"Your mind is a ruin already. It is as if someone tore out half of your heart and replaced it with fog. How can a castle stand on fog?"
That was what the Madness of Kanakht had told Nephis in the Eternal City.
Back then, she did not really understand what the abomination meant. She knew, of course, that parts of her memory were missing; however, without knowing what she had lost, it was difficult to assign the missing parts value. And since she did not feel the pain of having lost them, Nephis could not help but treat them as unimportant.
...She understood the Madness of Kanakht now.
It happened subtly. The Vile Thieving Bird escaped in the calamitous conflagration of the dying sun, taking Sunny with it. Having fallen behind, Nephis was left alone.
Below her, the Great River was boiling. She landed on one of the larger shards of the destroyed sun, its surface still incandescent with incinerating heat, and looked around.
