And like that, the nine became seven. Nyka's approach was heralded by one man falling, and a second dying naked in the snow.
Cards torn from the deck, while the pot remained on the table.
"Good company?"
Gorhart echoed Nyka's words.
"No, Darling."
She stepped to the edge of the smile. Robed beast and elfin redhead studied one another, either side of the gory smear.
"Rather, let us call it... sacred geometry."
She glanced at Hupomone, stood like an obsidian monolith behind her.
Winds howled around the peak. Snow flurries like puffs of flour in a busy bakery. Gorhart could smell the cooking hearts and feel the kneading flesh. Ice and wolf-fang cutting shapes in the pastry. Warm fruits bubbling through torn sides. Dead men's bellies, full of gas and rising as they proofed.
Drool dripped from her mouth. She shuddered, then paced.
"Let it never be said, My Loves - that damnéd lie: that Gorhart is unreasonable. For I have a proposal."
She turned to regard them both. More drool spilled from her lips. Slow-stretching, blood-rimed threads.
"A means to feed us all."
Each string of drool touched the snowy ground. And there they froze, holding Gorhart in place. Like an old sage whose beard was snagged.
"So fond, my memories of the Conclave.
She sighed while raking bloody hands across the threads, plucking them like harp strings.
"A wonderful time, wasn't it? All of us coming together; deciding how best to butcher our creators. I pray we find that rhythm again. That we persist to give... and take..."
Her sounds were unmusical. Troubled chimes as she played without finesse.
"Seven pilgrims making for the peak. Let us take one each. A child for Hupomone - that he shall make it safely home to Pendra. A child for Nyka - that he shall wander, ever lost, through these mountains. And a child for Gorhart - to join the great menagerie."
She jerked her head till her jaws snapped free. Bloody, frozen spittle was left like an ice sculpture. The perfect mirror of her antlers - their shape inverted in the snow.
"The rest shall perish. But three shall have accord. For whithersoever they roam, the Mad Triumvirate shall hold... that God spoke to them on the mountainside."
She ended behind Hupomone, stag head resting on her shoulder. Gorhart draped the obsidian goddess like a hide of bleached bone and crimson silk.
"Say you concur, Sweet One..."
Her mouth was by Hupomone's ear, but her eyes were on Nyka. It was impossible to tell which of them she was talking to.
"Let it be as it was at the Conclave. Happy little gods... conspiring to the kill."