They sink into the forest, silent as ghosts, leaving behind them only a flickering light, the embers of their presence. Quietly, purposefully, she moves through the looming trees; but the calm of her body belies the chaos of her heart, the pounding in her ears drowning out everything but her thoughts.

She has come face to face with a specter, a wraith; and the girl is shocked into silence, drawn back to her time as a filly, wide-eyed and frightened of the bumps in the night. Mauja is a name out of mythos for her, as surely as Deimos or Torasin or Kri; it is an incantation of her history, a memory of her mother, passed on to the girl through stories and threats. That she should have saved him, a murderer- it sends a chill down the child's spine, and she shudders, faltering before pressing resolutely down her path.

By the time she reaches the memorial she is running, hooves biting half-circles into the moist earth, fire and shadow darting between trees, leaping over debris like wild, unbound things. She does not stop but accelerates recklessly, threatening to crash like waves upon the crumbling monument, against the preserved bones. At the final moment her body breaks, turning impetuously- too fast, too fast, and a howl tears itself from her lungs as slate hooves search for purchase and fail, gold-dipped legs escaping from under her, her copper body crashing into the bracken on the ground.

The girl is broken, but Lace's memorial remains unscathed.

She lies there, besides his bones, and breathes. For a while it is all she does, all she can do, while her brother comes and coils beside her, occupying the space between her limbs. The scent of forest fills her nostrils, musky and dank and decidedly him; she wonders idly if he is watching her, wherever it is he may be. Has he seen how lost she has become, how fall she's fallen without him- without any of them? Lace, her mother, her uncles, her aunt- do they know the shadows they cast, the way they cloud her vision, even in death? Why do only the bad ghosts remain, the Frost Heart and the Reaper, and why must she be haunted by past generations' sins?

"I don't know what to do." Her eyes are dry, and her voice, too; she speaks calmly to the stones, despite the pounding of her heart. "I can't leave you behind, but I... I don't know who I am anymore, Lace!" Her voice chokes in her throat, a sob struggling to break free; Fire Dancer bites it back fiercely, rolling up onto her knees and staring at the stones, as though seeking their reply. "I can't do it! I can't be enough! Amaris deserves better than me- she deserves you!"

At last she rises, and her voice goes dark, quiet and low as she stares into the earth. "I'm sorry, Lace... I don't know what to do. I wish it was me, and not you... I wish I could trade myself, so she could have you back."