"No!" Bane roared, reaching to gain whatever strength he had left, just as Louisa's blade sank home into Gina's chest. Pushing with all of his might from the stone of the floor, he tackled Louisa just as the young woman extracted the knife from his wife's limp body.

"Bane!" Malcolm cried, out of concern or out of disgrace, Bane couldn't tell, but it was too late. He got hold of the girl who flailed against his hold, reaching both hands around her, he flung her across the floor with all the strength he could. He heard her scream as she landed, then a gurgle of blood bubbled up into her lungs.

"Louisa!" Malcolm called, and Bane stood still waiting for her to move, but she didn't.

"She's dead," Malcolm whispered, rushing to her side. He rolled her over to find the knife that was now embedded in her own gut instead of Gina's. The woman's eyes looked up at the brothers empty and desperate... even in her death, she'd lost what she wanted most.

"George!" Bane cried, leaving the first dead girl and scrambling back to where Gina lay sprawled among the relic symbols, "George, wake up!"

Blood was bubbling from the wound in her chest, out against the pale-colored housecoat she was wearing as he heard her struggle to breathe as the fluid began to fill her lungs. She would smother to death in her own blood.

"Saint of Light - Georgie - listen to me!" Bane begged, pressing a hand to the wound and gathering her to him at the same time as a sob ripped through him, "Saint of Light - please do not take her - Georgie!" he screamed her name, watching as his face contorted in pain, their eyes locked together.

"Bane?" she murmured like the whisper of a ghost, strangled though it was coming from her lips. He felt her fingers brush his cheek where the scars from the wolf attack shone bright and white. Why would the Saint take everything good and pure from him after all that he had been through?

"No!" Bane roared, just as George took one last shaky breath in, a tear slipping from the corner of her eye as she stared up at him in fear, pain, and confusion. And then... she was still.

He was not sure how long he sat there, yowling and rocking her, holding her limp and cold to his own body as if he could will life back into her. It wasn't until he felt his brother's hand land on his shoulder that he even remembered they were not alone in the room.

"Bane," Malcolm's voice came out broken as if he had aged a lifetime since last he'd spoken aloud, "We need to move quickly," the younger brother commanded the older, and Bane only could stare blankly back at him.

"What?" Bane whispered, lost, adrift, in a fog of hate and pain and numbness that follows the loss of a limb.

"There is not much time left," Malcolm repeated, and Bane realized his brother's face was streaked with tears, "But we can still get her back... we can save Gina."

Now Bane did try to pay attention at least a little. He saw that Malcolm had moved Louisa's body so that it drained into the stone basin at the center of the room, just as it was supposed to... but there was just one problem. Bane had carried that relic with him for so many years... read it a fair amount of time too... he knew this spell... he had read it before... wondered about it before...

"There will not be enough for both George and Cora, Mal," Bane explained quietly, a small shake of his head as he delivered what probably felt much like a second death to his younger brother.

Flashes of memory from that horrible night came to him at that moment, the sound of her scream as she tried and failed to kill Bane. He'd woken to the woman he had agreed to marry only hours before with a gun to his head, raving about being in love with his brother instead. She had told him everything as if explaining to a victim makes it somehow more worthwhile to die.

In short order Bane had realized that Cora had planned from the very beginning to marry him and kill him, maybe she intended to marry Malcolm, or maybe she would've taken the title for herself.

Either way... Bane was not the one she loved and he found himself on his wedding night looking down the wrong end of a gun.

"I understand now," he whispered, looking up into his brother's face, realizing what he had not been able to grasp all those years ago, "I never loved her, Cora, you know? Or I would've understood why she wanted to kill me... she loved you, Mal... really loved you..."

"Bane, do not -"

"And I could not fathom the lengths she went to just to fall down a flight of stairs as she ran from me... she was desperate and foolish and blind... but I know now... now I understand it all."

"Bane," Malcolm spoke calmly, shaking his head, "The ritual must be completed now..."

"Who will it be brother? Who will you choose?"

"George," Malcolm answered without falter as he looked dead into his brother's face, "We are going to save your George."