The world held its breath, fog leaning close.

  “I am…” Her lips parted.

  “Yours.”

  The word lingered like a blade half-drawn.

  Silence thickened between them, heavy with intent.

  Her refusal to show the smallest of goodwill belied any grandiose title she chose to clothe her deceptions in.

  So he remained still, studying her, letting the hush mount to see if she would flicker again.

  His mind, clearer than it had been in what felt like ages, sifted through thought with unusual calm.

  A strange sensation of familiarity permeated the wrongness he felt in this clarity.

  She stood before him smiling, gold swirling like a tide of molten metal.

  At times, she seemed little more than a doll, a figure posed and prepared rather than a living woman. Something no more alive than the carrion overhead.

  And like them, her borrowed warmth felt as that of a corpse.

  Minutes dragged in complete silence, neither of them moving.

  At last, he stirred.

  He turned toward the pond, and with a flick of his head, bid her follow.

  She obeyed without a word.

  Every step felt muffled, as though he trod over padded linen.

  When they reached the rim’s edge at the place where the root-braid gave way to the stone beneath, Alric lowered himself onto the lip, and she with him.

  The pond lay unmoving, grey glass cast over a bottomless chasm.

  His gaze fell to where the broken shard was, the same place where the white crow had perched before his fall.

  He could still feel the thirst-ache stirring, its call blinding like that of water during a drought.

  But as before, he turned from it, and looked to her instead.

  “Then prove it.” he said, his hand moving deliberate. From her collarbone first, until it came to rest in the hollow beside her neck.

  “Yes, my King.” Her hands lifted from her lap, fingers hovering in the air as though unsure, before setting over his shoulder with gentleness too measured to be natural.

  She leaned closer, her posture tilting with marionette grace, until the gold in her eyes caught his reflection, and their breaths mingled in the hush between them.

  The alien warmth beneath his palm was as wrong as before.

  He slid his other hand under her tunic, where the gash had been.

  What met him was no scabbed wound, but unblemished, pristine skin never touched by violence.

  He did not wait. His hand closed around her throat like steel over flesh.

  A strangled gasp crawled from her neck and died the same instant, crushed before it could make any sound.

  Her smile never faltered, nor did panic stir in her eyes, yet her hands raked and clawed with the blind violence of a trapped beast.

  Unfazed, he dragged her to the rim’s edge.

  Water kissed the strands of her hair, and with a final, unyielding shove, he bent her body back over the stone and pressed her head beneath the grey mirror.

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  Her hair spread like dark kelp over the surface, water swallowing her face whole.

  It did it as though iron were being cast into its proper mold. No splash marked her descent; no sound came of her thrashing, but the dull press of liquid closing round her.

  Her nails dug deep into his skin, breaking it, hot blood spilling into rivulets. His forearm flared in hot pain as it was repeatedly struck by her.

  Steadying his stance, he caught her with his other hand and pressed tighter. Her skin caved beneath the pressure, bruises forming where his fingers closed.

  Her throat worked through the choking, convulsing in its mad search for air. Every muscle twitch and every nerve’s futile struggle, passed into his hands.

  He felt each one, and each one failed under his vice.

  Yet below that veneer of desperation, lay a face devoid of panic. Her eyes, locked on his, held no fear.

  Only her smile was gone, now replaced by something unreadable, grave and indifferent.

  It was theatre for an empty hall. Not a desperate struggle for air, but a grotesque and hollow pantomime of it.

  A farce of human feeling, rehearsed and worn like a mask.

  As her thrashing intensify, he eased his grip just enough to let her throat open. The rush of water came at once, lungs filling, gold dimming as her body surrendered to its slow undoing.

  Her eyes, still locked on his, flared once more with molten hue, then dulled to green.

  They closed at last and did not open again.

  He released her.

  The weight in his hands slipped away into the depths, the corpse sinking into the shadowed waters.

  Only his heartbeat remained, and the bone it struck against.

  The ripples stilled, grey glass smoothed over as though it had never swallowed her.

  Alric kept his stance, breath drawn slow, hands at his sides.

  His arms burned where her nails had torn him, hot blood drying against the chill of the air.

  For a long moment, nothing stirred.

  He let it that way, until the hush seeped into him as balm, washing the roar of the golden city from his mind.

  The smile too, faded, dissolving into nothingness.

  In this quiet, he rose and turned to where the horse had been.

  Nothing waited there but endless formlessness and vacuous matter swirling shapelessly.

  Grey took him.

  He sank without motion, depths closing round his chest.

  Then something in the water moved. Walls bulged outward, swelling as if something pressed from within.

  Out came hands, pale and swollen, slick with the residue of what drowned him.

  They seized him in turn, palms searing like cold fire, fingers burrowing into his cut skin, passing him along with the solemnity of a burial procession.

  One hand lingered at his face. Fingers pried his lids wide, forcing his eyes open.

  A pallid glow met him, searing and blank, pressed into his gaze until it filled him.

  Then the hands heaved him upward.

  He broke the surface like driftwood carried ashore, body cast onto hard ground.

  Air ripped into him in a ragged flood, his chest aflame as water poured from his throat.

  He lay heaving on the pond’s edge, exhaustion closing in.

  The forest loomed vast and shrouded as it had, waxen crows unmoving.

  Catching one of the root-braids, he dragged himself out.

  For a time, he stayed there.

  When at last he stood, he looked around and saw the horse still tethered where he had left it, and Priscilla beside it.

  She was crouching, hands bound, head leaning against them, muttering something to herself rhythmically.

  He came closer.

  “Priscilla.”

  She jerked her head up, green eyes wide, then narrowed, venom spilling through the fear.

  “Where in the abyss were you?”

  “I was thrown into the water.” He pointed toward the pond. “There.”

  Her lip curled. “You look like something dredged out of a grave. Don’t come near me.”

  “How long ago did you come to?”

  Her brow furrowed, confusion shading her visage.

  “How did you… what did you do to me?”

  “Just answer.” His voice was steel. “I’ll tell you after.”

  She scoffed.

  “Fine. Not long before you crawled out of that watery hole.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “Nothing. Only these cursed crows and trees.”

  He studied her for a long moment.

  “Do you remember pushing me under?”

  Her face hardened, contempt flashing.

  “If I wanted your death, Commander, I’d drive a blade between your ribs while you watched. Not shove you like a coward from behind.”

  “I see.”

  He did not move. Only watched her.

  Her brow knit, voice sharp to mask the unease.

  “Why are you staring at me like that?”

  “If what you say is true,” his voice came low, “then speak your name.”

  “Why?”

  He stepped closer, shadow falling over her.

  She looked at him and saw something had shifted.

  Whatever he had endured had stripped away the last of his restraint, and if she delayed, the cost would be unbearable.

  She stepped back, pride swallowed, and answered him.

  “Priscilla.”

  His shoulders loosened slightly, yet his tone remained hard.

  “Do you know mine?”

  “I do not.”

  “Stretch out your hands and cup my cheeks.”

  She flared in anger once more.

  “Are you mad? Why would I do such a thing for you of all men?”

  “Do it.”

  She hesitated, then lifted her bound hands, slow and unwilling.

  Her fingers met his face, palms damp and trembling.

  Her nails were clean, no trace of blood or skin beneath them.

  Her touch was warm, human, comforting.

  “Good. You can release me.”

  She drew back at once.

  Alric looked to the pond again.

  The ring of roots was empty. No white crow, no broken shard. Only grey glass still and depthless.

  Dark-feathered crows hung mute above, and the silence that pressed about him no longer felt devouring.

  At last, he turned to her bonds, tearing the knot free.

  “On your feet. We move.”

  “Move where?” Her voice cut with disbelief.

  He glanced toward the path he had come from, the fog hanging ragged in the trees.

  “To the army.”