“You wouldn’t dare,” she sneered.

“Once, perhaps,” he told her, “before the full horror of your wickedness was brought home to me. Not now.” Holding her in an iron grip, he thrust her hand towards the portal’s cascading brilliance, the tips of her fingers almost in the flow. “I brought you into this world. Now I’m taking you out of it. You should appreciate the symmetry of the act.”

“You’re a fool,” she hissed, “you always were. And a coward. I’ve an army here. If anything happens to me you’ll die a death beyond your wildest imagination.” She flicked her gaze to her sister. “You both will.”

“I don’t care,” he told her.

Sanara backed him.

It seemed to Jennesta that they might have had tears in their eyes. She thought them weaklings for it.

Serapheim said something about evil and some prices being worth paying. He pushed her hand nearer to the sparkling flux.

She looked into his eyes and knew he meant it. She tried to conjure a defence, but nothing came. Her cocksure expression faded and she began to struggle.

“At least face your end with dignity,” he said. “Or is that too much to ask?”

She spat her defiance.

He thrust her hand into the vortex, then retreated a pace.

She squirmed and fought to pull her hand free but the gushing fountain of energy held it as tightly as a vice. A change came over the trapped flesh. It began to liquefy, releasing itself as thousands of particles that flew into the swarm of stars and spiralled with them. The process increased apace, the vortex gobbling up her wrist. Rapidly she was drawn in to the depth of her arm, which likewise disintegrated and scattered.

The band was rooted, their expressions a mixture of horror and macabre fascination.

Her leg had been sucked in now, and it was melting before their eyes. Strands of her hair followed, as though inhaled by an invisible giant. Jennesta’s disintegration speeded up, her matter eaten by the surging vortex at a faster and faster rate.