Beyza steps back just a little and her eyes remain on Jamie for a moment - and though it would be thrilling to keep her gaze on him the whole time, her magic is still not quite at full strength and she needs to focus. So she turns away, her burning white gaze on the old roan and in a flash it happens. Just like that, she steals his life - quickly, painlessly, and in that same instant branch-like creations burst and arc out of the earth. Crystalline white structures pierce the roan’s body and spear through him - holding him aloft instead of allowing him to collapse to the earth.
As she watches slow drips of blood seep down the thorn-like protrusions, she remembers when the same structures had pierced her heart on the beach as she choked on oil and rats.
If the numbers could not be poetic then at least she has this - symmetry in death.
Her heart is racing and she feels sick but she shoves these feelings down with the rest of her emotions, locking them away like everything else so they cannot hurt her. Beyza is the opposite of her sun-warm dove sister. She is a moonlit shrike. Her sacrifices will not rot on the ground like any common body, they will rise and be remembered, honoured. Over time the structures will crumble, and he will be returned to the earth and the worms. But for now his death belongs to her.
To them.
It is done when her gaze looks to Jamie and she drifts closer to him - ignoring that twist in her heart that still fears he will turn from her even now. The fog is still thick around them, concealing this tableau a little longer, and there is the soft splash of death-slow blood drip dripping to the ground behind her.
The same muzzle that had kissed the skin of the sacrifice reaches to brush a ghostly-soft touch against the shadow reaper as her eyes dance with both fear and delight.
“One down, two to go.”
