Valley of Gold dolor y sangre

the valley was lined with high stone walls; just beyond were the teekons. silvertongue knew enough to understand that clambering over the rock would only exhaust she and @Andromache, who insisted on following her home. several times silvertongue considered lying, considered telling the greek woman that some random mountain or misted green was riverclan. the only thing that stayed her tongue was understanding she would have more questions to answer, and so silvertongue said hardly anything at all, brow furrowed as she led them to find another outlet into the valleys she knew. many potentials awaited her. a shameful return to riverclan. the willingness to sequester herself there and never leave again, regardless of crowfeather's anger. she could simply not return at all, but then there was wren, who deserved none of this. she should, the silverpelt woman considered, end things with her lover for the sake of the things which would always torment her mind. but it was a pouring, jagged howl from the very same man who had begun the terrible motions of her life which stopped the riverwolf in her tracks. the pupils constricted to fear; she whirled and began to run from the tarns, not halting until the call which mingled with another fell far and away behind she and andromache. only then, sucking great draughts of air, did silvertongue fall to the dunes and press her face to the sand — and came away with the footreek of akashingo. the palace, and the roman hunting behind silvertongue to drag her back — something which had broken inside silvertongue the night her children were born now completed its shatter and she began to laugh hysterically in the golden dunes, laughing, laughing, laughing, until the dark throat of her mirth became a scream that she could not stop.

From the moment they parted the valley, Andromache sickened.

A sore throat stung and twisted itself to a failing voice; her airways tightened, nose blocked; by the time the howl shocked Silvertongue to a run, a fever had begun to rise in the princess. She longed for her valley, for Nikolaos's protection. To her own surprise, she longed for Faustus's company

But she said none of these things. She followed Silvertongue in what felt like a haze, oddly detached even as the woman broke into peals of shattered laughter and finally began to scream. It was the scream that finally startled her out of her fog and into something panicked and scattering, and she went to Silvertongue's side, settling ungracefully beside her with an air of desperation.

Do you want to go back? She asked, voice cracking and helplessly lost under Silvertongue's shrieking. We'll go back. Andromache decided next, but made no move to get up.

They should not have left.

on and on and on it went, until her voice unceremoniously cracked and slid to ash beneath the strained chords. silvertongue was left racked with a shiver and barely heedful of anything andromache said; "no," she said in a rejoinder, a monotone so ironcold and blank that it might as well have originated in another mouth; "no, i want to kill him," and then another baseless titter, almost playful in its sound as silvertongue raised her head with creaking slowness and gazed vengefully in the direction of the howl. kill him. yes. kill him, earn a respite in her mind. without warning she snapped at andromache, not wanting drawn blood but not avoiding it. wishing to be alone; "go back," silvertongue snarled with teeth bared and eyes dilated to voidless consumption of her irises; "go away." thus then did the riverclan wolf stand unsteadily to her feet, beginning a haughty march back the way they had come, eyes fixed in the direction of the haunting howl where flesh and blood waited to be devoured by the years of pain and rage which had waited till this very moment to be unleashed.

I want to kill him.

That slow eternal spinning of the world seemed to halt for a moment; Andromache struggled to understand. At first she could not, even as Silvertongue snapped and caught her muzzle in a stinging blow. The scent of her own blood reached her only faintly.

No, A dogged denial of her own. She rose, determined that she would follow, suddenly understanding what Silvertongue meant to do. Andromache lifted her voice as much as it would abide, calling out even if the words fell on deaf ears: Kill him, then. Kill him, and put your demons to rest, and go home.

She could not stop her. And maybe she didn't want to.

distance kept meant the words were heard; silvertongue swallowed the taste of crimson in her mouth and kept her stalk firm and lethal, cutting through the sands of the lowlands as if she had always known them. neither howl nor shriek nor word cast from her lips again; she was inexorable, terrible. it had been long years since their meeting, but silvertongue had been a frightened girl then. she was none of those things now, and the spectre along her cracked mind whispered that a draught from his jugular would be the only wine to at last soothe her sleep.

Her sickened mind blinded her to the danger; Andromache could see only that this was the way of things, the way she had learned in Myros. Quarrel with a man; fight him; let him slink away in defeat, and if he lingers in haunting memory, kill him.

He would not haunt her again.

The princess followed at a distance, weakening a little more with each step taken. Her dry, stinging throat called for water. Her spirit called, far more loudly, for the sight of justice.