Sanria had gone as far north as she could. Her throat raw from breathing in the freeing air. The tears on her cheeks grew icy before they had even coursed their way down her face, leaving a dried trail of saltwater. She couldn't feel her feet. She couldn't feel her hands. She couldn't feel anything but the void at the center of her chest that spread from her heart and into the entirety of her being. She stumbled and fell into the snow on her hands and knees, her palms reddening with the cold. Karen, the help's voice rang in her mind, 'I'm sorry, M'lady... we found him by the fire... he's dead.'
Sanria let out a roar of anguish and sat on her heels. She had lost Emalia. She had lost touch with Tarran. She had lost two children that never even made it to birth. She had lost her grasp on a realm that made everything okay. She had barely kept herself together. She had dared hope that the night spent by the fire with Throm was the beginning of what should have been and what finally would be. She had no idea that it would be the last time she'd see him alive.
Sanria slid from her heels and sat in the frigid snow absolutely broken. She wanted to tear out the thick feeling that curled in her chest and throw it away, but she couldn't grasp it. The pain was beyond her reckoning - as was everything else. She let out a gut wrenching howl and gripped her head in her hands. She screamed out his name, the word billowing steam from her mouth. There would be no Bastion in the skies to save her this time. There would be no rescue. There would never be.
Sanria opened her pack, barely able to see for the tears that continually welled up in her eyes. She found what she sought, and could barely grip the handle of the dagger, so numb were her fingers. She stared for a long time at the glinting metal, the steel shining white in reflection of the ground and the overcast skies. Snow began to drift down around her in thick, lazy flakes. She looked skyward and the flakes caught on her eyelashes and face, staying whole and remaining.
A flash of green eyes aglow. A long stretching memory of time in the sand, time in a garden, cups of tea. As if guided, the blade slid between Sanria's ribs and into her heart. The pain was excruciating, blinding, then - exquisite... the tea was exquisite. There was no more cold, no more pain. Sanria was sitting in front of a fire and beside her was the one being she could never attain. Throm smiled back at her, his eyes sparkling. She took his hand as her body fell into the snow. She leaned over and gave him a kiss as the blood left her body to turn the snow crimson. She whispered the words, "I love you," before the image faded and Sanria's life parted ways with Sanria's body.
