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Just unending silence that hung like an icy wet cloak over the entirety of the Tears.

Eons stretched out long and unnerving while I sidestepped toward the Crossroads, ever on the alert for whatever attacker might come for me.

“Do you recognize this trail, slayer?” A chilling feminine voice rang out, shattering the silence like the clang of a hammer on a cold anvil.

I spun, trying to find in the mists where it had come from. At first, there was nothing, and then slowly a dark figure emerged, cloaked in tawny brown feathers like those I had been picking out of my soup, bedding, hair, and everything else since the last time I made this crossing.

“I imagine not. For you, it was just another day. Killers murder every day and think nothing of it.” Her voice was even and cool, like the blade of an unsheathed knife to my throat.

She finally came fully into view, the Banduic Ulchabhan, the Duchess of Owls. Keeper of the Crossroads.

She was alone, at least from how it appeared. Alone, and she had come to collect.

“Where is she?” I snarled, advancing on her, but she danced back without ruffling a single one of her feathers.

“Where is whooo?” she crooned, mocking me by feigning ignorance, draping a delicate hand across her neckline. “Which of the many whoms do you think I should have with me? The lost sister? The lost lover? Perhaps even the jilted betrothed? Which of them should I have with me?”

“You sent me an eye!”

“I did.”

“Where is she?”

She chortled, a clicking of her tongue that sounded like a beak snapping. “Silly birdie, why would I need to bring anyone with me to lure you here? I had but to pry an eye from any passing corpse and send it to you, knowing the depths of your devotion.”

I frowned, my head swimming from the resins I had swallowed dry on the ride, not even bothering to dilute them with wine. Laughter echoed in my head. Was it the Banduic? No, someone else.

“But the eye . . .”

The mud beneath me resonated with bodies dropping from the air, surrounding me. I spun, my back to the dangerous waters of the Tears, the eternal prison of which there was no escape. Dozens of owl messengers blocked my path on both sides. Above me, on silent wings, dozens more owls hovered in the air.

“This is the spot where we found his medallion. Was he reaching for it when you murdered him?” The Banduic did not move, did not advance, nor did her army of messengers. They stood perfectly still, watching me with too-large eyes, only their head swiveling to follow me. “It has been ages since one of my owls has gone missing, so long ago that the first two days I just assumed he was being hosted by the Hounds. On the third day, when he still had not returned, I sent another to the halls of the harvest. He was nowhere to be found.”

She paused, watching me as I tried to get a clear enough head to figure out what to do. But I couldn’t think beyond the thick tar-like amethyst sludge filling up my brain. Should I attack? Should I flee across the shallows of the Tears and risk being sucked into them? Should I risk the last drops of my nearly depleted magic to summon a light beam? Doing so would certainly get me out of the direct line of this trap, but they were not for long-distance travel and could not take me much farther than, perhaps, two hundred meters with my current reserves. Should I do that, I would barely be alive stepping out of it; at best, I would be condemned to the living death, sleep with no ally to pull me to the Temple to be cared for by the drui.

I was fucked. Well and proper fucked.

“It was a kindness that you did not commit his magic to the Tears. A kindness that will go unrepaid.”

“You lured me here to chastise me for killing a messenger?” I snapped.

She chortled that strange beak snapping sound again. “Oh, little birdie. No. You will die. Just not as messy as I originally planned when I found his medallion. You will feel his pain, every last drop of it, and then we will commit you to the Tears. Perhaps, should you be a sweet little bird to the Mistress of Nightmares, she might one day pull your sorry carcass from the depths and return you to life. Her mercy is not mine to speak for. But we will give you what you did not give my boy, a chance at life.”

She nodded her head, her shoulders moving with her as she did so.

Wings, fists, feet, cudgels, blades, they rained upon me as I fought them back. Fae were thrown off me, quickly transforming into owls before they could fall back into the water. Blood spattered hot and wet across my face, my own or theirs, I did not know.

All I could think of was my sister and Cricket. I had to survive for my sister, to see her free of Daróg’s clutches. If I died in his yoke, that was a fate I could live with, but she did not deserve that. And I needed to apologize to my little bug; I needed to ensure she survived long enough to find happiness, even if it was not with me by her side. I needed to touch her cheek one more time and tell her I loved her. I needed to beg her forgiveness. I needed her.

I needed to live. And I fought with a ferocity I did not normally fight with. Usually in battle, I had nothing but glory to capture at the end of the war, but this was different. I had two lives that depended on me. One less than the other. I owed it to them to survive. I owed it to them to give everything I could to ensure they had everything they deserved in life.

The numbers were overwhelming, though. I could not touch my magic. I could barely think, and I knew my movements were sluggish, sloppy, bordering on unskilled, my sword flinging about seeking its next target with impunity. Every body I threw off me was replaced by two more. The weight of their bodies pressed in, suffocating me as I fought to free myself. A thousand cuts, a thousand bruises blooming under skin battered by clubs, scratches to my face, and bites to my fingers.

My sword was ripped from my hand and lost in the crush. Air was knocked from my lungs. I couldn’t breathe around the press of bodies. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t squirm. Couldn’t struggle with the weight of them toppling me to the ground. All I could do was gasp into lungs that had a decreasing amount of room to expand, and the searing pain of my wounds.

And then, like a bubble popping, it was all gone.

Ice slid over me as water rushed in, and I fought to reach the rippling surface with a hundred faces trying to block out the meager sun. I stretched broken fingers bent back at strange angles toward the surface as it grew more and more distant.