There is a thirst which is greater than life and which is the seed of life essence and promise.
There is a need like thirst before which all else disintegrates without worth.

They destroyed Violet's sister in the cool wide dome of the court.
They brought her in chains, with a collar about her throat, for she fought them when she was parted.
The dome rumbled and roared : desecration, mutilation, theft, the charges swelled and flowed, dashed like tidecrest against the dock : desecration, perversion, insanity.
Stigmata ugly, black, heavy, misshapen hung from Violet's sister like shields and ate her like morphew under the watching eyes, before the waiting eyes.
 

Traitor.
Betrayer.
Betrayer of us all.
Filthy depraved witch.

Left alone.
Abandoned to the torment, the bleeding which does not lead to death.
To love that much.

In cool night when sapphire leaves were large and wet and all the shards of blackness were freed then she moved, then she stumbled, dragged herself, fought the pebbled soil, clawed her way to the crypt, smashed the seal with found blunt stone, entered seeking the beloved and finding her, soul of all they were. Clasped her, yet Xandria, sought her, took her, saved her, remade her in time in fashion hereto unknown but needed, oh, needed.

Burn her. Stone her. Spit upon her. Chain her away from sight.
Deny her.
Denounce, flay her.
Ugly, corrupt bitch.

The mouth, the hands, body, spirit and soul of Violet's sister sought the fount of Xandria.
 

Having once drunk there freely, bathed there lavishly, oh with such joy refreshed and restored renewed beyond understanding as beyond hope having once and many times perished there in absolute light she perished in the black night without.

Shut away from the crypt.

She entered and was destroyed seeking with her body the body of dead Xandria.
Destroyed before.

I knew it in the meadow : that she had been destroyed before.
In the domed arena there was nothing.
In the small boat which sailed away afterwards there was something, but it was not her.

And yet it was Violet's sister.