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Vex saw her brother fall and she couldn't move.
Her muscles locked up, her joints turned to stone, and suddenly Vex no longer remembered how to put her body into motion. Why would she, when the heartbeat that always thrummed in time with her own had fallen silent? How was she supposed to move when his body was painfully still?
If it wasn't for Percy's steadying hands around her, she'd collapse against the chilled stone of the Zigauraut. Though, as she leaned her weight against him, she could feel that he was shaking too. She wrapped her hand around his wrist, gripping the hardy fabric of his coat so tightly that her knuckles turned white. She needed to remind herself that Percy was still there, that his heart was still beating, because to lose him too would shatter her completely.
Though, she wasn't sure that she could break any further.
She released Percy from her grasp and crawled forward, the rubble scraping against her knees and palms though she couldn't feel it anymore. She couldn't feel anything, except a void inside of her chest where half of her soul should live.
His eyes were too empty. The warmth, the laughter, the life was drained out of them. The image was burned into her eyes. She was sure that if she squeezed her eyes shut to try to block it out she'd still see it in the darkness. She was sure it would haunt her for the rest of her life.
He was like a doll with its strings cut, the way his body lay limply before her as she continued her crawl towards him. Time seemed to stretch and warp around her, so that every length she travelled felt like an eternity. And where was his matron now? Where was the goddess who could guide fate and death? Where was she now? Where was she when her brother needed her the most?
Vex cursed the Matron, then, as she had many times before. She had cursed her for assigning a fate to her brother that none of them could understand, and she had even cursed him, back then, for being so selfless to give his own life for hers. She cursed the Matron now, who did nothing to save her beautiful champion.
Her anger flared brightly and burned away just as quickly. The ache in her bones of the sheer wrongness of it all doused the anger. She felt ill.
Her world tilted unnaturally on its axis and she staggered sideways before she refound her balance. She reached a trembling hand out towards the gaping expanse between her and her twin, uncaring of the chaos around them. Keyleth was howling like her heart had been yanked out of her chest, and if Vex could give any of her shattered heart to anyone else except her brother in this moment, it would break all over again for the poor girl who Vex knew loved her brother so deeply.
She scraped her body forward, hoping that if she could just hold him she could force the life back into him, like the warmth of her hands on his face might be enough to bring the colour back to his cheeks, or her desperate tears falling in dismal streams across his face might be enough to remind him that she would break without him by her side.
Her fingertips came within a hair’s breadth of reaching him before his body appeared to dissolve beneath the threat of her touch, like the Whispered One himself wouldn't dare test if their connection was strong enough for Vex to pull her brother back from the Matron’s domain herself. But it didn't matter. She wrenched her hand back like she'd been burned, and then watched in horror as his body fell apart, skin and bone flaking away into ash.
Tears flooded her eyes until that image of her brother blurred. She wiped the sleeve of her armour harshly across her eyes, trying to clear the flood. But it was futile.
Vex screamed, because she couldn't hold him one last time, because there was no body to bury, and because now he was with their mother and she was left here alone.
Vex spent the first few minutes of her life without her twin in agony.