Not just killed, he realised, glancing back at the circle. Ripped apart . . . feasted upon. “It nested here,” he said aloud, realisation dawning in a rush. Wittler’s blasted body, not a cannon-shot, an egg, bursting apart in flame and fury as they did when their mothers bathed them in the waking fire, setting free what waited within. “She used the Red’s heart-blood to birth the egg. The White hatched, ate up what was left of Wittler and came here where the Spoiled fed it, fed it with their own flesh.”
