I extended blades from my shields, scythes to reap men, and I reaped Wyre and Orven with a single stroke, shearing through them both with such speed that I unleashed a fountain of blood and bile upon the walls, the windows – they were the killers and this was what they needed –

No. It was too quick.

I took Wyre by the shoulders and headbutted him. I felt his face explode against my forehead. Satyr-strength didn’t just break his nose; it pasted it across what had once been eye-sockets.

“No!” Tanra shrieked.

“Yes,” I growled, drawing back my head, looking down at the mess I’d left. I would hold him, and he would be a corpse in my hands – I would feel it. He would be mine. I would capture him, corpse and ghost together, bound forever into a puppet at my bidding, soul cursed to Nethernum for all eternity –

I tried to bat her away as she approached, an open healing-potion in her hand, but she was far too slippery for me, slinking it and blurring away with him, tipping the concoction between his lips –

I picked up the desk in my hand, hurled it, but she was gone –

No. Not in a way Killstop could hinder.

My shields barred the diviner’s intrusions but I didn’t bring out the blades, instead calling on my faithful servants, instructing them hold my enemies fast with their clawed hands – I took up a dagger and inscribed my mark into Wyre’s flesh, into Orven’s flesh, seals interwoven with the best infinity runes I could trace – illegal, unthinkable – and then, listening to their screams, I cast them both into Infernum –

I met Tanra’s eyes; she flinched.

“I could –“

“That’s a death-sentence,” she hissed. “You know it.”

The moment the words left her lips the personal shield about her faded. She grunted, clearly sensing something as my other barriers itched to push her out, force her back across the carpet towards the doorway.

Was this what she planned?

“A death-sentence!” I growled. “Who said anything about keeping them from the law’s justice? A headsman’s axe, a noose, or… this,” I clenched my fingers, so close to forming the scythe, so close to reaping them –

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They were there, right there, frozen behind the desk, right in my power – I had only to close my fist, bring down my arm in a single satisfying motion –

Such a long time ago…

Wyre, looking nauseous as he sprawled over the desk, a dried-up husk older than his antique leather armour; Orven, a mess of unwholesomeness, wide-eyed and pathetic, his hands on the back of his dad’s chair –

Such a long time ago, and there was no fear, no hurting – there was hunger, sometimes, but there was no darkness – only joy, at least in memory – joy until Hadin’s knife’s-edge made reality plain…

Orven had slain Morsus in cold blood, and for that he would be made to pay, pay with his own blood, served hot – I looked at Xantaire, frozen along with them, and I knew now I could do this thing to him – I could do it for her – for me –

Such a long time ago, and Hadin’s blade was only the harbinger of that true reality – the funeral, the bodies going into the earth – the hanged man, this murderer’s own brother – my puny, pathetic struggling to bear the weight of responsibility that was thrust upon me…

But it was Wyre – it was Wyre who would be punished most. Infernum was too good for him, but it would do. I would go with him. I would take him, and I would see that place for the first time with him as my guide – he whose destiny was to be its prisoner until the end of time –

He was frozen. That wasn’t right. I couldn’t splash the walls with their blood, listen to their screams – not like this.

It wouldn’t be satisfying.

“Break your spell, Tanra.”

“No.”

“Break it.” I looked back at her, and what she saw in my face made her blench. “Break it, now.”

“I just need to make this clear.” She drew a deep breath. “What you seek isn’t the law’s justice, Kas.”

“Are you kidding me?” I wheeled on her and she stepped back through the open door, retreating from me. “He’s a murderer! A mass-murderer!”

She shook her head. “He’s no less defenceless now than when I’m not stopping time – you know that, right? Not compared to you, to us. What’s stopping you isn’t the unfairness, or his vulnerability – that’s always there. What’s stopping you killing him is that he can’t react, Kas. That’s all you really want. The revenge.”

I didn’t have words with which to respond. I loosed something like a petulant howl instead.

She was right. Killing them wasn’t enough. They had to know it. They had to die, knowing it was my hands doing the deed, knowing why…

“It’s empty, Kas, and you don’t need me to tell you. You’ve always known it. You already let it go. That’s why it hurts so much.”

It was as though she’d drawn a target on my pain, like squeezing a spot, a suddenly build-up of pressure that had to be released –

The very moment I shifted my weight to lift my hand and foot, forming those pre-thoughts that would coalesce the energies, bringing me stepping back towards Wyre, slashing out – in that very moment she spoke two more words.

It wasn’t the words themselves. Taken on their own, their presence here, now, would be demeaning if anything, a cause for anger, spite.

It was her cadence. Her mood. It changed everything.

“Happy Yearsend…”

Only someone who could imagine being me – someone like her, not just a diviner but a Sticktowner – could speak to me like that. It wasn’t the melancholia – that was just the surface-level. It was the irony. That bittersweet fatalism. Life was drop.

I looked at her, nonplussed, through my tears.

“… Happy Yearsend, Kas.”

* * *