The mausoleum was no longer a tomb of the dead; it was the throat of a god. The violet smoke from the Devourer coiled around the marble pillars like strangler vines, pulsing with the rhythmic thrum of Eliza's stolen years.
Eliza knelt on the cold stone, shielding Silas's unresponsive body with her own. She looked up, and for the first time, she didn't see her sister. She saw a hollowed-out monument to spite.
Maryan stood trembling, her skin flickering between translucent gray and a bruised purple. She clutched her chest, where the rowan-wood lark Silas had jammed into her was still smoldering, refusing to be digested.
"You always did have a habit of taking things that didn't belong to you, Eliza," Maryan spat. Her voice wasn't her own—it sounded like dry leaves skittering over a grave.
"I took nothing, Maryan," Eliza said, her voice a low, golden chime that cut through the static of the void. "I gave you everything. I gave you the seat at Father's right hand. I gave you the family jewels. I even gave you my silence when I knew you were stealing from the ledgers."
Maryan let out a jagged, hysterical laugh. She stepped forward, the obsidian floor cracking under her boots.
"You gave?" Maryan shrieked. "That is the poison, Eliza! You handed me scraps like a dog beneath the table and expected me to wag my tail! You stood in the sunlight, effortless and perfect, and never realized that your shadow was suffocating me."
Maryan gestured wildly to the empty air. "I spent twenty years practicing how to walk, how to speak, how to smile—just to be 'almost' as good as the Vane heiress. And you? You just were. You didn't even have to try. You were the sun, and I was the damp, dark earth that could only watch you shine."
"I loved you," Eliza whispered, the words feeling heavy and strange in a mouth that was losing its history. "I thought we were sisters fighting the world together. I thought the Baron was the enemy, not the girl I shared my nursery with."
"We were never sisters," Maryan hissed, her eyes turning into flat black discs. "We were a predator and its prey. I watched you with that boy at the fence. I watched the way he looked at you—like you were the only soul in the universe worth saving. Why you? Why not the girl who actually worked for it? Who wanted it more?"
Eliza stood up slowly. The Hourglass Mark on her wrist pulsed with a dying, frantic light.
"You think I was perfect because it was easy?" Eliza's voice rose, vibrating with the power of the Truth. "I was perfect because I thought if I was good enough, you would finally love me. I made myself a masterpiece so you could be proud of me, Maryan! Every grace I learned, every song I played—it was an invitation for you to join me!"
Maryan recoiled as if struck. The violet smoke around her flared. "Lies! You wanted to tower over me!"
"I wanted to lift you up!" Eliza roared.
The gold light from Eliza's eyes surged, illuminating the entire tomb. The "Grand Lie" of Maryan's jealousy began to crack against the absolute, blinding purity of Eliza's intent.
For a second, the Devourer's grip on Maryan loosened.
"I died with your name on my lips, Maryan," Eliza said, her voice dropping to a terrifying, steady calm. "My last thought wasn't of vengeance. It was a prayer that the poison wouldn't weigh too heavily on your soul. I came back to stop the Baron, yes—but I also came back to save you from becoming this."
Maryan's face contorted. For a fleeting heartbeat, her real eyes—the brown eyes of a scared twelve-year-old on the Winter stairs—looked out from the darkness.
"It's too late," Maryan whispered, her voice breaking. "I've eaten too much of you. There's no room left for a sister in here. Only the hunger."
The violet smoke surged back, thicker than before, swallowing Maryan's humanity whole. Her jaw unhinged, revealing a void of swirling ash.
"Then I stop being the sister," Eliza said, raising her hand. The last grain of gold sand in her Hourglass hung suspended, glowing like a dying star. "And I start being the Audit. You want my life, Maryan? You want my perfection? Then take all of it. Take the weight of every truth I've ever carried. Let's see if your hunger is as big as my heart."
Eliza lunged, not with a blade, but with an open palm, reaching for the flickering violet fire in her sister's chest.