The first of six roads struck the confluence before Jiang's beak stopped bleeding.
Dead road bone jumped beneath Maelin's hall.
The detached keeps drifted toward one another. Families who had survived Bone Orchard grabbed unfamiliar rails as the open starwater between them narrowed into white seams.
Beyond the hall, the shed branch seed beat red.
Six reflections bent around it.
Each reflection carried a wounded beast. Each road moved at a different angle, but the black seeds beneath their scars pulled toward the same dead dorsal plate.
Raska watched stone wings fold inside one distant body.
Another reflection showed a pale serpent running on legs that bent against its spine.
Farther left, a shelled crawler dragged a burning sail grown through its back. Beneath the confluence, white burrowing claws closed around a moth body that had never belonged underground.
