It was almost funny how thoughts turned to the oddest places when the mind couldn't handle what was going on. As he lifted her off the ground, out of the crumbling stone and splintered furnishings, all she could think for a moment was how she'd felt this before. Certainly, then, the hands had been warm and sweaty and mortal, the face before her ripped-open and pus-stained, the screamed words rough and dancing from deep to high, but she knew what it was like to feel explosions in her skull as the pressure caught the breath in her throat, to be unable to sing or beg or stop impending death.

The crown about his head reminded her of being a little girl. Of playing the harp at her father's feet. Of braiding flowers in her sister's hair and kissing her good-night. Of a responsibility to do the right thing, to help, because she could not use the sword or the spell or lead mighty armies.

He looked down at her, burning with a glory to match the phoenix- that beautiful bird, kind despite having no responsibility to be so. And she looked up at him, and raised one pale hand. She cupped his cheek. And though she could not sing her songs of healing, of bringing respite to the troubled soul, she could silently mouth the words he needed to hear before he snapped her neck, before he turned upon her siblings, before there was war between the brilliant Herald and the children of his lord. Because maybe it would stop that from happening, maybe it would stop him from turning on her siblings, because maybe it could save Sonata's life. Oh, Sonata, forgive her.

I... forgive...

Screeches unknown to the world, the bellow that made the stones tremble and pain flash through her head, as her siblings leaped to her defense. She could not scream to them, tell them to hold their blows, and so she did the only thing she could - she kept her hand on his cheek, and it took all the strength she had to keep her hand raised, and her muscles trembled and her chest burned with the need for air, and her eyes closed-