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Brand and his companions had been so distracted after their triumph over the so-called dreadbeast, they’d forgotten all about the bodies left out in the field. No dignity. No one to cradle their loss. They didn’t even notice when Okthana gathered Ygritte and Aelthys close to whisk them away. And she wouldn’t be at all surprised if the group hadn’t once thought about the aged creatures they left in the long grass since.

Damn them for their callousness. Only Brand would be spared, her sweet boy forgiven for trusting so easily and falling victim to the lies he’d been fed.

Caryx found her hand again, his first knuckle dragging down the back of it. “It will not have been in vain. You’ll make sure of it.”

Yes, she fucking would.

They crossed to the pyres, the crowd parting. Okthana threw her shoulders back, chin up, and called on the piddling remains of her power. The umbra burst from her back as ink and tendon—eight taloned legs that hoisted her from the ground and relieved some of the pressure on her joints, carrying her the rest of the way before turning her to face them.

More lost creatures lay to one side of Aelthys and Ygritte, hence the others gathered. Though she knew every one of their names, Okthana felt nothing but the vaguest regret. What use did she have for mourning them? They made their choice. The Veil was their preference, and so that’s where they would go.

Okthana lifted her gaze to the sky, where the last of the Forgotten Lands’ near-endless fog was finally dissipating under the full moons’ light. The phenomenon was one of the few things that boosted her energy and spirit. That reminded her of what was possible and why she was going to such lengths to reshape the world.

It was also, for whatever reason, the only time fires burned hot enough to consume.

She made her way to the farthest end, her touch gentle, reverent, as she ran it over a once beautiful face. The creatures who’d come to her from the west through Urk’s Pass were strange and fragile. Unlike any of the others in Bordoroth. And yet, there was a strength in them, a resilience, she greatly admired. One that even the Imperial Family—for all their gilded towers of diamond and gold, all their power and privilege—probably couldn’t muster.

“Who carries the flame for Helene?” she asked quietly.

“I do, Mistress.”

Helene’s mate, Farryd, stepped forward and handed his sputtering torch over, the pink firelight dancing over his drawn face and her wasted body in the same, sickening way. Okthana knew then and there that it wouldn’t be long until he was the one lying before her.

“May she pass easy through the gates,” he whispered, a catch in his reedy voice.

“And rest in blooming fields,” Okthana answered, then set Helene’s pyre ablaze.

She waited a respectful amount of time before moving on to the next. “Who carries the flame for Neris?”

“I do, Mistress.”

So it went, one after the other, until Okthana found herself before Ygritte and Aelthys all too soon—so beautiful, so beloved, even in the stillness of death. And she suddenly had no idea how to proceed.

Maybe she should’ve listened to Caryx.

“W-who carries the flame f-for…” Fuck the fist wrapped ‘round her throat. The searing prickle in her eyes. She was above such fruitless things. “Who carries…the…”

“I carry the flame for Ygritte and Aelthys, Mistress.” Caryx’s voice rang out stronger than she’d heard in months, despite the wet tracks down his sunken cheeks. “May they pass easy through the gates.”

When he presented the torch, Okthana wrapped her fingers around his, unable to do it alone or look away from his mossy stare as she touched the flame to their shared pyre. With the first crackle of catching wood, she was done. She fell as the umbra dissipated, her knees hitting the ground. Caryx sank right beside her.

She forced the final words past clenched teeth. “And rest in blooming fields.”

Then, and only then, did Okthana finally let the building screams free.

Fern and the twins wiped the proverbial floor with Lunara the next morning.

They were merciless in their onslaught, taking turns embarrassing the ever-loving shite out of her. Repeatedly.

Entirely unsurprising, but she hadn’t expected it to be quite so swift or brutal.

Gasping on the ground and staring up at a dawning sky, Lunara reexamined her life choices, suddenly unsure how she’d gotten there.

The plan.

Right. Though the searing sparks of pain down every nerve, the swelling in her joints, didn’t help her confidence whatsoever.

It will be worth it.