Ethan's body had changed.
He could feel the emptiness creeping up his jawline like an ink through water. Every breath tasted of starlight. The Thirteenth Star whispered in a language of hunger and death as his eyes pressed against his skull.
"You are almost ready," it murmured.
East. He needed to go east.
The rest of his legs trembled as he pushed himself to his feet. Glass shards rearranged into ragged pathways toward the hanging tree as the Obsidian Wastes shook around him.
He was blocked by a figure.
Liora. Or what was left of her?
Her emerald eyes had turned into twin pools of blackened sap, and her body changed between human and unnatural.
"You should have died," she hissed. "It would have been more compassionate."
Ethan tried to speak. His voice came out as a static.
Liora sprang forward...
And passed through him.
She let out a cry that sounded like tearing roots. Ethan didn't look back.
…..
The vines were singing.
Their song was a hymn of decay and rebirth, and Mara could feel it in her bones. The pact was sealed when the First Duskheir's fingers, bone, and bark pressed against her forehead.
"You are the chain and the key," the Duskheir whispered. "The last Ravenscroft. "The ultimate sacrifice."
Mara's veins burned.
She was overcome with memories of other people.
A man with Jarek's face pierced a child's heart with a dagger.
Thorns exploded from the lips of a woman who was crying.
She said in her voice, yelling, "I consent!"
Under her, the roots grew more deeply.
Something changed.
The Duskheir paused in his smile.
A sudden spark appeared in Mara's blackened blood, causing gold particles to swirl in the shadows.
The Duskheir flinched.
"What is this?"
Mara smiled.
She felt the shadow of her grandmother stirring inside her.
…..
Jarek ran until his lungs burned.
In his arms, Mara's lifeless limped body, her flesh turning to a vine. The shrieks from the hanging tree behind them subsided, but the martyrs continued to follow.
He was familiar with these ruins. He knew where to hide.
Ahead, the ancient watchtower stood, its stones darkened by the blood of Ravenscroft generations.
Jarek almost fell in after kicking open the rusty gate.
Mara's eyes flew open, glowing green.
"You shouldn't have done that," the Duskheir's voice hissed through her lips.
Jarek held her wrists together.
"Fight her, Mara."
Mara's entire body trembled. The vines writhed under her skin. For a moment, her own voice was heard.
"J-Jarek... the dagger..."
Then…
A shadow pulled away from the wall.
With her fingers like smoke, Grandmother's ghost jumped toward Jarek's throat.
"She's mine now," the shadow whispered.
…..
The hanging tree's roots moved as Ethan approached.
They moved out of the way, creating a path that led directly to the trunk, where Mara's blood was still soaking into the bark.
The Thirteenth Star's eye widened.
"Come," it called.
Ethan raised his void hand.
The tree screamed…
and split.
The heart of emerald fire beating inside.
The Duskheir's true form.
Ethan grabbed it.
A vine wrapped itself around his wrist.
Mara stood with her free hand gripping Jarek's dagger, her body half-eaten by thorns.
"Do it," she gasped.
The Duskheir's voice shrieked through her. "NO!"
Ethan hesitated.
Mara stabbed herself in the chest with the dagger.
…..
The world broke apart.
The roots were splattered with Mara's blood, which was now gold and black. The ruins trembled with the Duskheir's scream as her form rotted and the bark came off to reveal
A child.
A girl with a mouth full of thorns and hollow eyes.
The first sacrifice.
Ethan stumbled forward.
The Thirteenth Star laughed.
…..
Darkness.
Then
Grandmother's voice.
"You are the final one. Make a choice.
Mara saw two paths.
A throne full of vines, eternity as the Duskheir's vessel.
In her hand, she held a dagger, her blood glowing on its edge.
She reached.
…..
The watchtower shook.
As the hanging tree exploded in the distance, Jarek managed to remove Grandmother's shadow from his throat.
The sky was filled with green light.
Then…..
Silence.
The tree was gone by the time he crawled to the window. All that was left was a crater, its borders glowing with gold and glass.
Mara's body lay at the center.
Motionless.
…..
The Thirteenth Star's eye closed.
Ethan dropped to his knees next to Mara, his empty hands slipping through her.
The vines had disappeared, but the dagger still stuck out of her chest.
Her lips moved.
No sound came out.
Then she opened her eyes.
Pure gold.