Tak had held no sway over Eris before. Why should it be different now? She had defied him and all the other gods, she had for many months now -- her head had been clearer, her sight stronger. Eris had not needed Tak or any other god for strength -- it had come from her, all of it! But looking at Shibboleth, the sable-hued woman could not say that she was powerful enough to stop this. Tak or one of his dark brothers had deigned to touch this litter, too, but he had given to Eris a curse this time, as much as he had delivered to her a gift the last time.
The hybrid looked at him, eyes clearing as if seeing for the first time the frosted gray and white around his muzzle, the almost delicate criss-cross of the scar on his cheek. Her eyes were empty, her gaze devoid of emotion and intelligence and all humanity -- they were the eyes of a dead woman set into the coal of her face. There was truth in his words, and she knew it, though the words burned no less for the truth they carried. She looked to the small, pale bundle in her arms, impossibly blazing hot and no longer even conscious.
How? There was infinite weariness in that one word, the inquiry of how this gift/curse was to be delivered to the monster in the sky or beneath the dirt, wherever Tak slept.
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