No response. The princess falls deathly still, and the liquid rattle of her breaths stops. A loud, high ringing fills Misery’s head. This isn’t happening. The void was supposed to take her—to take Misery—not this bystander. Is she being punished? What has she done wrong? Ruin, help. She’s reaching for the delusion, for the angel, the way she used to reach for prayer and Hir Grace as a child, hoping that Mother could be saved. Stupid and desperate and yearning.

Bring her to me.

That voice. That command in her head. Ruin. She’s done as zie asked—she’s come to the place zie told her to. She’s given in to delusion, to void. Please—let her have this much. Let the princess live.

Mind and body in shambles, Misery scoops Alodia Lightning’s body into her arms, adrenaline feeding her strength as she hobbles forward. Darkness surrounds her, but not completely. Ahead and above a glacial light shines from a distant and unknown source. As Misery fights to make a straight line forward she realizes she knows this place. This is the cavern she saw when she died, where Ruin revealed hirself to be an apocalyptic force. Is she dead again? Will Dr. Sower come to rescue her this time? Misery’s blood pounds in her veins, thickened by the weight of all the holystone around her.

She makes pilgrimage to the place Ruin stood in her dream, feet guided by instinct rather than knowing. The distant smear of light swells in brightness and summons greater attention with every step she takes. Something comes slowly into focus. Something huge. An enormous plinth, size of a building. All white, paler than the palest bone. The single light source pours cold illumination over the top of scalloped stone. The patterned lines appear abstract at first, but coalesce into understandable form as Misery’s vision adjusts to the gloom.

Enormous stone wings, folded into a sarcophagus.

Awe drowns her. There are no words. None formed by human tongues are adequate to praise the thing before her. The sarcophagus has not been put together by human hands, has never before been touched by humanity. In front of that colossal construct she is desperately and beautifully insignificant, a wisp of an idea, a tiny candle flickering beside the suns of creation.

Come here.

Driven by want and the command in that voice, Misery walks the interminable distance to the foot of the building-sized monolith. The tower of white stone expands until it envelops her horizon and there is nothing but Misery, the sarcophagus, and the dead weight of Alodia Lightning in her arms.

Put her down.

Misery places Alodia Lightning at Ruin’s feet, a silent heap of limp flesh and gray skin. If there were ever a time for a miracle, that time is now.