章 71: Chapter 71

"Mother!" his heart calls. "Hear me. I have failed in my task, and so I call the next." He takes one last look at the stars, listens to them twine his dirge with the new song of another, and closes his eyes.

"Brayden," he gurgles through the blood pooled in his mouth, in his throat, drowning him. "Avenge us all."

And behind his eyes, enwombed in stillness as his lungs give up their struggle, enwrapped in silence as his heart beats its last, the Mother pulls his head to Her breast and weeps quietly into his hair.

Brayden stands next to him as Wil opens his eyes, roosting back into himself like tired feet into comfortable old boots, stretching against his own skin until it settles firm around him. He notices the hand first, still wrapped around his. He thinks he should be jerking back, but his reflexes abandoned him days ago where Brayden is concerned, and the whole business seems rather silly to him now, so he doesn't.

"What's dearg-dur?"

"Incubus," Brayden replies. "Soul-eater."