And the sad conclusion begins...

Finally, the riual was coming to a close. Blood was splattered on every surface, soaking every Participant. Tzarina Liline lay in the middle of a pool of blood. Soft ripples traveled to its edge as she breathed her soft, shallow breaths. Sobs had long ago abandoned her weak form so that she was merely left with a hollow once-human cavity, her soul struggling to break free of her body's death grasp.

Tzar Reiz laughed maniacally as he chewed on his own arm, looking like a wounded coyote except for the crazed look in his eye. His hand seemed glued to the surface of the Stone, and the Participant's only kept dutiful watch. They remembered the events of the past days, and they finally had proof that their Gods existed, but Eevyt had been wrong to give the Stone so much of her power. It had begun to consume their Tzar, and in a strange act of kindness Eevyt had come to them.

With one look from her the man in red had drawn his sword and stabbed himself through the heart. The maiden had drawn her own dagger across her neck, her blood mixing in the dark pool of it around Tzarina Liline. Eevyt had named the Tzarina the mother of the races, for she was the only First Wife ever to be sentenced to a lashing at the Gathering and survive to the final day.

Maybe that was why Eevyt had deemed it appropriate she come to the ritual. No one would ever know, and for the simple minded Participants that was how it should be. Eevyt had departed with words of hope, Golms standing off behind her looking like a scorned little boy, but although proof had been laid before them, the Participants began to doubt their faith. They remembered Eevyt's promise to Tzarina Liline that she shall inherit Golms as her husband and be the Mother, but they also saw their beloved First Wife suffering through the last hour of the Gathering.

She drew ragged breaths in an hour that would probably be her last. Her body was limp and near lifeless, her heartbeat slowly fading away with her strength. She had no thoughts now, not even a worry or care. She no longer fought to survive, no longer told herself it would not be long now. The whispers growing louder around her meant nothing, nor did the cackling of her Tzar. She was hollow, and she would soon be going home.

The Participants could not tear their eyes from her form. The last shrieks of sanity ebbed away from their Tzar with the final threads of their faith to forever dwell within the cold, hard confines of his precious stone.

And as the beloved mother of the people at last succumbed to the inevitable, her warm heart ceasing its rhythmic pulses without a stutter, they turned away from their faith to add another dead religion to history's long and morbid list.