I’m not waiting any longer. The girl is in there. We move now.

  Castigan took an uneasy step forward as he seized control. The body was unusual, distinctly not his own, but familiar enough that he’d regain his martial prowess given mere moments. He could hear Arric’s protests resounding off of his own consciousness. He heeded them, not.

  “Get the heart,” he growled with the unfamiliar voice, “I’ll get the girl.” He looked over his shoulder at the girl’s sister as she moved, “don’t come close until I say, or I’ll kill you.”

  The guttural sound of death, the familiar utterance of war, filled his ears as he finally raised their eyes to the creature. One claw lay upon the throat of the newcomer, while the other drove the blade deep into her chest.”

  His lips curled upwards as he moved toward the creature. The flames in his palm burned deep red, then orange, before settling on the searing white of a star. The clothing nearest his hands burned away into nothing as the smell of his own searing flesh filled his nostrils.

  He reached a hand out in front of him and incinerated the burbling newcomer. The girl - the creature turned to face him with an angry screech.

  He couldn’t help but laugh at the bony mask which now covered the face of his woman. An imposter wore her skin and he would burn it out.

  She lunged at him with the blade which burned hot white from his own flames. He ducked, reaching upward to grab at the bony wrist as he did. The scent of burning marrow filled his nostrils as the creature raged before him. It filled the air with nonsense. Meaningless drivel that he couldn’t be bothered with.

  Castigan ducked out of reach as the creature brought its clawed arm to bear. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the sister, the heart was in her hands - still beating. Good.

  I’m going to burn it into submission. Whatever it is. Be ready, Arric, she will need your blood magic to survive long enough to get to the hospital. To get the heart.

  Without waiting for a response, he fired a burst of flame into the creature’s side. It turned to him once again, he lunged forward, hands toward the bony mask. He felt his own bones scraping against it, the power of his own flame was too much for this body, but he’d recover.

  His heart raged in his ribcage as the flames at his fingers burned from white to blue. The blue flame of his heritage, the blue flame of the Isles of Amber.

  The creature was screaming. Eve was screaming. Castigan stared into black eyes as his flames ruined the air around him. He could hardly breathe in his own aftermath. His skin continued to burn, his clothes disintegrated at the touch of the wind, his eyes threatened blindness, but he’d not look away, not until –

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  The mask cracked.

  Eve’s eyes bore the weight of unnatural sleep. Her waking mind tried to blink away the incessant beep beep beep which haunted her. Her sleeping mind wanted nothing more than that. Sleep. Silent Sleep. The sleep of death.

  The skin of her chest pulled in time with her ribs expanding and contracting. She knew she was alive. She didn’t know why, or how. The headache that resided just behind her eyes pulsed in time with…something.

  My own heart…was on the ground…I should be dead.

  Her eyes fluttered open. A blur of motion surrounded her. People she didn’t recognize. Most wearing masks, some in black robes of academia, some in the fireproof leathers of war. Arric stood above her, his hand over her chest. Red tendrils of what she could only imagine was blood ran like small rivers from half-burned bone.

  He mouthed something she couldn’t quite interpret.

  She held her hand up to a blinding light above her, sending alarms that she could barely hear blaring through the room. Her hand was wrapped firmly around an ornate metal blade. It was covered in blood. Blood that she knew wasn’t hers.

  Temporal magics. Rare. A shame we had to kill her. A shame the soul had already soured. “Anastasia” should have been delicious.

  I don’t understand.

  She let her arm fall to the table.

  Don’t pretend you’ve never feasted. Dined on the delicacy of the dead and decayed. I imagine Oleander was delicious. The one you call Rose will be too. A young…tender soul. Damaged…but tender.

  Rose, where is Rose?

  Your heart. She keeps it beating. “Love.” She names it. “Love” is what she calls you. “Love”, a filthy, disgusting, replacement for mortal morality. She clings to it - to you. Desperate to remain rise, desperate to remain undead, desperate to avoid the call of the cold stone.

  Love is –

  “Love” is the empty hole inside yourself. “Love” is the empty you feel when a plaything dies. “Love” is what you shove in that gaping –

  No.

  Do not lie to yourself. You can’t escape your empty hungers.

  What the fuck are you?

  A childish question.

  I said, what the fuck are you.

  I am the mother. The father. The hole in your heart. I am here to…complete you.

  Fuck off.

  Child, I –

  A warmth flooded her chest. A pressure and a shock. A familiar thumping that she’d somehow not noticed was missing. A familiar pressure against her own individuality that cradled her consciousness like something precious.

  Eve, I’m here, I'm back. Your heart, I was…I was in your heart, I don’t know how. I kept it beating. I thought maybe if I did, you’d come back, I don’t –

  It was Rose. She was back from…her heart?

  Another shock, sharper this time. Her arms twisted in agony as a sharp pain slid into her skull.

  Consume the girl. Let her essence bleed into yours and empower you. Let her soul complete you. Let her…ripen you.

  Eve’s muscles involuntarily clenched around the blade in her hand.

  I won’t.

  CONSUME HER.