The tiny crown falls from his head and rolls on the ice, through the pools of blood, coming to a stop at the feet of the female we’d been showing the pebbles to. She curls her head down elegantly, her beak touching the gold, and begins to cry.
Great wracking sobs tear from her body, her pain pouring out. Tears drip from her eyes and freeze before they hit the ground, creating pebbles of another kind.
The rest of the penguins stop fighting and join in until we’re surrounded by sobbing and dead penguins. My hands are shaking, the blood on my body freezing and cracking as I move. I’m going to be sick again. Oh, Harrow, I’m going to be sick.
You will not remember who you are at the end of this . . .
Locke takes a hesitant step back from the scene, not sure what to do. I don’t know either, standing frozen over the Emperor’s body and his crying hen.
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED
You only had to kill one penguin but it looks like you killed two-hundred and thirty-one of them! Congrats you little murderer you.
REWARD: the tears of the beloved and the emperor’s crown.
The tears from the Emperor’s mate rise into the air and swirl, glowing blue. They spin and float over to me where they drop into my outstretched hand. I stare at them, horrified.
“This is a joke,” I croak. “I can’t . . . I can’t take these.”
“They are very valuable,” Cipher says.
“I don’t care,” I wheeze. “I don’t want them.”
Locke comes over and stares at the frozen pearls in my hand. They’re heavy, heavier than they should be. Everything about them repulses me, from the pearlescent shine to the weight.
“Put them in your inventory, Vespera,” Cipher orders. “Do not leave them here.”
Bile stirs in my throat again and my eyes meet Locke’s. “I can’t carry these.”
Locke seems to understand I’m not saying that I don’t have room. He seems to understand I can’t bear to carry them at all.
Carefully, he takes them from my palm and murmurs a gentle, “Inventory” before they disappear. He looks at the crown on the ground sitting in a pool of blood. “What about that?”
“Take it,” I rasp. “Please.”
We’re both covered in gore and blood. Still, I shy away from the blood on the crown as Locke dusts the frozen bits off it and makes the crown disappear, too.
Only then do I look around.
Two hundred and thirty-one penguins. It’s hard to fathom that’s what I’m looking at. The bodies lay scattered across the ice, the red bright against the black and white and bits of yellow. There’s no dripping. It’s too cold for that. Instead, the ice seems to crawl along the dead, consuming it, taking it.
Just like in Dross, nothing here is wasted.
“We should go back to the safehouse,” Locke says. “Get cleaned up.”
I nod, but I don’t speak. I’m too numb for that.
You will not remember who you are at the end of this . . .
My face pinches, knowing my XP is increased because of this slaughter. Knowing that I’m gaining power in exchange for this brutality makes my stomach twist all over again.
“Yeah,” I finally croak out. “We should go.”
In an hour, this boss will reset. With it, I hope the gore is wiped clean. I hope the sobs stop. I hope it all looks like it never happened.
I turn, and come to an abrupt stop, my eyes finding the witness we hadn’t noticed. I hadn’t heard him approach, nor had I sensed him at all. But there he stands, hair as white as the snow we stand in, eyes as blue as the ice.
He grins. “Hello, Beastie,” he purrs. “Did you miss me?”
