All I had remembered was waving at my cousins from the center of the Amber Pattern, concentrating for that center of the Moon. But I guess a flash of memory skirted my mind, for it had not been that long before that I had stood in this very place...
***
I fell to my knees, exhausted, letting the body drop near me. It did not catch fire -- not that I expected it to, but I was careful not to let any stray limb brush against the lines of the Pattern as I walked. Allowing myself a few minutes to rest, I smiled. Martin's treachery provided an excellent distraction for what I needed to do, though I still felt bad about having to pilfer the Jewel from under Jess's auspices. Damn Random for making her Captain of the Palace Guard.
Sighing, I laid the body out on its back, and I took up a position next to it, crossed-legged, and stared deep into the Jewel, as I had seen my father do many a time before...
I suppose it was the ripple of power that was exuded from the Pattern that knocked me unconscious. I looked around, and saw that Llewella was still out near the beginning of the Pattern. Excellent.
I smoothed my father's hair, and laid the Jewel on his chest. Ever so slowly, it began the pulse, a garish burst of blood-red light.
Eyes blue as the sky opened.
Eric turned and smiled.
"Daughter...?"
***
I blinked out of whatever trance Dworkin and the Jewel had put me under, expecting to be hustled off with the others to get away from the remnants of the Moon Pattern. Instead, I was greated to the sight of my twisted, corrupted father crossing his Pattern, clutching at his Jewel with one hand while gesturing towards me with the other.
I was little over half done erasing his Pattern.
I was doomed.
But somewhere in death lies redemption.
Pulling the Jewel off my chest, I reached it out towards Eric, only to sling it away at the last moment. I could only hope that I had gotten enough momentum to clear the edge of the Pattern...
***
The silver spires of Castle Amber stood before us -- so like the original, I knew. The party was coming out the front gates to receive us, the King and Crown Princess of MoonAmber. I knew that the large, heavyset one had to be a representation of Gerard, and I waved and smiled.
It wasn't much later that the hair stood on back my neck. Nor much after that that the rotten stench of death and decay wafted over to me. As I began a spell to magnify the image of the greeting party, a hand, cold as ice and metal, clamped on my wrist.
"Don't think me a callous father, my dear, but you'll need a... reeducation if you are to truly fit in here," said my father.
I watched pieces of greyish skin fall from his face.
I screamed.
I woke not too long later as the centerpiece of a ghastly court of undead.
"Ah, the main course at tonight's feast awakens," said an undead Caine. I watched them, duplicates of my aunts and uncles, drooling a foul black liquid in anticipation of drinking my Pattern-enriched blood.
I passed out again.
Needless to say, I escaped with the help of that universe's Dworkin and the Trumps on the cell wall...
***
"Father, please, no..."
There was no answer. Eric lifted his arm -- at first I thought he may stop this plan -- but then it came across my chest, launching me into the air and onto the Pattern, both on and off the lines.
And as I lie there, my face and breast and arm and side ceasing to feel, I watched light spring up around me.
So this is what it was like to burn to death...