04 BLOOD FOR BLOOD

—AT the stroke of midnight, Autumn turns to Winter for the forty-ninth time since the beginning of the Witch's reign.

There are no celebrations, no cheers for the new season's arrival. There is no happiness to be had.

But something still brews in the Underneath. Something simmers beneath the surface.

And midday brings the boil.

The High Lord of the Winter Court, at the height of his minimal power on this new solstice, makes his move.

In every corner of the mountain, the temperature drops to well below survivable. Frost creeps its way up the walls like webs of glass. The faerie lights upon their chandeliers and sconces are snuffed out by unnatural gusts. The wind tunnels through the corridors, whipping doors off their hinges and knocking the dark faeries down where they stand. Any attempts for them to get back up are thwarted by the ice sheets coating the ground.

In strategically protected chambers across the mountain, courtiers are holed up with blankets and flaming hearths. The High Lords of the Day and Dawn Court are making provisions for the fae of Prythian. They work diligently to keep the frostbite at bay, all while wondering how their friend fares in his plans above them.

The doors to the grand hall crash open with the storming wind that slams against it. At the threshold stands the High Lord of the Winter Court with his loyal guardian. Together, with hair of pure snow and eyes of freezing glaciers, Kallias and Alistair are the painting of a blizzard personified.

The Witch upon her throne, although protected from their onslaught of chill, is openly wary of the power they've brought down.

At her side, two forms of pitch-black night withstand their own shivering with masks of stoicism. Their hands are clasped behind their backs to hide the pale blue evidence of their frostbite, but their lips grow whiter each second.

Kallias stalks forward, a flick of his hand sending the Attor who charges at him flying against the wall. It shrieks in outrage but can do nothing against the flurry that has pinned his wings and back to the wall.

The Deceiver watches the High Lord approach with his guardian. She frowns, unamused with this show of power. Power that he should not have.

  "This is all very impressive, I'll admit; you've made quite the spectacle. But must you also make a mess of my palace?" she asks, her voice on the cusp of cracking in the dry air.

The males stop in tandem at the foot of her dais, but they do not kneel as customarily expected from her subjects. The High Lord looks across to her, fingers tightening into fists while ice creeps along his knuckles like icicles.

  "Your palace?" he echoes in this icy cavern he's created. "You have no right to the throne you sit on. You are nothing but a false queen in a stolen fortress. Prythian is not yours, this court is not yours."

The Deceiver's lips curl with chagrin. The two figures at her side make no move to assist the rebelling pair nor resist them. They simply stand in wait. She stares at them for a moment, considering, before standing to her feet to look down on the males as she addresses them.

"All empires fall, eventually, Lord Kallias. It is not for lack of power or might, clearly." She gestures around the room, to the Attor who is still forced against the wall. "In fact, it always seems to be the opposite. Power lulls you into comfort, into complacency. You become undisciplined, relaxed. In that weakness, there is the opportunity to be toppled by the ones whose desires surpass your own. Your courts were simply...too weak, too vulnerable. Too gullible."

In response, she is thrown back several paces by an enormous gust of wind that destroys her shield. Her arms manage to catch her before she can tumble further across the dais, but her black crown made of glass shards has been knocked from her head. The sound of it shattering against the marble floors is masked only by the shrieking Attor on the wall.

As Kallias slowly lowers his outstretched arms, the Deceiver slowly raises her head from the ground.

The room goes eerily silent as she lifts a hand to her cheek and traces the edge of a bleeding scratch. Inspecting the blood on her fingers, she lets out a shrill cackle.

  "Oh, I've touched a nerve, haven't I?" she asks lowly, more amused than anything, slowly climbing back to her feet. "Well, I think I'd like to touch a few more. Kazimyrah."

—SHE cannot breathe. The cold is pressing in on her chest, and her name on Amarantha's lips have stolen away all functioning power of her lungs.

Not again. Please, not again.

Her eyes frantically look to Rhysand, finding he is struck frozen as well. She knows she is projecting her thoughts onto him, knows he is receiving all undignified manner of pleading, but she cannot help it. She will not kill another High Lord, she will not.

And Alistair is taking up defense in front of her, fists tightening, and eyes set into deadly slits. He will kill her if she obeys, even unarmed as he is, and she thinks she would let him. She wouldn't even raise a hand against him, not this time.

To live means nothing when the only thing you can do is kill.

"Kazimyrah," Amarantha says again, this time with impatience. "Is this not what you want, to punish the ones who scorn you? This is a gift."

Please.

Kazi's eyes flicker back to Rhysand to now find him looking to the Deceiver with determination. She resists the urge to reach out for him when he leaves her side and approaches the throne in her place.

Rhysand leans down and whispers something into Amarantha's ear. At first, her face is set in irritation for this interruption, but it breeds into interested contemplation. Kazi does not like to think of what her High Lord is saying, what he must be promising her. It makes her sick to her stomach.

But sick is better than dead.

The quiet discussion goes on longer than Kazi can find it in herself to focus on her stunted breathing. Her head runs fuzzy, the cold seeping into her bones. If she passes out, she thinks she would be grateful, because it would keep her from having to see or hear what happens next:

"Blood for blood," Amarantha finally mutters, and it is a glacier that surrounds Kazi's hearts at the words.

"Blood for blood," Rhysand says, voice hoarse from shouting mere moments ago.

"Rhys, don't you dare." Her words are just a raspy whisper. Kazi's own throat burns from the collar settled around her neck, her chest is still a mangled sight of ripped skin and muscle, and the infection's fever is rapidly settling in. She just cannot pull in enough air to properly speak. "Let him kill me."

It would be a mercy, at this point.

The Hybern general currently overseeing their detainment leans down and traces the flat edge of a slim gladius along Rhysand's stubbled cheek all the way down to his jugular. "How valiant; offering to die in her place like it will save her. I should tell you now that neither of you are leaving this tent alive before you go off and sacrifice yourselves for the other. But by all means, continue begging."

He lumbers back over to Kazi casually, taking special care to look her up and down. Once kneeled in front of her, he slips the gladius in a straight line down the front of her leathers to her sternum, exposing a significant triangle of her flesh but not enough to show the festering wound at the bottom of her ribcage. Replacing his blade with his fingers, he brushes lightly against her sweat-stained chest. She cringes away from his vile touch but winces when the collar pulls at her neck and, in turn, Rhysand's wings.

"I'll even accept bribery. You lot just need to be dead by nightfall." He suggestively looks Kazi up and down once more, and she bares her teeth with her remaining strength, hoping he understands that if he comes anywhere near her face, her fangs are going straight through to his bones. "Plenty can happen between now and then."

"You bastard." Rhysand says around a groan of pain. "Touch her, put your hand on her again, and I'll follow you to whatever hell you end up in and peel the skin from your bones. Then I'll feed you your own eyes and limbs."

Spots litter Kazi's vision as he flails in an attempt to get to her. Clearly noticing how he is pulling at her neck, he tentatively stops his thrashing to look at her in increasing panic.

"Guess I'll be seeing you in hell, then," the male grunts with amusement as his fingers yank back Kazi's hair to bare her neck to him. Just as she screams at the jerking movement and his advancing mouth, a rumble rolls through the ground beneath them.

The tent flaps flash open to reveal glowing siphons, an enormous pair of black wings, and the High Lord of the Night Court in battle regalia.

The general, unprepared for the sudden assault, is easily pierced through the skull by a longsword thrown like a javelin. Kazi's head drops as the male's broad hand falls away from her scalp. She chokes gingerly as the iron around her collarbone digs in and stretches the muscles at her front.

"Help her, help her," Rhysand says haltingly through the loud clangs beyond the canvas tent.

Kazi cannot lift her head to look toward Danrys and the Illyrian at his side, but she can feel the powerful violet eyes on her.

"Get her decent," the High Lord orders gruffly before moving over to his son.

The Illyrian strides toward her and she cannot differentiate between the shadows in her eyes and the ones that waft off him when he modestly cloaks the front of her body in darkness. After making sure she is covered from view, he inspects the many series of chains secured around her body.

"Keys?" he asks, his deep voice quiet enough for only her ears while the royals converse away from them.

She nudges her head down to the prone form of the general at her feet. "On his body. Front left pocket."

He nods and kicks the larger male's body over onto its back so he can search through his armor. As he does, he pulls the longsword from his forehead and wipes the dripping blade on the corpse's grey trousers leaving a thick streak of blood. Sheathing his sword, he sifts through the correct pocket. Once he finds the ring of skeleton keys, he goes to work on her neck.

While he works to free her, she watches Rhysand and Danrys throw words at each other in an intense argument. Kazi, her hearing depleted, decides to focus back onto the task at her nape.

"Thank you," she says faintly.

He hums in acknowledgement, which is more than she really expected from him.

The click at her neck is a blessing and she sighs in relief when the collar falls away. But as she rolls her head around, she can't help the twinges of pain that sing in her chest and throughout the rest of her body. She looks down to inspect her wound but finds the shadows obstructing her view.

"Fuck," she mutters, just knowing it's far more infected than she originally thought.

"Hold still," he says, now intensely focused on her wrists behind her back. To unlock her manacles, he has to pull her arms in certain angles that do not agree with her ailments. She groans softly in response to a short tug. He swiftly releases her and rounds to her front to look her in the eyes. "Where are you hurt?"

"Lower ribs. Just get the chains off and we'll deal with it after,"

He nods and returns to her back, this time being more careful with how he pulls at her arms. She manages to bite her tongue before another complaint can fly off her lips. The click and thud of the cuffs without warning sends her almost toppling down, but steady hands are there to support her upright.

"Let me get these off your ankles and then I'll see to the wound."

She doesn't answer him for fear of letting out a whine, but he continues with his plan anyway.

As he works, she again looks to her High Lord and his son. Rhysand is free of his own chains, but the ash bolts remain lodged in his wings, clearly sending shocks of pain through his spine whenever he moves. Danrys has the neck of his armor clutched in a hand as he whispers harshly into his ears.

Through the rush of blood in her ears, she can hear the words, 'disappointment,' 'capture,' and 'failure.'

Rhysand's face drops steadily into grim guilt.

Before she can make an impulsive remark on how the ambush of ash-bolts was unavoidable, Azriel is adjusting her body—now free of binds—to lay flat on the ground. He keeps the shadowed cover over the more sensitive parts of her chest while he slashes a slim cut in her leathers where the dagger pierced her a week prior.

As he presses around the affliction, she reaches her own hand up blindly to assess it herself. Immediately, she can feel the heat coming off of it in droves. Draping her other arm over her eyes, she grumbles.

"Infected," Azriel says the obvious. He looks up to the High Lord and Rhysand, interrupting their discussion. "She needs medical attention."

"Winnow her to Camp Knox." Danrys waves a hand. "Her father will be there to tend to her."

Azriel looks hesitant, reflecting what she feels inside. From what Kazi knows of the newly appointed Spymaster, he has only recently begun experimenting with all his abilities, including his shadow travel. Adding to that, she is injured, and winnowing with open wounds is ill-advised even to those who are practiced.

But they don't have much of a choice. The only members who can get her safely to Camp Knox are in the tent or at the camp itself, and Rhysand is heavily injured himself while his father would not deign to help her, no matter that she is next in line for Guardian of the Night Court.

"I'll be okay," she tells him confidently, hardly feeling it, but knowing he probably needs that boost of trust.

He looks between her and the standing males before deciding it really is their only choice. With one hand placing hardened pressure on her ribs and the other on one of her forearms, he drags them sluggishly through the veil with a whisper of, "Hold on."

"Rhys," her breath leaves her completely as she takes a step closer to him. He holds up a hand to stop her from coming any nearer. She stops obediently with a frown. "What are you doing?"

Amarantha stands to her feet, and in one driven arm swipe, the Attor is released from his wind prison. He scrambles to catch himself, and hisses at Kallias and Alistair as he flies to his mistress's side.

"Your majesty, let me take care of them for you whilst this coward can't," he spits in Kazi's direction. She bites the retort on her tongue. "Let me show them what it means to defy your rule. Let me show them their demise."

"No, I have a different task for you," the Deceiver says. Kazi's numb hands close around her cinquedeas, ready to protect Rhysand from what she expects is sure to be a beating. "Gather a legion of the naga and send them south. I've heard it's common for the younglings of the Winter Court to release lanterns on Mount Nathmien at sundown on the solstice. It would be a shame to have this celebration cut short."

Kazi's body becomes awash with horror as realization hits everyone in the room.

Kallias's face pales beyond its healthy color and Alistair cries in outrage.

"Those are younglings, you heartless monster!" the guardian rages.

"Didn't I just say that?" Amarantha asks guilelessly, a smirk planted on her lips. She looks to the Attor who is awaiting further instruction eagerly. "After you've sent them off, clean up this mess. Now, go. You know what to do."

Alistair attempts to charge forward to catch the creature before he leaves, but Amarantha now has a new grip on the stolen magic and stops him in his tracks. An animalistic snarl emerges from his lips while his body constricts against the ground. Kallias, stricken, steps forward.

"They are completely innocent." His voice catches on every word with a hitch. "Please, you would kill them in cold-blood? They've done nothing."

The Deceiver taps a ring-adorned finger on her jaw steadily in thought, a slow and patient beat. Instead of a pretty jewel inlaid to the golden band, a sphere about the size of a chestnut glints against the hovering fae lights. Kazi looks away from it, sick with what she is listening to. Younglings, dozens of them, sentenced to die because she couldn't kill Kallias.

The world around her has suddenly become too hot. Her head is spinning.

Rhysand returns to her side, his eyes a mess of emotions, as well. Kazi cannot tell whether this was his plan, or if something had gone wrong in his negotiations. He would never...not the younglings. He knows how she...

But then he is pushing the hilt of a conjured short sword into her hands discreetly behind her back. She grips it as tightly as she can with no feeling in her fingers, wondering at what he expects her to do with it in this moment. Kill Amarantha, now? She could try and fail. But then why give her an entirely new weapon when she has her own?

"Amarantha, I rescind what I said. Please, I will take your punishments. Even death," Kallias's head is shaking furiously now, "even death. The younglings, they are not a part of this."

His desperate cries do not move the false queen. Seeing this, the High Lord of the Winter Court turns his pleas to Rhysand and Kazi a few paces behind.

"Do something! Rhysand, you monster! You would stand by and allow this to happen?! This will be unforgivable!"

Kazi's eyes tear away from his, but she only finds Alistair staring back at her. He's looking at her as though she might help him, help them. He's looking at her as though she might be able to fix this, this terrible turn of events.

But she can't—or maybe she can, but the sword...it's too hot for her to think of what it all means.

In her eyes, he must see this halting rejection; he becomes relentless in his attempts to break free from Amarantha's forces.

And his first words to Kazi after years of silence must be,

"Kazimyrah, you are a traitor to the Divine Circle." His growls reverberate around the room, and she can barely stand to see a mentor, someone she's always looked up to, curse her in this way—deserving, though, she may be of it. "You blacken the name of all Guardians. The Mother damn you to all hells."

It is nothing she hasn't heard before, nothing she hasn't heard upon the lips of the ones who dwell Under the Mountain. But still it hurts. Still, it tears something away from her. Still, it burns away the remaining scraps of self that she's managed to preserve.

A guardian protects. A guardian defends. And she can do neither when it matters most.

And what is she if not a guardian?

Kazi is close to losing all sense when Kallias falls to his knees at the foot of the dais. Like shattering ice on a frozen pond, the sound of his collapse echoes around the great hall.

Beside his loyal guardian, he begins to beg once more. "Please, if there's any shred of mercy in your heart. I will take any and all punishment you deem but leave the faelings. They've done nothing...Please."

Rhysand straightens imperceptibly beside her at this final bargain. From the corner of her vision, she can see the far off look in his eyes that he gets when he is in someone else's mind. She can tell he is striking a bargain of his own with the Deceiver. He is staring at Amarantha, watching as she begins to tap a new rhythm beneath Jurian's eye.

Dread settles within Kazi's stomach but she forces herself to remain quiet.

He is not the one in danger, he is not the one in danger, she tells herself, but it is not convincing in the slightest.

"I've made up my mind, Lord Kallias," Amarantha says finally. "Maybe this will be proper reminder to you the next time you think to defy me and my empire."

With that, she holds out a hand for Rhysand to take and he does so after a second's hesitation to look back at her. Kazi, with a heaviness settling on her chest again, watches them winnow away a moment later, leaving the three forms in the room.

Before she can even think to escape the vicinity of the two males, a voice echoes in her head.

Myrah, you need to go now while I have her distracted. Have Kallias stay to keep the naga within the mountain subdued.

Her heart thunders as her eyes fall shut. You try every part of my soul.

You love me. Now, be careful, Rhysand bids her and goes silent.

Kazi takes a step down from the dais, pausing as Alistair climbs to his feet and turns to her in fury. She can do nothing to stop the first fist that comes flying into her gut with a war-cry, but she can dodge the second by holding up the newly procured short sword in surrender. Confusion rings through his eyes.

"Alistair, you must hear me now," she heaves, an arm cradling her abdomen. "If we are to save the younglings, we have to leave now."

Both Kallias and Alistair freeze at her words, their meaning settling.

"You—Rhysand..." Kallias mumbles, a shaking knuckle coming up to cover his mouth.

"We must move now, Lord Kallias. You have to remain here to keep the remaining naga and the Attor off our tails." He looks as if he is about to protest. "Your scent is too strong anyway; you must stay behind. I can only winnow Alistair and myself one trip before my power is depleted."

All the terrible things she's done to earn Amarantha's trust, she can never be glad of them. But she can be thankful in this moment that she is allowed a small reserve of her powers.

"Then how will you get back?" the High Lord asks, already lowering the temperature back down to keep the naga incapacitated.

"We'll find a way," Alistair says, not giving Kazi a chance to speak before he's taken her by the arm to drag her out of the mountain outside the wards.

His hold on her is tight, but not enough to cut away any remnants of circulation she has left in the cold. His grip also helps her traverse the ice filled corridors and stairwells that she slips around on. They do not encounter any dark faeries on their path, most likely due to Kallias's forceful winds urging them away. But still, they watch warily out for the Attor, knowing he has been ordered to stay here.

"Kazimyrah, I—"

"No," she stops him. "I don't want you to say anything before we actually see this through. There's every chance we might be too late, or that it could stab us in the back later. Just don't say anything, yet."

He agrees to her wishes and continues to pull her along.

Following a labyrinth of dark tunnels, they manage to reach the exit of the mountain where there are two patrolling faeries just before the ward-line. They are unaffected by the freezing temperatures deep within and are equally as oblivious to the approaching pair of guardians at their backs. Kazi, realizing Alistair is without a weapon, silently hands him the short sword. It won't be nearly as effective as his true weapons, but it will have to do.

He looks down at it and then up to her as she unsheathes her own daggers. He nods in thanks, and they sneak up behind the nearest two faeries.

With two quick slices, the two are down with little more than a gurgle in their mutilated throats.

They quickly pass over the ward-line and Kazi grabs the Guardian of the Winter Court's shoulder to winnow directly to the peak of Mount Nathmien.

The sensation of pulling another through the darkness is exhausting, especially without her full strength, so when they land, they land hard.

Kazi groans as she tumbles into a bank and Alistair struggles to find his footing in the deep blanket of snow a step away from her. He pulls her up quickly, practically yanking her arm out of its socket in his hurry. She groans, head screaming through the nausea.

"Let's go. It's not yet dark."

Though the light is fading fast, Kazi thinks distantly as she looks to the western horizon.

She begins to shiver through her thin clothes once more as he leads her to the snowy clearing. They are the first to arrive, but it is no comfort to Kazi knowing that the enemy is at their backs rather than ahead.

Alistair watches the north for the horde of naga that are sure to come. Kazi watches the southern slope of the mountain where a distinct trail weaves like a snake through the trees. At the first sign of a firelit torch, she whistles a short chirp. A moment later, her fellow Divine sends a call of his own, letting her know the enemy has been spotted on the horizon.

Kazi thinks about using the last of her dregs of energy to winnow straight to the incoming party of younglings and elder fae. To warn them, to make them turn back, to tell them to hide while they still can. But she's not sure she wouldn't just fall unconscious at their feet as soon as she appeared in front of them. And then they'd be with one less protector, one less guardian. It is not a risk she can take when the odds are already so immensely stacked against them.

No, they will have to wait for the oncoming storm atop Mount Nathmien.

Looking over her shoulder, she sees the dark cloud of winged faeries approach in the dimming sky. It's enough to overwhelm them, enough to tell her there will be inevitable casualties on their own front.

"To fight by your side once more, Kazimyrah of Night, will be an honor," Alistair's voice carries on the blistering frigid wind.

"And by yours, Alistair of Winter." Kazi ties back her hair in a loose and messy knot with stiff fingers. In the silence, she finds the words she wishes she could have said earlier, the ones that have been stuck within her throat for the past five decades. But she only voices them to the wind. "I'm sorry for everything I've done, and for what I've become."

If she is to die this night, she wants to go with the apology on her lips.

The screeching of the naga signals the beginning of the bloodbath.

They descend on the mountain top, wings beating up a cyclone of wind and ice. With one last glance down the southern slope, Kazi can see the group of younglings and their chaperones go on high alert. She hopes they can group together and fend off the few faeries who get past her and Alistair.

Feet too numb to chase them down, Kazi lets the naga come to her. She clangs her cinquedeas together to disorient them in the snow and attract their attention to her. Alistair, many paces away, does the same.

The first one she kills is small, quick, and lithe. With two horns on the crown of its forehead and one in between its brows, it dives down to headbutt her. Just as she raises her blades to fend the creature off, she can see the recognition and confusion light in its eyes. It is just enough to curb its initial plan of attack so that Kazi can duck and swipe a deep line from its throat and down the center of its body all the way to the legs.

She ignores the blood that splatters across her face and the innards that fall just beyond. She imagines she'll be drowning in steaming viscera once this is through, so there is no use fussing over ruined clothes.

The next naga is not so swayed by her presence, though it does shriek in outrage when it sees the face beneath the blood. In its fit, his talons manage to get a good swipe against her unprotected forearm, but she finds that the cold has lessened all feelings of discomfort or pain. Only a dull throb begins in its place. Undeterred by the scratch, she places one of her daggers between her teeth and deftly grabs ahold of the base of its wing when it swoops back in for another hit. Expertly, she flings herself onto its back and sends her other dagger plunging straight through its neck, decapitating it instantly.

Kazi is flung down violently alongside its careening body with a forceful thud and has to scramble for new footing before the next naga is upon her. As she stands beside the headless corpse, though, her eyes fight to remain open and focused; her mind tries to grapple with her reality as she spins around in the clearing to try and find the cinquedea she'd just dropped from her chattering teeth.

Only when she hears the distinctively youthful screams of fear does she manage to come back to herself. Fighting to find balance and forgetting her missing dagger, she lunges to the southern slope of the mountain where she finds a small company of older High Fae wielding staves and swords against a couple of the stray naga, one of which has a youngling clutched in its talons.

She then glances over her shoulder to see Alistair still standing strong in his element against a team of the dark faeries. She sends a swift prayer to the Mother for his safety before leaping off the nearest and steepest cliff, all the faster to reach the band of High Fae before they are overpowered. Snow whips her in the face as she goes sliding down on her side, only a dagger to slow her descent.

She is sure that the fingers of her right hand are frozen to the hilt by now. At least this way, she thinks sourly, I won't be losing it anytime soon.

Reaching a level strip near the group, she catches herself with the heels of her boots and grunts at the icy and distant pain that shoots up her legs in response. The sound of her stumble alerts the closest younglings, eliciting another chorus of screams.

She does not blame them; she must look no better than a monster, drenched in melting ice and covered in all this blood.

Instead of moving closer, Kazi decides to try and drag the naga's attention away from the younglings.

"Hey!" she calls out through the wind, catching the attention of her targets successfully. Their beady eyes turn on her, and a guttural snarl rips from behind their teeth. "Yeah, you know who I am."

"You traitor!" The one without the youngling in its hands shrieks and the High Fae underneath its beating wings cry out and duck when it angrily slashes through the air.

"Heard that one before," Kazi mutters. Traitor is a name she will wear with honor tonight. Wiping the back of her hand across her numb mouth, she shrugs. "What are you going to do about it? Kill me?"

Perhaps provoking it is a mistake.

Perhaps there is a better way for her to distract it from its initial mission.

Perhaps she is a little delirious from the lack of air and from her exhaustion.

But she's a little desperate.

As the empty-handed naga charges at her, she can see out of the corner of her eye the other dark faerie kill the female youngling in its hand. It's all the motivation she needs to return the brutality.

Kazi's first strike misses, but she uses her momentum to roll beneath its widespread wings. Jumping back up, she finds her back against a nearby tree. She hardly has time to think before the naga's turned back to her with a clawed hand swinging in a wide and powerful arc towards. After a quick flinch to the side, the sharpened claws land and stick inside the trunk instead of in her skull. As it swipes at her with its other hand, she jabs her hand in an upward motion and her dagger pierces its heart through the gut.

It releases a howl in agony before falling forward onto her body. Her back fully collapses against the tree's trunk under its weight, fully pinned.

There is a dull throbbing that begins in her upper abdomen, but it is to be expected when her lungs are trying to pull in more air than she can expel.

She tries to dislodge its claws from beside her ear, but they are completely imbedded. Through the pounding in her head and torso, the sound of beating wings approaches and she looks up to find the second naga has changed its focus to her after killing its friend.

She sees, as well, that it has managed to kill an older fae and two more younglings.

Her heart constricts.

Kazi struggles once more, one arm trapped against the chest of a dead naga and the other dead weight as the deep scratch she received has numbed it beyond operation.

"Alistair!" she screams, now desperate as the nearing naga grins and licks its fangs. "Alistair!"

Just as she thinks it may be the end for her and the rest of them on the mountain, the dark faerie is tackled down to the snowy ground by the Guardian of the Winter Court. Kazi intakes a painful breath and resumes her attempts at escape.

Seeing her fail to escape, a few of the younglings and elders venture to help her hesitantly.

She thanks them breathlessly as they all manage to drag the dark being off of her and throw him aside in a heap. The younglings look upon the mess of her clothes with horror, every part of her drenched in black blood, including her face.

Kazi limps around to stand between them and the ensuing fight protectively. She notices them creep closer to her behind her back, not fully trusting of her presence but knowing she has just saved them from further death.

Looking around and up the mountain, she can tell this is the last naga.

Just as she sees Alistair go in for the kill, she realizes something. "Wait!"

He does.

With one arm settled around its neck and wings pinned down with his knees, the guardian halts. "What."

"It needs to live," she says, though her heart disagrees. "If the Deceiver realizes what we've done, she'll not only kill us, but she'll come for Kallias and Rhysand. We can send this one back with a false report."

Alistair's arm tightens imperceptibly around the wicked thing's neck. It chokes with the movement. "How 'bout it, huh? We let you live and you tell your Witch about how successful this all was."

"I never betray my queen," it spits, and Alistair's arm crushes its windpipe further.

Kazi steps closer to the naga's face and crouches down on stiff knees. Her stomach screams in protest. "You return with news of this failure, and you die by her hands. Fed to the wyrm, most likely; you know how that goes. You don't want to return at all, we kill you here and now. But if you return with stories of success, you will be hailed as a hero. The last surviving faerie in this legion wiping out the last of the younglings single-handedly."

Alistair releases some of the pressure on the naga's neck as it remains silently contemplative.

"You are traitor," it says through its clenched teeth. "She discover your betrayal, and will be you fed to Middengard."

"And you'll be alive to see it, right?" Kazi asks, waving off the threat easily. "But if I hear that you've gone back on your word, I'll clip your wings and throw you into the wyrm's lair myself."

Its ugly face scrunches up. "I no tell the queen what's happened today."

Alistair does not immediately free him. He first looks up to Kazi with eyes of apprehension. She stares down at the creature, unsure if it is telling the truth, but knowing that it is their only option. It tells Amarantha the truth, they die. They kill it now, they die.

It's a precarious position they've found themselves in.

She nods and steps away to stand back with the younglings and the remaining elders. She feels a small hand clutch the back of her linen shirt and thinks of how scared the youngling must be to look to a blood-soaked female for comfort.

Alistair slowly frees the naga, and it bursts off into the sky, hopefully to deliver a report of its success and not of what's really been done this night.

In the encroaching darkness, it is hard to tell whether her eyes are adjusting or if they are blurring. A pounding begins in her head, and she shivers.

It is then that Kazi faintly feels the light weight of a cloak being draped around her shoulders. She draws it closer around herself unconsciously, feeling grateful for its warmth. Her breathing picks up, the dagger finally falling from her numb hand as her vision spins.

She looks down to where her hand is pressed to her gut. Pulling it away, she notices the flow of red amongst the black.

"Kazimyrah."

"Kazimyrah."

But the darkness descends like a vengeful army and claims her for good.

NOTES ;

CAN YOU TELL I HATE WRITING
ACTION/FIGHTING SCENES?

HMM, I DID SAY THAT THIS WOULD
DIVERGE FROM CANON, DIDN'T I?
THIS WASN'T EXACTLY WHAT I
HAD IN MIND WHEN RESTARTING
THIS BOOK, BUT I FIND THAT
THE MORE I THINK ABOUT RHYS
UNDER THE MOUNTAIN, THE MORE
I REALIZE HOW MUCH HE PROBABLY
SUFFERED BECAUSE HE WANTED TO
HELP BUT JUST...COULDN'T. BUT
WITH KAZI, HE HAS SOMEONE HE
TRUSTS TO SORT OF DO THESE
THINGS IN HIS PLACE WHILE
KEEPING AMARANTHA DISTRACTED.

SO THE YOUNGLINGS ARE MOSTLY
ALL ALIVE...I WONDER HOW THIS
WILL EFFECT THE WAR WITH
ALLIANCES...

AND CAN WE TRUST THAT NAGA
NOT TO SAY ANYTHING LIKE HE
PROMISED?

GUESS WHAT, Y'ALL...
NEXT CHAPTER, WE GET TO SEE
FEYRE. I'M SO EXCITED