”

The husk lowered the crown on his head.

Excruciating pain lanced hotly through his skull. He felt his brain begin to boil. The girl shrieked with the rapture of liberation and was gone, her voice fleeing his head and replaced with perfect agony.

Pocket reached up and tried to remove the crown, finding it fused to his sizzling flesh. His fingers blistered as they touched the iron, desperate to pry it free, teeth clenched so tightly he felt them cracking. Visions assailed him. Dead kings and their atrocities; the line from which he was descended. Blood and Fire. Rapine and slavery. Degradation and death.