Kershov’s single furious obsidian eye traced Venga’s footsteps like a raptor measuring the perfect time to strike, his mind calculating the force he’d need to exert in order to tackle her from this distance. Her expression held a vague sort of defiance—or if not defiance, then an angry kind of hopelessness, as if the wolfess knew her life no longer had purpose and it pissed her off. The Ice King wanted to laugh again. No one has a purpose. We carve one for ourselves! That’s what he would have roared into her ears, except maybe Ker was feeling a little angry and hopeless himself, and suddenly the whole situation didn’t seem so funny. His harsh amusement sizzled into a dull, bitter resentment. He decided to take it all out on this puny, pathetic, whining toy.

“Of course you can count on me, dearest and most precious Venga. You’ll find no better coach than the Commander of an army.” Completely ignoring the sharp poison in the blonde fae’s words, Kershov offered her a wide smile that would have seemed friendly if he’d had the mouth shaped for it . . . and a single friendly fiber in his body. As if gesturing to the greatness he’d created, Kershov’s feather banner lashed out in a wide arc behind him before flying at full mast above his spine. He lifted his skull, the picture of dominance in its prime. Not a warrior bent by seething aggression and dark destructive desires. Not something twisted—something magnificent. The last person Ker would admit his fractured state of mind to was Venga. She had probably already figured out some flimsy clue along the way (her torture appointments had been getting rather interesting) but for now the ivory gladiator would put up his best façade. I am in control. I am ALWAYS in control.

“Oh—I’m so sorry. I just realized what you said! Any future suicide attempts, you say? Does that mean you’ve already tried?” He maintained a lilting, conversational tone, happy daggers flying through the air, each one aimed at Venga’s withered heart. A broken guffaw lurched from his mouth. “That’s right, you have tried before. That’s what your delightful little visit all those moons ago was, wasn’t it? I suppose we can’t blame you for that working out wrong; you tried your best, I just wasn’t the right tool to kill you. Or, I wasn’t at the time. Things change.” Kershov snapped the air in front of him, teeth colliding with an audible snap. He took one long stride forward. Stopped. Let Venga think that perhaps he would allow her some personal space for now. “You know, Venga, I would do it if you asked me nicely. Maybe if you used your best big girl manners and begged . . .”

The pallid dragon began to circle the butterscotch vixen, lazily studying her form. She carried herself differently—even more so than she did when she showed up at his borders a while ago, shrieking with tears and trembling in fear. Was it . . . stiffness? A coldness to her posture, as if she were a walking corpse? Kershov secretly howled with glee at the thought that some of his efforts might actually be working; obviously the soul must suffer emptiness before it revels in strength, because first it must be emptied of its weakness. If only the vicious Czar were in a mood to heal . . . then he would at least attempt to build Venga back up instead of tearing her down again and again and again for his own entertainment.

“You bore me,” Kershov said at last. He stopped his rotation so that he faced Venga once more, his lonely orb devoid of emotion.