he drank my past, like the finest of wines // Aodhan

[Warlight]

Warlight

Soul as sweet as blood red jam

How easy it had been, in her new life, to forget this kind of sickness.
The bone-weary kind of sickness that only the Dark God could create.

She had known there would be a price to pay. But as she stumbles down the mountain, Warlight realizes she hadn't really thought it through, and she curses her foolishness and her ambition. Every breath is a battle in the thin air of this place built for sacrifice, but she refuses to feel miserable. Instead, she channels her self-pity into anger, although she has no target for her rage.

Maybe it is another cruel trick of the powers of the land, or maybe it is just her own stupid fault, but with the next step she takes, the shale begins to move below her chipped hooves. Her quick jig-steps are not enough to save her though, and with a sharp cry of pain, Will falls into the stream of moving rock, carried down the mountain on her side.

The land begins to level and the momentum if the falling shale, gravel, and horse halt. Bloodied, and gasping for air she closes her eyes, only for a minute, where the stones meet the meadow grasses, and it would be easy to miss the death-still form of a spotted mare.