“Taste me,” she said. She would have every sense he could give her.

She would have him, eventually.

He twisted, in a movement that might have taken every last bit of strength he had in him, perhaps a scrap of power that Teacher hadn’t managed to cut him off from. He raised himself up, found a small freedom of movement, and parted his teeth, catching her fingers in them.

With the weight of his armor and the fierceness of Chort’s grip, the collapse back to his former position made his teeth come together with a force that could have cracked them, had her fingers not been absorbing the worst of it. Her knees buckled, her back arching, and her arm going stiff as she felt flesh part, teeth scraping bone and finding joint.

She smiled.

Every second was glorious agony, as she felt the taste of her blood well in his mouth. She made it as ambrosia, little by little, and then she twisted the taste and the feeling, took the pain they shared and made it into a new pain just for him, until her blood was as acid, and as far as he was concerned, his every sense was telling him the acid had dissolved the bottom of his mouth, his tongue, throat, teeth, and jaw.

He released her, and for an instant, she saw the horror in his eyes, as he tried to comprehend that his lower face had dissolved.

Then… that inkling of resolve.

“You’re going to join me,” she told him. “You’ll be by my side, wearing armor crafted from the flesh of the Endbringers you so stupidly challenged.”

Her head turned as she felt a power reach for her and find her. Close by, someone searched for her feelings. Christine looked at a wall, and her eyes tracked the source of the power through that wall.

She reached back, faster than they could find her, and impressed her feelings onto them. She looked at them, and she found the emotional equivalent of frozen-over wasteland. She tested that wasteland, with a feeling of tranquility, and found little traction. She gave them hope, and there was something there, something that lingered, that stuck to the walls of the heart. She gave them a feeling of being loved, and found more ground.

Hope and love. She twisted at feelings and tried different variations. Romantic love. Not so important to this particular heart. Love for a job. More important, but not the most important thing. Familial love? There.

The woman slowed as the emotions swelled in her breast.

Christine Mathers watched and waited, cradling her injured hand. A thrall approached to tend to it. No healing powers—oh, how she had wished to get a healer under her wing—but only medical expertise.

It took only a few more adjustments before she found the right kind of familial love, and then found the exact feeling that struck closest to this wasteland heart.