Seraphina looked at me.
Scared now, aren't you?
You've always been terrified of these cold, wet creatures.
All you have to do is grab my sleeve and beg me to save you, and I'll pull you out.
She stood at the edge of the cliff, waiting for me to throw myself at her.
I wiped the blood off, braced myself against a rock, and straightened up. Then I walked to the edge.
"Thank you, Supreme Alpha."
I jumped.
The wind shrieked past my ears. In that brief fall, I heard her breathing stutter out of rhythm.
Countdown: 4 days.
The Serpent Abyss was pitch black.
Snakes crawled over my body. Fangs sank into flesh. The stench of venom and rot filled everything. My wolf, silent for so long I sometimes forgot it existed, pressed itself flat against the floor of my mind and would not rise.
I dragged myself through the mire.
Five years ago, I'd stayed down here for half a moon cycle to protect Seraphina, slaughtering wave after wave of serpents until the swarm finally retreated.
Now it was just me.
Three days and three nights, and I didn't make a sound. Whenever I couldn't bear it anymore, I stared at the panel.
Almost over.
I clawed my way to the top of the cliff at dawn.
Dried blood crusted every inch of me. The rags of my clothes hung in strips, and the wounds had turned black at the edges. The venom had seeped deep enough that my skin barely registered pain anymore, just a dull, wrong numbness.
Seraphina and Gabriel Foxglove were standing at the rim.
Gabriel shrieked and scrambled behind her.
Seraphina went rigid. She took half a step forward, her hand rising before it fell back to her side.
She raised a barrier of wolf aura, dense and pale as frost, and drifted further away, as though avoiding something filthy.
"You've dirtied the ground."
Her voice was raw. "Hand the serpent gall to Gabriel for his cultivation, then get yourself cleaned up."
I opened my hand. The serpent king's gallbladder sat in my palm.
Gabriel approached with a silk handkerchief, using it as a barrier between his fingers and mine as he reached for the gall. The faint sour-sweet smell of dried foxglove and weak chamomile drifted off him, underlaid with something that didn't sit right.
The instant he took it, his foot slipped. The thick sole of his brocade boot came down on my right hand.
My index finger had already been half-bitten off in the Abyss. Now it separated completely.
Cold sweat soaked through my back.
I pressed my lips together, pulled my hand back, and didn't make a sound.
Seraphina stared at the severed finger. Her own fingers trembled, just once.
She turned and walked away.
Her thoughts spilled over each other in a tangle, bleeding through the damaged bond whether she knew it or not:
Why didn't he cry out?
He used to come running to me over a paper cut, begging me to blow on it for ages.
Does he... not care about me anymore?
No. He's just being stubborn. Trying to punish me.
I watched her retreating figure. The scent of white frost and crushed moonflower trailed behind her, that metallic undercurrent threading through it like dissolved silver.
Who cares.
Countdown: 2 days.
The Servants' Quarters held nothing but straw.
I leaned against the corner and pulled out a tarnished silver-alloy locket. Inside, a lock of fur so old it had gone colorless, but I knew it had once been the warm brown of my mother's wolf.
It was the only thing my parents had left behind.
The year the plague swept through, they'd sent me up the mountain and hung this locket around my neck.
I rubbed the face of it with my sleeve.
Two more days.
I thought about home. Warm milk, flowers on the balcony, Mom and Dad nagging me about nothing. The scent of dried lavender and old wool. A door left unlocked.
The light dimmed.
Seraphina stood a few paces away.
Her hand flicked out. The heirloom locket ripped free and landed in her palm.
"Give it back!"
I lunged for it.
Seraphina raised her arm high, turning the locket over between her fingers as she examined it.
"So this is why your bloodline power has been regressing." Her voice was dangerously low. "The Path of the Unfeeling forbids mortal attachments, and you've been clinging to this thing."
I grabbed her sleeve, stretching for it.
"Please. Don't touch it."
The moment that word left my mouth, her grip tightened.
That familiar voice slithered into my ears, leaking through the bond-bleed:
He's finally begging.
Destroy what he cares about, and he'll break.
Mortal garbage. Why keep it? From now on, your world will have only me.
Seraphina looked at me. Lunar essence pulsed at her fingertips, cold and bright.
"Too late."
A sharp crack.
The silver-alloy locket shattered in her palm, crumbling to fine powder. The tiny lock of fur disintegrated with it, gone as though it had never been.
She opened her hand. Ash-grey dust drifted down over my face.
Cold. Bone-deep cold.
I didn't move. My arm stayed outstretched, reaching for something that no longer existed. The powder settled into my eyes. It stung.
I lowered my hand, sat back down in the straw, and closed my eyes.
