Blackfeather Woods you've got to ste[m] the evil tide

The glimpse of coherence she caught in Parvati's gaze shook her, momentarily, into a state of remorse. What are you doing what are you doing what— But she saw again, smelled again, Nirgali and Ninazu before her; she saw her children nursing at this woman's teats; she felt the agony of her "labor" and the grief of watching her sons disintegrate, day by day, into nothing.

The flies picking at their fecal flesh. The worms slowing, slowing, to a halt. And, meanwhile, Anansi, Sakhmet, and Sobek growing fast and strong, taking milk from another. Given names she'd never wanted for them.

That had been Parvati's doing. And whether it was jealousy or malice or simply insecurity that had prompted the woman to poison Maegi's womb and take her spawn from her. . .the Nona didn't know. But she would not stand for it.

She had been hurt too many times for far too many seasons. She was done being the aggressor.

She wanted to hurt someone else. To make them feel the pain she'd felt since birth.

You betrayed me, she hissed, back to the angry, hazy state of mind that had gripped her since the children's birth. Bitterly, she shoved Parvati away from her, pacing to the Altar and sitting at its base, watching for the moment the poison began to take hold. You will pay. You will rot in the Void forever, and you will never see nor hear your own gods again.

Nothing less would suffice.