My voice breaks on his name and I let it.
"I never hurt him because I thought I deserved it." The silence that follows is the heaviest thing in the room. "I took it because I believed somewhere beneath everything that if I was patient enough, if I was quiet enough, if I absorbed enough of what they gave me without breaking, maybe one day they would look at me differently." I draw in a breath that does not fully steady me. "Maybe one day they would love me."
The words pull something completely loose. Whatever control I have been holding gives way all at once, and I feel it happen, the weight of it breaking through, the tears coming harder now, beyond anything I have ever managed to contain. The kind that come from somewhere too deep to control.
I do not try to stop it this time. I let it move through me entirely, the grief and the fury and the particular exhaustion of having carried something this heavy for this long, and I stay where I am until it has passed through me as much as it is going to. Then I pull myself back together. I am not ready, but I have to be. I stand slowly, wipe my face, and breathe.
Colsar watches me, his presence asking nothing of me, offering nothing I have not asked for, simply there.
"Are you done with him?" he asks.
I look at what is left of Mysin. "Yes."
"Then step out, if you want."
I look at Colsar and understand what he is offering. I pull the blade free and set it down, then turn and walk toward the door without looking back. The door closes behind me. I stand in the corridor and breathe.
At first there is nothing. Then I hear it. The shift first, the particular sound of Colsar moving through the change, something that no longer resembles anything human. Then the roar, tearing through the air behind the door and filling the corridor around me, followed by the sounds of something being taken apart without restraint or mercy. Something strikes the far wall hard enough that I feel it through the floor beneath my feet. Then another impact. Then another.
Then silence.
I wait. I lean against the wall and close my eyes and I wait, and I do not try to measure the time.
When the door opens again Colsar stands inside, just returned to himself, covered in blood that is not his. What remains of Mysin is scattered across the room without order, pieces of him distributed in a way that leaves no question about the intention behind it. His face is unrecognizable. His head floats in the well.
I look at Colsar for a long moment.
"Feel better?" I ask quietly.
"Much," he says. He does not elaborate.
I reach for his hand and he takes it, and we leave the room together.
Neither of us looks back.
Human Lessons
AXAR
A knock at the door.
Axar looked up from his desk. "Why hello, young princess."
Aviaryn curtsied. "I would like to have human lessons today, King Axar." It came out more command than request, but he did not mind. He gestured for her to sit.
"Have you been working on your compelling?"
She crossed her arms and pouted. "There are no worthwhile humans here to practice on."
He laughed. "There will not be many wherever you go either."
"Why not?"
"Our power has changed over the centuries. Weakened. We can only compel those with Yorali blood now."
"It does not work on other humans?"
"No. Only them, and even that is a dangerous business. Some Yorali are skilled in deathmagic and can cause great harm if they manage to resist."
