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Iron ringing, clanging in my head. Rhythmically. Like a heartbeat.

I stood in the smoldering heat of the forge. The heavy hammer solid in my hand. Leather apron over my chest, tied around my waist. Sweat trickling down my face and back. The smell of hot iron and smoke thick in my nostrils. I slammed the hammer down on the anvil again. Watching the molten iron take shape. Flattened and smoothed. With deliberate, steady strokes, I hammered out the shape I wanted, wielding the heavy hammer with delicate precision.

This is who I am. At my core.

Not a sword. A giant glove armed with spikes. Even before I was Called to be Blood, I knew I would have an iron fist.

Jaws clenched, teeth aching, I reared back with my rock troll’s fist. Envisioning the spiked ketar I used when she first Called me. With every ounce of my love, I slammed my left fist in a vicious upper cut, straight into the memory of Tanza’s circle. Breaking it apart. Tearing it open.

I bellowed. “SHARA!”

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SHARA

Torn apart with sound. Annihilated into tiny bits. Then consumed. Every trace. Until nothing remained.

That’s what it feels like on the other side. Like Sepdet’s swirling black hole of warped sunfire energy, only this force unravels everything it touches. Not crushed or destroyed but unmade. Unraveled at its core. So every ounce of energy in its cells can be consumed.

Atoms crack open, releasing nuclear detonations to feed its hunger.

Over and over and over.

While the Screaming Madness roars all around us.

Us, because the queens and our ancestors are still with Shara. To lose her will mean the most powerful queens still living will be devoured as well. The protections entrusted with the Mother’s creation will crumble and fall. Nothingness will consume the world and all Her children.

We cannot fail.

Though on the other side, everything except me, Shara, was thinner. The longer I was here, the more distant Triskeles and my Blood felt. I was no longer aware of Rik’s fierce grip, the tug on my scalp, or the other queens flowing in my consciousness.

I started to feel more acutely alone. Isolated from the herd. A wounded animal driven away from the protection of its family and friends to be slaughtered.

Without the Eleusinian Mysteries, I would have lost my mind in seconds. Deafening shrieks, metal spikes screeching across glass, cracking ice, wounded animal cries, piercing screams of pain, roaring jet engines, gunfire and bombs, squealing brakes, wailing babies, clanging bells. Any painful, annoying, discordant sound I could think of turned into a weapon of decibels and frequency.

Especially the terrible chittering sounds of a legion of thralls.

Tearing everything apart. No relief from the constant bombardment of noise.

It wasn’t darkness, but rather the absence of all light and energy. A true void. Because everything had already been consumed into the Nothingness Beyond. Beyond the Veil. Beyond the Mother. Outside of everything I knew. The furthest reaches of the universe. A fold in the fabric of time and space. Creating a hole. A blank space. Growing vaster the longer I stayed here.

“Tanza!” Though the futility of calling her name wrecked me. She could never hear over the punishing noise of the Screaming Madness. I needed something other than sound to reach her.

I needed her mother. Keisha.

I needed to look like her mother.

The Eleusinian Mysteries flowed my image into Keisha Skye. Not the glittering gold queen I remembered from the tower presentation, but the weeping mother from the basement who refused to cross over to the Mother’s embrace without her beloved child. I wore her face. But more, I put myself into her shoes. I imagined what it would be like to lose my child. If Xochitl had been ripped from my arms as we fell into the cenote. If I had to remember the terror on her face as she sank under the water, even as my Blood pulled me to safety. If I’d faced Mayte and Tepeyollotl empty handed, without their precious butterfly returned to their arms.

Xochitl’s laughter. The way she sparkled without even trying. Not just her eyes but her energy. Laughing, giggling, playing beneath the tree Itztli and I had grown. Shifting into her glorious unicorn so she could stomp her little hooves and gallop around in a flurry of fireflies and sparkles.

It was easy to replace her face in my memory with Tanza’s. The child she had been before the Screaming Madness corrupted her. A beautiful young girl with pink ribbons in her hair. So loved by her mother.

I held that love in my mind, feeding it stick by stick like a tiny fire against the raging darkness. Radiating love and hope and joy. Like Xochitl’s pink and purple sparkles. Rainbow butterfly wings. Laughter and hugs. Her mother’s safe embrace.

:Mama?: A little voice whispered.

I didn’t hold Keisha’s trophies, not like the Dauphine, but since Keisha had passed, I hoped her spirit wouldn’t mind lending her voice to me. I opened my arms, my soul, wide open to her daughter. :Let’s go home, babydoll.: