In front of them, the cave mouth yawned like a throat that is starving.
The walls were made of ribs, curved and petrified, and the ceiling was strung with strands that resembled vines and wiggled as Jarek's torchlight struck them.
Ethan's void hands thumped. With its golden leaf fully unfolded, the gilded thorn in Jarek's coat hummed.
"This isn't a tomb," Jarek realized. "It is a cage."
A crunch was heard beneath their feets.
Bones. Not human. Not animal. Something in between.
A whisper from the thorn crept into their thoughts.
"Deeper."
…..
Mara battled in the roots.
With hissing vows, the remains of the Duskheir coiled around her.
"Let us in."
"Let us feast."
"Together, we'll devour the Star."
The Thirteenth Star was closer than they were, its hunger was a song that made her teeth grind.
Mara clenched her dream fists.
"You both want the same thing," she spat. "To consume."
A memory flashed, Jarek's knife at her throat, Ethan's void touch. Sacrifice or vessel?
She bared her teeth.
"I'll show you how Ravenscrofts die."
…..
The cavern revealed a chapel of nightmares.
Benches were made from petrified roots.
The real horror was beneath the crown of thorns worn by the skeleton on the throne. It was an emerald mass that beat and passed through the bones like mold on bread.
The first Duskheir.
Not dead.
But digesting.
Ethan clenched his empty hand.
"It's eating the Star's gift."
Jarek unwrapped the thorn. The truth was illuminated by its glow.
The skeleton held a rusty knife in its fingers.
His knife.
The same blade that had killed Mara.
…..
The gilded leaf floated to the throne after tearing free. Memory burst where it touched the skeleton.
A young girl, crying as thorns exploded out of her body.
A woman with hollow, bark-flesh eyes thrusting a knife into her hands.
The sound of a whisper. "Take away the hunger."
The child plunged the blade into her chest.
Light. Screaming. Then…
The first Duskheir's birth.
Jarek was taken aback.
"It was not a possession. It involved surgery.
Ethan's voice broke.
"They tried to cut the Star out of her."
…..
The jaw of the skeleton snapped open.
Emerald light flowed along in the air, forming words.
"FINISH IT."
The thorn jumped out of Jarek's hold and lodged itself in the chest of the skeleton.
The cavern shook.
…..
In the roots, Mara pulled.
Not away, deeper.
Into the rot.
Into the hunger.
Her dream hands found the Star's presence and grasped it.
"You want a vessel?" she growled. "Then choke on me."
…..
The rusted knife was picked up by Jarek.
Ethan's empty body swelled.
The skeleton let out a shriek.
Further up in the sky, the Thirteenth Star—
—blinked.