Author's Note: As always, thank you for the wonderful reviews! :D Since it's been a while since I've updated and this is a pretty small update, I'm hoping to post another longer chapter within the next few days. Hope you enjoy!

Fire and ash and smoke.

My spell caught quickly, licking up the rafters, devouring. The stable door burst agape, and in a flurry of hooves he was gone, Shadowmere was gone - Lucien will be furious, but a cry jerked me from my thoughts. I ran. Out as the stable began to crumble behind me, smoke building and rising into the sky, thick and black.

The voice spoke again, soft and cool and feminine. You must fight, daughter of my daughter. Go, quickly.

I burst through the door, into a nightmare.

Darkness, then shapes - a shape of a man and flashing silver, cackling, something small hissing and fighting in the corner, something hanging from the ceiling. The traitor moved in a perverse dance, sword moving in silver ribbons tinged with red around the hanging shape, blood and fluid dribbling down his chin. "And then I shall sing and dance, to celebrate a Dead Lachance! Ha ha ha!" He turned to me, eyes bright and face sickly twisted in a grin. "You, you were to stay put, now you'll have to watch your mother die like I did, shall I cleave her in two?" The small shape - mum, I realized, a pang of fear bubbling from my gut - crying out as he whirled, catching her stomach with his blade and pushing her back against the wall as she panted. He cackled, raising his blade again to bring it down -

"No!" The word tore out of my throat and I lunged, trying to bring my dagger into his back. He turned again, grabbing my wrist, pulling me towards him in one swift movement. Fight, my mind screamed, fight, even as he wrenched away my dagger. So close - his breath hot against mine, the stench of blood on his teeth. I shuddered even as a paralyzation spell tingled on my fingers.

"You were to stay with the sorcerer, silly girl, Maria can't be hurt, sweet Maria…" He gazed at me, almost tenderly for an instant, before throwing me aside. I stumbled, backing into the hanging shape - a groan, and I fell, something warm dripping onto me. Only then did I look up, and see him.

Lucien. Eyeless. Face twisted in pain, bound and silenced. Gaping holes where his eyes should have been. The blood in the traitor's mouth, the fluid - he ate his eyes. Bile rose in my throat before I was gripped again, dragged to my feet.

Mum's voice - hoarse and cruel as I'd never known it. "Get your filthy hands off my daughter!" She lunged, and with a cackle Bellamont swiped his blade - at her knees, not what she had expected, and with a look of surprise she stopped, her legs buckling beneath her with a crack. "Stay here, Abelle, stay kneeling, pray to your Night Mother!" A rabid, hysterical giggle as she cried my name, as the hand in my hair pulled tightly and I screamed, dragged to my feet, towards the door. "You needn't see this, Maria, those eyes must stay pure…"

Into the snow and blistering cold, dragged outside where he gripped me by my shoulders, staring and silencing me as he gripped. "The dog touched you kissed you but I will slaughter him Maria I will avenge us, stay here, stay pure. The cold…" I whimpered as he pushed me down to kneel over me, dropping his sword and drawing his dagger. "Did not want to spill your blood, but the girl, Dust girl changes things… be still, this will not hurt long…"

I'm going to die. Oh gods oh gods oh gods. I stared up, trying to summon a spell, any spell through his silence -

Not yet, daughter.

The voice again, unbidden, soft as satin and dark as night, soothing me. There-not-there, not mine - never mine. I whispered to it. "What?"

"All I want is us, you know." His voice changed, becoming a croak, a shadow. "Let their whore mother lead them, I just want Maria back, just my Maria, make mother happy we can pretend. Red on white…" I stared, shuddering as at the edges of his bloodshot, feverish eyes, tears beaded. "Stay still, my love, stay still…"

Mum screaming, calling me name. His breath, his whisper. And the voice again, summoning up all my energy, all my power.

Now.

The voice burned white-hot, equal parts light and righteous flame. I don't remember moving, or screaming, but I could feel it - a spell I could never have cast stinging in me, dissolving me to nothing but fire and hatred. A scream, long and piteous like a dying hound -

And silence.