She is dead. Before Knox can even comprehend what he has done, she is leaves the land of the dying and submits to the world of the dead. He can feel her heart slow in the way the blood pushes out from her wound. First a pulse, and then, slowly, just a spreading pool. There is nothing alive in her now, he realizes, and he wonders if there is anything alive in him.

The hunter is only allowed a moment of horror. Dovev's mind is stronger, and paired with his own body restored, he dominates the dapple-necked stallion with ease. The body of the mare, white, red, pink and gold, is a joy for the killer to see. He has always been a killer and he always has been. But is the same true for Knox?

The hunter has managed, at least, to pull away from the body and look down upon her in full. He watches the white of her feathers rustle in the cold tundra wind, as if they were still of the living, as if they were still flying.

Congratulations.
No, no. I can't have done this.
Welcome to the ranks of the killers once more, descendant.
You made me do this. You did this.
No, the murderer speaks into the mind with a silencing, horrifying grip, this was you. And this was right.

And there is something about the hypnotizing way that the great grandsire speaks to his progeny that lulls Knox into submission. Is there not some note of Mandrake's voice, lingering in Dovev's? Is there not that same wicked hypnosis, beating in his heart as if a command?

Knox steps over and around the corpse, lowering his lips to brush once more against the outpouring of her blood. It is sweet and hot on his lips; it slides easily between his teeth when he sucks in like an inhalation, and gently coats his throat. It is the comfort of childhood--his only mother's milk.

This was me. This was right, he thinks, as if there is nothing else that could be true. And he pushes that horrible, lowered face beneath the canopy of the wings of a fallen angel, and slides his neck between the remaining portion of the stranger's back that connects them. And he bends and arcs and slides and maneuvers until at last the four wings, staining his coat with blood and being heavier than anything else he has ever carried (and carrying too, the weight of his crime,) lay delicately over his own shoulders.

The hunter looks away from the dead body and up to the sky. For a moment, he thinks the moon is gone for good.

And then he turns and walks from the scene, his body entranced even as the shadow of his cloak passes over it and carries him into the next land.

—

[[@[Muriel]. Permission to powerplay from Brit.]]