"I know."
That was Tsen's only reply to the fantastical story Kore had just laid out - of the Emperor's troops storming the palace and gunning down anything that moved, of her impromptu rescue of the duke's highborn son, of her 'battle' with a full-blooded Se-dai, and finally the nigh-unbelievable presence of the Jade Emperor himself at the execution of the royal family.
Notably absent from her tale was the bizarre and nightmarish dream Kore had experienced during her fight against the Se-dai - and the very similar one she had been experiencing moments before the awakening from which she was still, admittedly, somewhat groggy.
"Rees and Torra already told me everything," Tsen explained, jerking his thumb at the two Heraldry agents flanking him - the 'partners-in-crime' with whom Kore had infiltrated the palace. "Soon as they gave the all-clear, we moved to pull you out." He leaned forward, his eyes glinting oddly in the flickering light as he placed a gentle hand upon Kore's knee. "It's a nothing short of a miracle that you survived such a nightmare."
"Barely survived," Kore grunted, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. Every bone, every muscle, every fiber of her body was crying out in dull, muted agony - but she could stifle it, for the moment. "I took a hell of a beating back there."
"So I see," Tsen nodded, leaning back. He fell into shadow, then, and the only illumination on his face was that of his cigarette's warm glow. "The Liquidators are famed for efficiency and brutality in equal measure. And the Se-dai?" He let out a low whistle. "Death incarnate, they say."
"I got that impression," Kore muttered.
"Few people on the outside know what's been going on - but they all know that something's been happening," Tsen said, apropos of nothing. Kore closed her eyes and merely resolved to let the other man talk - though in truth she wanted nothing more or less than to simply return to her bed. "Everyone saw those two Imperial ships appear in the sky, and everyone saw the smaller ones streaming into the palace. And anyone within a few block heard those gunshots, felt those explosions. But none of the average citizenry have a damn clue what the hell's been going on - or that the hated Duke Jerohd was just butchered like a hog in his own home." At that, Tsen let out a low chuckle.
"Wish I'd been there to see the look on the old bastard's face," he declared, blowing a thin cloud of smoke from between his teeth. "Karma, Kore - it's an old Buddhist thing. Means that no matter who your family name is, one way or another you'll get what's comin' to ya. I like that kinda stuff."
"Didn't seem much like justice to me," Kore scoffed wearily. "Just one evil bastard throwing another away like he was nothin'. Like he was trash." Her eyes opened to narrow slits. "He told the Duke he owned him. Said he was his property."
"And that's what we're up against," Tsen declared, taking his cigarette between his two fingers. The other agents were all watching, now. "We're all caught in the suffocating grip of a maniac who means to control every single facet of every single human life in this universe. The ultimate enemy of any and all freedom. A man who would declare himself a God." He hawked and spat onto the floor. "That's what I say to any man who'd call me property."
But Kore was only half-listening now. She couldn't get those eyes out of her head - those piercing green eyes that had fallen over her and the other servants and truly seen nothing. For the first time in her life, Kore had felt truly humbled by the mere presence of another - a presence so terrifying and overwhelming as to have physically forced her to her knees. She wondered, to herself, if the Jade Emperor could possibly be killed. If he could even be opposed at all! Unconsciously, her brain had already begun to view the Emperor not as a fellow human being but as a thing - an immutable, otherworldly force of nature.
Tsen was still talking. Belatedy, Kore tuned back in to listen.
"...and that's why we're putting the torch to 52nd Street, tonight," Tsen finished, to which a series of cheers and shouts erupted around them.
Kore blinked. And before she could restrain herself:
"I...I'm sorry, what?" she blurted out, her bleary eyes flicking back and forth. "Sorry, my head-"
"It's alright," Tsen said quickly, holding up his hands. "Nobody expects you to be at a hundred percent right now. Might offer a condensed summary of the plan for tonight's operation?"
"By all means," Kore said - but her words were cautious and guarded.
"So the Duke is dead, right?" Tsen began, clenching the cigarette between his teeth once more and steepling his fingers before him. "So's his family, barring the little prince who's about to be shipped to void-knows-where. That means no successors. That means a fella called a Regent is gonna come down here in a few days, alongside however-many Imperial 'Peacekeepers'. His sole responsibility is going to be to keep this place as calm and orderly as possible while the big-brains on Mercury try to find a new Dynasty to elevate - probably one of the minor nobilities from, I dunno, Canis Peaks or something."
"Okay," Kore nodded, slowly. "I follow."
"So," Tsen said, growing excited now, "we are gonna make his job as difficult for that damn regent as possible. We are gonna whip the people up into a fuckin' frenzy, get 'em mad as hell at anyone who even associates themselves with that palace, and cause as much damage in property, manpower, and especially coin as possible. When that damned slavemaster Emperor takes a glance over to see how Callisto is doing, he'll see a world on fire - and he'll weep when he sees how much he's spending just to keep this place afloat." A wolf's grin spread across his face. "And if we break enough shit, Kore, maybe they just give up - maybe our so-called benefactors just up and leave. And maybe we finally get what we've always wanted - true and total freedom." There sounded now another series of whoops and cheers as Tsen leaned back and folded his arms.
"Well?" he asked, a smug smile plastered across his face. "Waddya say, Kore? You'd be an invaluable asset on this."
At that moment, Kore's head was spinning more and more rapidly by the minute. She really, really just wanted to lay down and go to sleep.
"Hang on, hang on," she interjected, as the voices around them began to quiet. Her brain was still processing the words that had slipped from her onetime mentor's mouth. "Wait a sec. You're gonna put the torch to fifty-second street?"
"What better way to piss people off?" Tsen shrugged. "The government are gonna be real shy about committing any sorta atrocities - they want us calm and complacent, ya see. So we'll just have to invent some atrocities of our own."
"Are you outta your mind?" Kore demanded, shaking her head - shaking herself from the thick fog of fatigue hanging in the space between her brain and her skull. Her hackles were rising, now, and Tsen's smile was beginning to fade. There was a tight, smoldering knot of anger in the pit of her stomach. "You're talking about blowing the shit outta innocent people, just to get back at the highborn?"
"It's a grim tactic, to be sure, but nothing we haven't done before-" Tsen started - to which Kore's eyes went wide.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" she demanded, rising in her seat - the pain of her injuries temporarily forgotten. Yet still her head was swirling and swirling, and she could taste blood inside her mouth.
"Before your time," Tsen said casually - far too casually. Alarm bells were resounding in Kore's head, deafening her ears. "Listen, Kore, we are a tiny force up against an insurmountable foe. It saddens me to say that we've rarely had the luxury of taking the high-"
"You said we were gonna fix this place," Kore snapped, jabbing a finger at the Heraldry leader. It was dead silent and eerily still in the back of that hovertruck, now. All were watching with wary eyes and bated breath. "You said we were gonna help people. Murdering them is pretty fuckin' far from helping!"
"I've already explained," Tsen replied, through gritted teeth. His voice was lowering, now, his shoulders were visibly tensing. And there it was again - that same odd glint in his pale eyes. "We have to destabilize Callisto so that-"
"So that we can turn the whole damn planet into one big riot," Kore scoffed, throwing up her hands. "No plan beyond that, just destroy everything and set 'em all loose. That ain't freedom, Tsen - that's anarchy."
"What the hell is the difference?" Tsen snarled, crushing the cigarette between his fingers - his rising anger finally getting the best of him. "For fuck's sake, I told you from day one what we were fighting for - freedom, at any cost!"
"You said we were gonna-" Kore began.
"You said we were gonna help people," Tsen repeated in a lilted and high-pitched voice. "Oh, shut up about that already. The reason nothing ever changes around here is because whiny, weak-hearted little shits like you always wanna-"
Instantly, Kore made a decision. And just as quickly she committed everything to seeing that decision through - by shooting to her feet, lurching her head back, and then smashing her skull directly into Tsen's nose.
There was movement around her, of course - hands darting to guns and knives - but Kore leapt back, barely managing to snatch the heavy steel-barreled revolver from Tsen's holster before she slammed back against the door.
A half-dozen guns were leveled at once, and Kore didn't hesitate to raise her own weapon in reply. Now, at the front of the conflagration, Tsen stood hunched, his nose smashed and his face painted in a grim mask of rapidly-drying crimson. His eyes were wide with fury - restrained fury, albeit only barely.
"Nobody shoot!" he roared, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Nobody fucking shoot!"
"You take one step forward and I'll put this slug right through your eye," Kore growled, her free hand slowly reaching back and feeling up the door. "You can count on that." She found the handle - and her fingers closed tight around the cold steel as, before her, the wounded Heraldry leader extended a trembling hand.
"Kore..." he said, slowly, carefully, like a handler approaching some great wounded beast. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I snapped - that wasn't like me. It's just-it's been a long night, alright? I haven't slept."
"Uh huh," Kore replied dryly - and she yanked the handle down, feeling at once the frigid night air biting and howling madly at her back as the door flew open behind her.
"No!" Tsen said quickly, nearly taking a step forward - before remembering Kore's warning and choosing to stay firmly rooted in place.
"Kore, listen to me," he said softy. There was a slight, uncharacteristic tremble in his voice. "This can all still be fixed, okay? Nothing is done that can't be undone. Even the bombings, okay? We can try another method. We can do things your way. But if you jump out this car..." His expression hardened, then, and all traces of sympathy vanished in lieu of a countenance that promised only vengeful and unending death. "You're done."
"Psychopath," Kore spat. "I wasted months of my time working for a fuckin' psychopath."
"Kore..." Tsen growled. For the third time, there was that hunter's gleam in his eyes. "Without me, you'll be cut off from that serum your body needs so badly. Without me, you'll be dying a slow, agonizing death - a prisoner of your own failing body. You need me, Kore. Now be smart and step back in the car."
"That so?" Kore grunted. She glanced back - saw the city racing by, saw the shadowy silhouettes of countless buildings illuminated only by dotted orange-glowing windows. Saw the great, fat clouds of industrial smoke. And she saw the road, rushing and rushing and rushing beneath her.
She breathed in, held it for a moment, and then once again Kore made a decision - and as she exhaled, she braced her feet against the floor of the truck and leapt back, out into the raging wind and the rushing road and the frigid, pitiless air of that dark and auspicious night.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
A few shots rang out - a superheated bolt grazed against her elbow - and then Kore hit the pavement. Hard.
----------------------------------------
"Stop the car! Stop the damn car!" Tsen was bellowing, as the hovertruck skidded to an abrupt halt - nearly careening into the side of a building as a half-dozen Heraldry agents poured out with pistols and rifles in hand.
"Where is she?" Tsen roared, his eyes darting frantically back and forth. The Heraldry leader, usually a bastion of casual calm, looked now like a man possessed. "Damnit, someone find that woman and bring her back here!"
"She's gone!" one of the agents declared, voice thick with disbelief, as another threatened away a trio of onlookers with the barrel of his las-rifle. "Just a puddle of blood - look!"
Tsen did look - and there indeed was a puddle of murky blood staining the pavement. But there was nothing else. No trail. No footprints in the snow. No sign whatsoever left by a half-dead woman who could barely walk.
"It don't make any sense," another agent was saying, shaking his head in disbelief. "How the hell did she just disappear like that?!"
"Track her down," Tsen growled, grabbing the nearest man roughly by the collar. "Track. Her. Down! You know we need her, you bastards, you know it, so fan the fuck out and fucking find her!" He leapt back, let out an animal yell, and kicked up an enormous cloud of snow as the other agents began to spread out at once. He staggered back, falling against a nearby wall and staring down at his trembling hands.
His one job - his one job had been to deliver her. Now they were going to kill him - he was certain of it. What was he going to do? What was he going to do?
Slowly, his head tilted up. There was an agent standing there before him, eyeing the Heraldry leader with blatant uncertainty.
"It won't be dark for much longer," the agent declared simply. "Either the others will find Kore, or they won't. So. What's our play?"
Tsen's mind snapped back into focus.
"Charges are set?" the Heraldry leader asked, climbing to his feet.
"Ready and waiting," the agent confirmed.
"Then blow those stupid fuckers to the void," Tsen ordered, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder as he made his way to the waiting vehicle. "I'm done here."
----------------------------------------
Left foot.
Right foot.
Left foot.
Right foot.
Those were the only thoughts, the only commands that could penetrate through the storm of white-hot agony that Kore now trudged through. Everything was pain. The snow melting against her skin. The breath filling her lungs. The scraping of her eyelids as they bashed against one another. Each motion was fresh, unmitigated torture.
Yet the pain was irrelevant.
She had to warn them. There was no question. She had to warn them. It was a simple and absolute statement of fact, a governing law of physics by which all the universe was forced to abide.
Kore had to warn them. This was as indelible as the stars in the sky.
Of course, there was no thought of how she would accomplish this - how she would warn a neighborhood of nearly six hundred, how she would convince them of the immediacy of the danger. Of even how she would even survive this agonizing trek at all. There was simply no room in her head for these thoughts, for every ounce and iota of her brainpower was slaved to the simple dyad of left foot and right foot.
She was close, now, she knew, for she could see the trio of smokestacks that marked the great cordite-refining factory at the center of the fifty-second - a black, boxy, looming thing. And for the first time in her life she felt relief at the sight of those damned pillars vomiting gaseous bile into the skies above.
And then, though she cannot possibly explain the sensation, she is at once utterly certain of what will happen and turns away, eyes squeezed shut and hands pressed tight over her ears, as a series of blinding explosions rip through the rowhouses like the hands of a petulant god, sending innumerable chunks of wood and stone and steel and plaster and flesh raining down upon a panoply of rapidly-swelling blue flame. The factory bulges, holds momentarily, and then it too is split open from within by a final explosion that dwarfs all others.
The ground rumbles. The air is filled with naught but a single ear-piercing register of combined sound.
Kore's eyes are shut for a very, very long time. And when finally she opens them, her vision blurred and red, fifty-second street is gone. In its place there lies only a hollow, blackened skeleton, one roaring with oscillating green-and-blue flame. There are screams. Sirens. The rumbling and screeching of steel collapsing against steel.
And for the first time in her life Kore is truly empty as she sags to her knees like a puppet with cut strings. She stares out at the face of the apocalypse with wide, tear-streaked eyes, and a mouth that can only hang uselessly ajar. Her body is no longer her own. She is done. Finished. There is no strength left to give.
She just stares and stares and stares.
And then, once again, there comes a tiny, hateful little shard of thought worming its way into her empty skull.
This is all your fault.
It takes quite literally all of the strength Kore can muster to rise to one knee. And then it takes even more to stand, unsteady, on two legs. Her teeth are grit so tight that they grind painfully against one another, and her sallow skin is taut with surging muscle. Her body has nothing left to give and yet still she turns, rounds on her heel, and begins to walk away from the raging inferno.
In her vision, now, the palace is a beacon in the night.
She made this possible. She aided Tsen - did everything he ever asked of her with no questions asked. She is culpable for this, just like all the others.
Though Kore has never been one for grand purpose, but she is filled with one now. Because before her there lies an imperative - to improve this suffering universe, to fix things, to make life better for even one citizen of this wretched Great Domain.
Or to simply be another murderer.
It is no choice at all. Once again, Kore starts to walk.
----------------------------------------
A short, sharp trio of knocks ring out, and slowly Jaheed blinks awake.
Immediately, another series of knocks. Then another.
"Alright, alright!" he calls, fumbling for the light. He finds it - and then immediately his eyes are scrunched shut against the pale glow that now fills his chamber. He leans back against the bedpost, his head still reeling from the night's events. He is in the twilight, still - perfectly between the closure of an old life and the debut of a new one.
"Come in, already," he mutters, waving a hand, and the door swings open at once. And the young Marquess opens his eyes to find a bloodied, bedraggled, beaten, half-frozen husk of a woman - a woman whose eyes burn with unending resolve, even when staring out from the remains of that pitiful shell.
Jaheed's eyes widen.
"Kore-?" he blurts out, shaking his head in an attempt to clear his vision. "What the hell happened to-"
"No," Kore says simply, her voice rasping and choked, and she stumbles forward now, blood trailing behind her, and makes it only just barely to the side of Jaheed's bed before collapsing down to one knee, her head bowed and her shoulders heaving with every agonized breath.
Jaheed sees at once the bent, broken angle of her left leg. Hears the rattling wheeze of a punctured lung, though he does not know it. And yet, when her head snaps up and her eyes lock like targeting lasers onto his own, he sees that she is not delirious. She is lucid and fully, utterly present.
"Promise me," Kore says - and her voice is choked with more than just pain. Jaheed blinks, confused.
"Anything," he replies, the words slipping from his mouth before his brain can even come close to catching up.
"Promise me you'll use it for good," Kore shudders, gritting her teeth as she struggles to remain conscious. "Your power. Your influence. Promise me you won't be like him."
"Him?"
"Like your father. Like the Emperor," Kore grits out. "Promise me."
"I..." Jaheed trails off.
"Promise me that," Kore declares, "and I'll protect you for the rest of my life." She shudders again, her body wracked with a wave of fresh agony. "I swear-" this word is ground out with vivid, terrifying force, "-no harm will come to you, and you will reign for a thousand years. Just promise me...promise me that you'll help people, Jaheed."
A long silence passes between them. Then, slowly, the crippled Marquess leans forward, clasping Kore's enormous and trembling hand within his own. Even now, he can feel the corded muscle rippling beneath her skin. Even now, every aspect of her broken being exudes raw power.
"I promise," Jaheed whispers, his words imbued with the totality reminiscent of the Emperor himself. "With you by my side, Kore, we'll fix everything. And I will never, ever let you down - by the void, Kore, I swear it. I swear it as the child of Vell, and as a future Scion of the Emperor, and I swear it as Jaheed."
"If you ever..." Kore slurs, her eyes beginning to roll back. Her hand grows slack. "If you ever go back...on your...I swear I'll kill you. I swear it."
"Well," Jaheed says, after a moment, flashing a thin smile. "I suppose that's only fair, isn't it?"
Kore nods belatedly, then slumps back - finally unconscious. Finally at rest.
And Jaheed thinks, in that moment, that truly his life could not be more perfect.
----------------------------------------
In the darkened room, a hologram flickers - and Jiang Tsen bows his head almost entirely on instinct as the tall, thin, ramrod-straight figure of Lord-Admiral Typhis, second-in-command to the Crimson Emir, flickers to life.
Tsen dares not look up unless explicitly compelled. Yet even still he fills himself growing very, very small before what he knows to be the Lord-Admiral's withering gaze.
"Your name?" comes Typhis' voice at once, and Tsen's brow furrows.
"I'm sorry, Lord-Admiral?" he inquires, confused. He must be very, very careful here. One wrong word is the difference between a full life and an ignoble, nameless death.
"What is your name?" the Emir's second-in-command demands, his voice dripping with barely-concealed agitation. "We are financing three dozen rebellions on two-dozen worlds, void-damnit, so you'll forgive me for not being able to keep all your little names straight."
"Ah," Tsen says. "I am Jiang Tsen, Lord-Admiral, of the group called Heraldry. We-"
"On Callisto, yes - one of the foundry worlds?" Typhis raises an eyebrow. "Stand up straight, damnit - look me in the eyes when you speak to me."
"Yes, Lord-Admiral," Tsen says quickly, raising his head and folding his hands. "I've come with a report. The paradigm has shifted."
"You mean the dissolution of the Vell Dynasty?" Typhis scoffs. "I assure you, Mister Tsen, we have already been well informed."
"No, Lord-Admiral," Tsen says, glancing away. "It's about another matter. Do you recall the woman...?"
"What woman?" Typhis snaps. Then, his brow lifts in recognition, and he looks at Tsen now with newfound interest. "You mean the one with the Wayfarer gene."
Truly, the Great Domain could not have existed without the Wayfarers. They had been an extraterrestrial species, one that - though limited in intelligence - was found possessing an inmate gift to perceive the universe in a way that neither man nor machine could ever conceive of. The Wayfarers saw the cosmos as an interconnected web of pathways, along which - inexplicable to human science - space flowed somehow more freely, cutting travel times down by as much as an incredible seventy-percent.
Naturally, mankind enslaved the Wayfarers and set about the exploration and foundation of the Great Domain, with the Wayfarers acting - against their limited wills - as living navigation units. Now, the Wayfarers were extinct, and the mapping of cosmos was done instead by lab-bred human-Wayfarer Hybrids whose existence remained a closely-guarded secret of Imperial Mercury.
The Crimson Emir lacked even a single Wayfarer-Hybrid to call his own, and thus had tasked no less than ten thousand agents with tracking such an individual down. It was by sheer, inexplicable fortune that Tsen had found one here, on the backwater world of Callisto - a distant, distant relative of an ancient Hybrid.
And now she - Kore - was gone.
"That's correct, Lord-Admiral," Tsen said. He was sweating profusely now.
"Well?" Typhis demanded, his patience running thinner by the minute. It was only now that Tsen noticed heavy bags around the Lord-Admiral's eyes. Clearly, his call was interrupting some manner of long and fruitless night.
"She...turned against us, Lord-Admiral," Tsen said quietly, dropping his head. "And escaped."
The words hung over his head like a bloodstained guillotine.
Silence passed.
"Gone?" Typhis repeated, finally. The word was little more than a hiss of air from between his lips.
"Gone," Tsen repeated slowly. "My men search day and night. Rest assured, Lord-Admiral, we will-"
"Disappointing," Typhis snapped. And then, without any further word, the Lord-Admiral vanished, and the room was cast into all-encompassing darkness once more.
Tsen stood perfectly still for a moment - and then, with a yell, he whirled around and kicked madly at the wall. His fists pounded, and his throat grew hoarse as he swore and shouted and cursed and raged until, finally, all the emotion had drained from his body and he emerged from the room panting, sweat-drenched, little more than a rage-filled husk of a man.
His lieutenants watched warily as he approached.
"What's the move, Tsen?" one of them dared to ask, finally.
"Find her," Tsen snarled, his eyes wild beneath sweat-drenched strands of black hair. "Kill her. Rip the damned gene from her body - or it'll be our heads, not hers."
And with that, the leader of Heraldry - the oft-proclaimed savior of Callisto - stormed off, his coat billowing out behind him like a trailing shadow as all who surrounded him scrambled to obey.