The song was in her now, and her mind came apart around it.
The bone blade that had been falling toward Rapax's neck stopped a hand's breadth from him and hung there, the whole red weight of her arrested at the top of the swing, the eight red eyes drifting off him to look at things the grove did not hold. Rapax had been waiting for this. He had bled himself to the edge and bought it with his hand, and now the instant was his.
Shadow came to the stump of his left wrist. He drew the energy up out of his domain and packed it into the cut, and the black of it clotted the spray where his hand had been, sealing the worst of the bleed long enough to matter. Then he took up his fallen saber in his right hand and turned to open her throat while the song held her still.
A chain came out of the dark and bound her first.
