The image of her death replayed in Mara's mind, with Jarek's hands around her throat, Ethan's thread breaking, the crown falling, and her fingers bleeding as she gripped the broken pieces of the clay cup.
Three days left.
She threw one of the shards at the wall.
"Show me another way!"
The remaining pieces swirled into a black liquid vortex and hummed. A familiar, greasy voice slithered out:
"Make a trade, Ravenscroft. Your memories for a new fate."
Dain's laughter echoed as the floor dissolved, plunging her into a starless void.
…..
It was like acid on the tattoo. Jarek smashed his fist into the mirror, smashing both his image and the faces of the ancestors that were staring back.
"Thieves. Liars. Murderers."
The woman with the bark skin appeared, her eyes glowing in their hollows.
The heir arrives at sunset. Will you fight… or feed him?"
She placed the same rusted key out of his line of sight in his palm.
"Open the vault of stolen memories," she whispered. "Or become the heir's feast."
Names were whispered by the ticking key.
Lior. Veyra. Mara.
…..
Over Ethan's head, the thirteenth child dangled the thorn-crown, its points dripping liquid shadow.
"Wear it, and see everything," they crooned. "Refuse and witness Mara's death twice."
The golden thread in Ethan's hand, Mara's lifeline flickered weakly.
Ethan grabbed the crown.
He felt thorns pierce his temples, and the glass forest shrieked.
…..
Jarek inserted the key into a door that had just been nonexistent. There was a vast hall behind it, full of floating orbs, each one a stolen memory.
He put his hand on one.
The laughter of a child. The scream of a mother. The flash of a dagger.
As the visions changed, Mara's face appeared in dozens of lifetimes where she was always betrayed and dying.
A shadow hung over his back.
"Hello, Ravenscroft," said a voice with his timbre.
Jarek's face was worn by the Thirsty King's heir.
…..
Dain's ghost grinned as Mara woke up, gasping in the empty air.
"You know you have died before," he muttered. "Seven times. This will be your eighth."
The liquid void morphed into a dagger, her dagger.
"Strike first," Dain urged. "Kill Jarek. Break the cycle."
Her hand trembled.
Somewhere, a golden thread snapped.
…..
The power of the crown caused Ethan's mind to explode.
The real face of the thirteenth child: six-year-old Mara crying over a body.
The Thirsty King's heir: Jarek, cloaked in ancestral shadows.
His own hands, stained from lifetimes of failed rescues.
"You see now," the 13th child whispered, now wearing Mara's face. "We've played this game before."
Ethan ripped the crown off.
It is too late.
The first light of day appeared.
…..
With the heir's laughter resonating between them, Mara lunged at Jarek as he came out of the vault.
"Don't!" Jarek roared, but her blade was already flying….
and lodged in the heir's chest instead.
With black blood bubbling, the heir smiled.
"Now the feast begins."
The ruins were flooded by the explosion of the vault memories.