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The battlefield stretched toward the horizon in every direction saved the keep. At my back three days. We had held them off three days. We had fought and died here, but we’d held the lines again and again. I’D rallied human and fairy had refused to let the loyalists break through, even when they hammered our vulnerable right flank with fresh troops.

On the second day, i’d used my power until it was nothing but smoke in my veins and then i’d used my illyrian training until swinging. My shield and sword was all i knew all. I could manage against the hordes a half-shredded illyrian wing jutted from a cluster of high fake corpses, as if it had taken all six of them to bring the warrior down as if he’d taken them all out with him. My heartbeat pounded through my battered body as i hauled away, the piled corpses reinforcements had arrived at dawn on the third and final day sent by my father. After my plea for aid, i had been too lost in battle rage to note who they were beyond an elyrian unit, especially when so many had been wielding siphons.

But in the hours since they’d saved our asses and turned the tide of the battle i hadn’t spotted either of my brothers amongst the living did not know if cassian or azrael had even fought on the plane. The latter was unlikely, as my father kept him close for spying, but cassian cassian could have been reassigned, wouldn’t have put it past my father to shift cassian to a unit most likely to be slaughtered, as this one had been barely half limping off the battlefield. Earlier. My aching bloodied fingers dug into dented armor and clammy stiff flesh. As i heaved away, the last of the high fake corpses piled atop, the fallen illyrian soldier, the dark hair, the golden brown skin the same as cassian’s, but it was not cassian’s death grey face that gaped at the sky.

My breath whooshed from me my lungs still raw from roaring my lips dry and chapped. I needed water badly, but nearby another set of valyrian wings poked up from the piled dead. I stumbled and lurched toward it, letting my mind drift, someplace, dark and quiet. While i rided the twisted neck to peer at the face beneath the simple helm, not him, i picked my way through the corpses to another illyrian, then another and another. Some i knew some.

I didn’t still the killing field stretched onward under the sky mile, after mile a kingdom of the rotting dead, and still i looked part one princess of carrion chapter, one pharah, the painting was a lie: a bright, pretty lie bursting with pale pink blooms and fat beams Of sunshine, i’d begun it yesterday. An idle study of the rose garden lurking beyond the open windows of the studio through the tangle of thorns and satiny leaves the brighter green of the hills rolled away into the distance incessant unrelenting spring. If i’d painted this glimpse into the court, the way my gut had urged me, it would have been flesh, shredding, thorns flowers that choked off the sunlight for any plant smaller than them and rolling hills, stained red, but each brush stroke on the wide canvas was calculated. Each dab and swirl of blending colors meant to portray not just idyllic spring, but a sunny disposition as well, not too happy but gladly. Finally, healing from horrors.

I carefully divulged. I supposed that in the past weeks, i’d crafted my demeanor as intricately as one of these paintings. I supposed that, if i had also chosen to show myself as i truly wished, i would have been adorned with flesh shredding, talons and hands that choked the life out of those. Now in my company i would have left the gilded halls stained red, but not yet not yet. I told myself with every brushstroke with every move.

I’D made these weeks. Swift revenge helped no one and nothing but my own roiling rage. Even if every time i spoke to them, the battlefield stretched toward the horizon.

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