Liya took a breath and let the floodgate in the back of her head open--light dripped through every nerve, blazing coolly through her skin, a brilliant web stretching down her arm. The air hummed tautly around her arm as the energy built; she tensed her arm, lifting her hands.

All at once she slammed her hands into Hawk's ribcage, and the air cracked between her skin and his. Light poured down into his heart, filling it and then overflowing beyond; veins and vessels lit, down through his torso and up into his face, building behind his eyes. His body seized up as though galvanized by her energy.

As soon as the light doused itself he was still again. There was no thunk of the heart restarting, no gasp of the lungs grasping for air.

Shadows fell around her. The soldiers from beyond the fire, all clad in long red coats with hoods, had filled in to nearly surround her. There was something strange about all of them, from the ginger-haired girl with the two-pronged tail, to the horse with forelegs far too long for the rest of it, to the simply huge black bear that was eclipsing most of the firelight.