Andarin: The Mountains: alkonost ;

It could have been awkward, she reflects – she rarely thought of that day, quite deliberately (because really, she had trouble seeing herself as an avenging angel, or even a murderess bloodied and glorious), though the lingering taste of blood upon her tongue made this a fallacy and a fantasy. Alkonost brings with her revelation, and the face of all of it – commingled with blood, and sweat, and some kind of obscene ecstasy – and Accendare isn’t afraid to face it, as the filly lays her crime – or her justice? – at her feet.

Accendare has never really looked at them, in the light of truth. Once, through her own stupidity, Jörmungandr and Alkonost had represented everything she had thought she would never had, and it was true, in a sense: Severus was dead, her blood in his body and his blood in hers, a full circle comprised entirely of dishonour. Your daughter, Fenrisulfr, she thinks, is just like you used to be.

She wonders if her sister would be pleased at that prospect, and then decides that it doesn’t really matter either way.

“Yes, I suppose I did,” she mutters, having never thought about it quite that way before. “Is that a bad thing?” she asks, her voice flat and emotionless, her head tilting ever so slightly to the side – bearing her own throat for redemption, she thinks, foolishly.