Starglow Basin bruja,

The single, refulgent fire glares.

It burns. It recognizes.

Eset shivers. She remembers  how she had endorsed his suffering. How she conceded to his torture. Her order as hebsut could have killed him, or freed him—

But she had used her power to hurt; to squelch him in the same poison as his victims. In her poison. The knowledge manifests as bile beneath her tongue. Here is where it would commence. Here, where there are no voices, and only prices.

Her rasping follows listlessly after the silverwoman, “Please, Sontana– he– he will kill me.”  Eset’s brain swells against the interior of her skull. Did she deserve it? Did he predict her death? For a moment there is only empty darkness between she and he. Then when the woman returns, it is with another captor. A coyote–

Qiao?

Something snaps inside the hemet. She knows what Eset does not. It is enough to spur the half-coy to her own feet. She scrambles. Qiao bares her teeth, and Eset too lunges with fangs meant for Soto.