Kore
She was dying.
And she had been for quite some time.
Kore — the tall, proud, indomitable sentinel — was currently little more than a ragged heap, a miserable little pile of skin and bone and ragged breathing. That was the only indication that she was alive at all, really — the pained little rattling sound that issued, periodically, from deep within fractured body. A trio of fat flies buzzed about her head like a living crown, and Kore had long ago been robbed of the energy required to swat them away.
She had resisted him. Tsen. Time and time again, she had told him no. Had denied his offer. Had spat in his eye. Even as he spoke and spoke and his words twisted her mind in a thousand different knots, still she told him no. She didn't even remember why, anymore. But she knew it was important. And so she had been left to languish, left to rot, and rot she had indeed. Everything hurt and nothing was beautiful and the disease was killing her steadily.
Sometimes, she would cry — though it was no heaving, shuddering affair. She would just feel the tears running down the sides of her face and not understand why, exactly, though she would feel saddened all the same. She felt so strongly, at times, as though she were missing something of vital importance. In her waking dreams — which were all but constant and blended with her conscious mind into a single, interminable soup — she would hear a voice whispering in her ear, or see familiar faces dancing before her eyes. She did not comprehend their nature. She no longer cared to.
Kore was so tired. And by the void, all she wanted was to go to sleep and never, ever wake up.
Instead, a cold drop of water hit her square on the bridge of her nose.
Encrusted eyelids cracked open, reluctantly. Bloodshot pupils darted about, seeing little and understanding nothing. Her breathing hitched, grew faster. And then, for reasons beyond her own understanding, Kore moved for the first time in weeks. With a groan of pain she dragged herself forward by one shuddering arm, two of her fingernails snapping clean off as she pulled with all her might against that sweat-slick stone. She pulled and pulled and finally, with terrible effort, she hauled herself into the furthermost corner of the cell, whereupon she promptly collapsed into a dying heap once more.
Why had she just devoted herself to such a herculean feat? Why had she even bothered to do anything at all? The question nagged at her, scratched at the surface of her diseased mind — but it would find no purchase there. Her memories, her consciousness, her entire higher reasoning was buried beneath layers and layers of-
The cell trembled violently, then, as though shaking in the hand of an irascible god, and a shower of dust and rock rained upon her — followed, with a deafening crash, by a dog-sized chunk of asteroid that split from the ceiling and impacted right where she had been laying, splintering into a million pieces and flying about the cell.
Kore stared at the spot with narrow, reddened eyes, and there now was a distant scrap of understanding — understanding that if she had been anywhere other than that particular corner, death would have been all but certain. But how had she known? Someone had to have told her, surely. But who? There was nobody to...
And then so much came flooding back, all at once — just as the door squealed open and heavy footfalls approached.
Jiang Tsen was standing just outside her cell. Kore didn't even have to look — and she could barely see, at any rate. Nevertheless she could feel the presence of the man who had been her own personal god, her very own satan in the desert. The deceiver. The enemy, who was also her only friend, because he was the only person that existed. The man who cared for her, despite it all, and was only doing this because she was forcing his hand.
"Kore," his voice came. She couldn't see the look on his face. "We're leaving."
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They shuffled down the halls just like that — with Kore braced heavily against Tsen's shoulder. Larger than him though she was, she now weighed next to nothing, and so what followed was a sort of broken, sloping gait as the two made for the mythical point of egress of which Tsen so confidently spoke.
And, of course, he was constantly speaking, because that was just what Tsen did. Speaking was like breathing to that man. His words were one long and uninterrupted stream, raging and bubbling and frothing as it flowed freely in the space between Kore's ears. And she did listen, albeit quite deliriously, and even now her sympathies were twisting and warping to the tune of his particular beat.
"It breaks my heart to see you this way," Tsen told her. He paused. "Seriously. I understand you might not believe me."
"Nom I...b'lieve you..." Kore slurred, the words coming out as little more than a pained whisper.
"I wish I could say oh Kore, why do you insist on turning me away?" Tsen went on. "But I know full well the answer. You're right to spurn me, Kore. You're acting in perfect accordance with the way Jaheed has been conditioning you. You are a loyal servant, above all else. Steadfast. Implacable. And these are traits to be proud of, y'know." They rounded the corner as another titanic rumble shook the asteroid and more chunks of rock rained from above. The lights flickered ominously. "But you're also terribly misguided."
They reached a heavyset iron door. Tsen keyed in a quick series of numbers, and then they were rushing inside. "You're a good person, Kore. You are smart enough and good enough that I know one day you'll come to see things my way. We just..."
He skidded to an abrupt halt.
"...don't have any more time," he finished, with the briefest hitch in his words.
With dim eyes, Kore could barely make them out — a dozen black-and-jade figures at the far end of the tunnel, half kneeling and half standing. Rifles leveled, every single one of them. At him. At her. From one of those faceless helmets, there issued a harsh and distorted command: "Halt!"
"Halting," Tsen answered calmly, turning to face them with Kore in tow.
"Jiang Tsen!" the Liquidator barked, like an accusation.
"The very same," Tsen agreed. Kore could practically hear the sly, knowing smile in his voice. "And I'm sure, then, that you know who exactly who this is." Kore felt something familiar, then — a small, cold metal circle pressing in against the side of her skull. It was the barrel of a gun. It was the barrel of Tsen's gun.
She saw the figures freeze in place, and then one of them was tilting his head ever-so-slightly — which she knew, for some reason, meant he was subvocalizing into an internal microphone. She didn't know how she knew that or why it mattered, only that she did. There was an entire well of knowledge inside her, after all, one simply concealed behind an enormous wall of thought-eating fog.
"Imagine, now, an invisible line right at your feet," Tsen told the Liquidators. He was walking backwards now, with Kore in tow. "Cross that line, puppets of the false Emperor, and I'm certain you know what will happen next."
"Not another step," the lead Liquidator warned him, albeit with clear hesitation in his voice.
"You that confident in your aim?" Tsen scoffed. "Go on then, take your shot." He pulled Kore close. "Go ahead and ruin everything. We'll see how Jaheed Vell feels about that."
Jaheed was...here? Kore blinked, confused and suddenly hopeful. He had come back for her? That didn't make any sense. Tsen was the only human being left alive in all the universe. Or, wait...no, hang on, there were these black-and-green figures, too. So...hold on...
There was no time for further rumination. The two of them stepped through the doorway; the doors slammed shut and then they were shuffling double-time towards what Tsen kept insisting was a shuttle that could and would escape this trap undetected.
"The Emperor's hand reaches far indeed," Tsen told her, after a few limping minutes had passed. "Even to a place like this. I don't know whether to be impressed or revulsed." Kore felt his head tilt, felt him shooting her a pointed glare. "This is what you've helped bring about, you know. The ultimate inter-universal security state. A 'Great' Domain wherein free will no longer exists, where every morning every man, woman, and child wakes up with his hand wrapped tight around their necks..." And then, suddenly, he was emotional. His voice broke. "It's suffocating, isn't it?" he implored her, with a startling hint of desperation.
Kore just nodded mutely.
"This is a real reason I do what I do, you understand me?" Tsen went on. "Fuck the Crimson Emir. He's only ever been a means to an end. Only ever been just a springboard from which I might finally, truly, actually be free. It's going to happen, Kore. I promise you, one day I will wake up and I will no longer feel those cold fingers around my throat. I will stand above and bestride it all. I have..." He trailed off. "I have to. And I'd like you to stand there with me, Kore. I...I need you to be there, beside me."
"Mrrugh," was the closest thing to a word that Kore could muster in response.
"Come on," was all Tsen had to say, then. His voice hardened with resolve. "We're almost there."
And then, at the other end of the hall, the door creaked open.
Tsen froze. His blood ran cold, and Kore knew because she felt the goosebumps run straight up the side of his arm. She looked up, of course, and saw there in the flickering light a darkened figure — and for some reason, one she couldn't quite parse, she wasn't scared. Not even remotely. A sense of...of peace, and calm, and a certain tranquility washed over her, in that moment. She was certain, for reason that escaped her, that everything was going to be alright.
The figure's eyes flashed silver — and at once, Kore understood perfectly. "Sekhmet?!" she blurted out, the loudest she had spoken in weeks, only to immediately fall into a coughing fit. Because there she stood, Kore's guardian angel — disheveled, filthy, and covered in a smattering of teal blood. Sekhmet looked as though she had just survived an avalanche. Sekhmet was also alive, and most definitely in one piece, which put her in far better shape than when Kore had seen her last.
Yet her girlfriend — her beautiful, perfect girlfriend whom she loved so dearly — wasn't even looking at her. Why wasn't Sekhmet looking at her? The rogue Se-dai had eyes only for Tsen, Kore saw, and she was glaring at him now with eyes like supernovas and a countenance that spoke of torment beyond belief. Her entire face was twisted with hate, her body a live-wire that seemed ready to spark at a moment's notice.
Then, Kore was on the floor, having simply been discarded in favor of more important matters as, with impossible calm, Tsen simply raised the barrel of his pistol and smiled.
"Sekhmet," he greeted her, quite casually, as though she were but a familiar face at a tram station.
"Jiang Tsen." Sekhmet's voice, by contrast, was tight and clipped and brimming with potential violence. Kore saw even clearer, now, that the itinerant Se-dai was in rough shape; she was covered in filth and bore a cut across her midsection that would have disemboweled an ordinary human. Both her arms, too, were now fully exposed, and so Kore could see full well the skinless carapace beneath.
"You're supposed to be dead," Tsen told her, which was partly an accusation and partly a bemused remark. His hand remained steady, despite it all. "Though, judging by your current state, I assume Wren attempted to rectify that?"
"He attempted," was Sekhmet's only response, one that thoroughly underscored the volume of injuries inflicted upon her. Kore understood at once that it had been a hard battle and understood, too, that Sekhmet was in far worse shape than she let on. There were dozens of tiny tell-tale signs — the way she stood, the way she favored her left leg, the way her shoulders rose and fell with every augmented breath. The twin trails of steam, curling in lazy spirals from each of her nostrils.
"I never much liked him," Tsen admitted, his free hand drifting slow and surreptitious into his pocket. Kore saw and said nothing. "He was overbearing, obnoxious, and categorically disrespectful. I thank you, then, for doing me that particular favor."
"You need to step away from her," Sekhmet growled, cutting the Heraldry leader abruptly short. Yet still she did not move a muscle, even as she so confidently issued that threat. "Kore?" Though her tone turned on a dime, her eyes remained locked onto Tsen and Tsen alone. "Baby, are you okay? Can you hear me?"
"I'm...fine..." Kore, who was not fine, coughed. She waved a limp hand. "Everyone just...calm down..." She had to stop this, had to stop these two from killing one another. Because Tsen was a bastard, yes, but he wasn't a bad person. He was her friend! He had only killed Sekhmet because she had left him no choice — and besides, here she was anyway! And the things he had said about Jaheed, about the Emperor...they spoke to a part of Kore that had been sleeping for a long, long time. She had indeed felt that cold hand around her throat, day after day, and finally she was no longer willing to ignore it. If everyone could just relax for a moment and talk-
"She's not going anywhere with you," Tsen said, and there issued forth a series of high-pitched chirps as he set his pistol to maximum charge. "I suggest that you step aside."
"You murdered me," Sekhmet accused in reply, her hands curling slow and tight into fists. Her head tilted down; her gaze darkened and her eyes burned beneath her brow. "You tortured Kore. And if you kill her now, I promise it will be months before I allow you to die. There so many ways to cut a man, Tsen. There are levels of pain far beyond your understanding."
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Kore was helpless. Her body refused to obey even a single command. All she could do was watch with mounting, muted dread, as the only two people in the entire world prepared to kill one another.
"The gun's pointed at you, not her," Tsen countered. "That's a C76 Tokamak Disruptor at full charge, by the way. More than enough power to melt clean through that armored carapace of yours. I've got twenty-four shots—think you can dodge them all?"
"You'll only have time for three at most."
"You have to evade three shots, then, in a narrow and close-quarters arena. Easier to hit than to miss, isn't it? And more to the point, Sekhmet, I must say you look quite terribly exhausted. Tell me—Se-dai aren't supposed to get tired, are they?"
"Just blink, Tsen, and I'll take that gun away from you."
"Will you?" Tsen laughed, free hand emerging from his pocket all the while. "I suppose we'll just have to see about that."
And then quite a few things happened in rapid succession. Sekhmet's eyes flashed, and she took a single step forwards — only to drop immediately down to one knee, her shallow breathing turning to pained gasps as she retched, spitting up some manner of translucent slurry. Her entire body was shuddering with pain and exhaustion, all in violent manner the likes of which Kore had never seen. Not from a human, and certainly not from a Se-dai. Something was seriously wrong.
At the same moment, then, Kore caught a glimpse of something in the palm of Tsen's hand — a small, black, featureless little bolt. And now the Heraldry leader was advancing on Sekhmet like a stalking predator, his gait lithe and his eyes narrowed to slits. A smile was curling at the edge of his lips.
When you see the bolt in his hand, you have to do something about it.
Clarity split the stormy skies of Kore's mind like a blinding flash of lightning, and suddenly — in that instant — the Chief of Security was gifted with total understanding. Everything made sense, and she knew exactly what she had to do, because that was a Scrambler Bolt in Tsen's hand, and because he was going to kill Sekhmet again if Kore did not intervene.
Kore's body was a withered ruin, one that was all but entirely unresponsive to her commands. It was more prison than tool; more dead weight than any sort of physical actor. Yet all this was irrelevant, in the grand scheme of things, because Sekhmet was in trouble. Sekhmet was in trouble and Kore had to do something; this was a simple and absolute statement of fact, a governing law of physics by which all the universe was forced to abide. Grass was green. The sky was blue. Kore had to do something, or her girlfriend would die.
And so, with a roar of exertion and a wracking shudder of pain, Kore somehow forced herself to her feet and simply flung herself forwards. She had been heavy, once, possessing of a powerful and well-muscled body. Now she was but near-weightless skin and bone, and yet still she caught Tsen off guard as she slammed with all her failing strength straight into the small of his back. Surprised and confused, he stumbled back, and then he and Kore were pressed tight against an ice-cold wall of sheer rock. She heard his pistol discharge; felt a white-hot stab of pain race down her thigh — but Kore's entire job description was getting shot, and she was hardly about to buckle now.
"Get the fuck off-" Tsen was sputtering, and for a moment the two were grappling evenly — and then his boot connected with her shin, and the butt of his pistol slammed against her jaw, and then Kore was falling. Just as she hit the ground, though, she heard the Scrambler Bolt clatter down beside her, the sound a deafening beacon in a world of fog and pain. And so, with one last full-throated bellow of determined agony, she rolled onto her side, raised her fist high, and slammed it down with every ounce of strength she could possibly muster.
The bolt crunched, sparked, and shattered into three distinct pieces. And then there was a boot-heel pressing hard against her chest, and Kore found herself staring up at the barrel of a gun — and staring, more importantly, up at a face livid with unrestrained fury.
"You ungrateful bitch," Tsen spat, his hair hanging in tattered strands about his sweat-streaked face. His calm had finally shattered; now his countenance was all but alight with vivid malice. "After everything I did for you-" And then, behind him, there was a shadow, and he turned just in time to catch a glimpse of silver eyes before Sekhmet's fist slammed straight into — and through — his stomach.
"Je t'avais prévenu," Sekhmet hissed, pulling him close. "J'espère que ça fait mal. For a split second, the two of them just locked eyes, and then without further ado the Se-dai jerked her arm free and shoved the other man back. Tsen stumbled, upright for just a moment, then simply collapsed back into the corner, coughing and sputtering blood all the while. Sekhmet stood there like a looming mountain, pitiless and implacable, glaring down at the dying Heraldry leader with not a trace of satisfaction — and then, from behind, there came a strained whisper.
"Help me up."
And so, with delicate care, Sekhmet did just that, hoisting Kore upright with a careful touch and an expression of heartbroken concern painted across her face — for Kore was far, far too light, even for a being of Sekhmet's prodigious strength. Still, the Chief of Security hobbled forward, her eyes on one thing and one thing only, and so Sekhmet trailed carefully behind, ready to catch or support the other woman at a moment's notice.
With great effort, Kore bent down, and with even greater effort she rose back up, this time with pistol in hand. She looked down at Tsen; he looked up at her, in turn. A fountain of blood ran down from his mouth, painting a crimson stripe from his chin to his collarbone. His shirt was but a mass of dark red, a single oozing sore the product of which was currently pooling around him. His skin had gone pale, his hands were trembling, and yet still he was looking at her with clear and focused eyes. He was not yet dying, somehow. He could still be saved.
Kore raised the pistol.
"Wait-" Tsen gurgled, holding up his hands. "Wait. Kore. Please."
Kore waited.
The fog of delirium had been wiped away.
Her mind was clear.
She thought, again, of that hand around her throat.
Thought about what Tsen had told her, about the Emperor.
Thought about what Tsen had told her, about Jaheed. Her liege, her adopted brother, and the man who was slowly but surely betraying her — inch by bloody inch.
By pulling the trigger, she understood, she would be consigning herself to an immutable fate.
"There's still time," Tsen choked out, amidst a bubble of dark blood. His voice was warped and weak. "For both of you. You don't have to serve the Emperor. You don't have to be part of the...part of the machine. I can help you, Kore. I can help you both. And together...together, we can be free." He coughed, hacked up a chunk of scarlet phlegm, and his bloodshot eyes narrowed to slits. "But If you go back to Jaheed, you'll never-"
Kore shot him three times. The leader of Heraldry seized, went tense — began to rise, for just a moment, his eyes burning with boundless hate — and then he slumped back down, the hunch of his shoulders reclining and his expression finally going slack.
Kore's hand was trembling.
The feeling, in the moment after, was a paradoxical one — certainty that she had done the right thing, intermingled with equal certainty that she had just made a terrible mistake.
And then Kore's body, having been pushed impossibly far beyond its limits, finally gave out, and Sekhmet was there at once to catch her and cradle her as she fell. The floodgates broke and the Se-dai was babbling, then, kissing her and telling her over and over again that she was sorry, she was so sorry, that it was all her fault and that if she had just been faster or stronger or fiercer or better-
"I missed you," was all Kore said, her voice but a whisper, and despite it all Sekhmet broke into a shaky grin and kissed her again.
"Tu m'as manqué plus que tout," Sekhmet whispered back, holding her close. "Plus que les étoiles, plus que le ciel." And then, after a few of the happiest and most peaceful moments of Kore's life had passed, Sekhmet declared: "We have to go."
"You're hurt," Kore protested, as Sekhmet hoisted her like a baby over one shoulder. The Se-dai was visibly unsteady, and already Kore could feel her chest rising and falling. "There are too many of them-"
"We've got friends," Sekhmet interrupted. "You don't understand, Kore. One way or another, this whole base is gonna go. Jaheed pulled out every stop for this."
"Jaheed...?" Kore muttered, and there was a sudden stab of vague, formless guilt.
"You just sit there and look pretty," Sekhmet ordered, reaching over to rub Kore's back. Her voice had changed; Kore heard now the hard, iron resolve upon which the Se-dai could so readily call. "I'm gonna get you out of here, Kore, and we're gonna go to Mercury, and then they're gonna fix you up in no time. Count on it. You hear me, you bitch? Count on it."
And no sooner had the words left Sekhmet's mouth than the door behind them blew open on its hinges, flying across the room and impacting against the far wall with a thunderous clang. A dozen black-armored figures flooded the room, their footsteps heavy and their disruptor-rifles humming in perfect tune. "Don't shoot, damnit!" Sekhmet snapped, sounding more irritated than frightened — and then, in perfect unison, every gun-barrel was pointed straight down, and from the mass of onyx and jade there emerged a lean-bodied trooper whose shoulder pauldrons sported a pair of additional stripes.
"Miss Sekhmet," issued a distorted voice, from helmet-mounted speakers. "Miss Kore. I'm Second Captain Damon Kel-Trekk of the Forty-Third Liquidator Company, Twelfth Division. Do either of you require medical assistance?"
"I'm fine," Sekhmet grunted. "And what Kore needs is to get the fuck outta this place, now."
"Copy that," the captain replied at once, and every Liquidator pivoted in unison as Kel-Trekk put a finger to his ear. "Target one acquired and in custody," he reported. "Target two-" he glanced back; one of his fellows, crouched beside Tsen's corpse, gave a thumbs-up, "-confirmed deceased. Retrieval of corpse a priority?" He paused, waiting for a response. "Copy that. Making for evac now; all squads converge on my beacon."
"Are we going or what?" Sekhmet demanded, impatient — and, Kore suspected, unwilling to admit just how badly she needed their help.
"We're going," the Second Captain confirmed. He gave a silent, two-fingered command — and then Kore and Sekhmet were ushered forth amidst a solid diamond of onyx armor, the latter carrying the former with not a word of complaint.
Much of what happened, then, was experienced by Kore in dull flashes — like strange, waking dreams. As she faded in and out of consciousness, she heard disruptor-rifles wailing and men screaming, and she smelled both acrid smoke and burning flesh as the Liquidators tore through the base, gunning down any Heraldry soldiers who dared impede them with perfect mechanical efficiency. At one point, there came a close-quarters ambush from both sides — howling, desperate Heraldry soldiers with axes and machetes — but the Liquidators' knives came out in turn, and just a minute later the attackers were dead and the Emperor's chosen were wiping their blades clean in the crooks of their arms.
Kore fell fully unconscious, then, and when next she came to she was sitting in the all-too familiar bed of the Gorger's infirmary — a place she had spent far too much time confined to, in the course of of the last four years — with a battered Sekhmet looking down upon her with a face that made Kore very, very worried. There was a distant, muffled bang, and the entire ship shuddered as Sekhmet forced an unsteady smile.
"We're gonna put you under for a while," the Se-dai whispered gently, running a hand through Kore's hair. The Chief of Security couldn't feel her touch. "You're in real bad shape, and we need to take you to the very best doctors there are. You're gonna go to sleep now, okay? You're just gonna go to sleep." Her smile faltered, for a moment. "You'd better dream about me, Kore. You know I'll be waiting for you."
"I don't-I don't understand-" Kore slurred, because she didn't, not at all. She was suddenly very confused and very scared and her heart was racing and above all else she did not want to go to sleep. If she went to sleep then Sekhmet would not be there and if she awoke and Sekhmet was gone-
"Do it," came another voice. Stern, commanding. Male. Familiar. Kore turned her head — saw Jaheed's face, saw those sunken blue eyes — and then there was a sharp pain at the nape of her neck, and the darkness came roaring up to meet her.
And so, Kore slept. And she did not dream.
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Jaheed
"We fucking did it!" Jaheed roared — and then the crew of the Cloud Gorger erupted into cheers, and an exhausted Sekhmet simply slumped into the nearest chair as Jaheed, Tarsus, and Diesch all embraced.
It was finally over. After weeks of constant, obsessive effort, finally Kore and Sekhmet were back. Finally, the crew of the Gorger were whole. Finally, all was right with the world once more. The Liquidators had bade them farewell, and thus the Gorger had slipped with great urgency into voidspace, whereupon there was now little more to do than simply wait for Holy Mercury. Priceless bottles of liquor were uncorked; music flooded from hidden speakers as the four of them danced and celebrated. Four weeks of constant tension had finally given way to this, an hour of pure exuberance and exultation.
Sometime later, after the party had come to close and most were sound asleep, Jaheed found himself pacing the halls of the Gorger like a ghost, like a restless phantom still bound to the material world by some unfinished business. His mind was alight; sleep was all but an impossibility. He wanted, in that moment, to see her, and so he made at once for the infirmary — only to stop short when he saw Sekhmet, arms folded, leaning back against the door like a sentient brick wall.
At the sound of his footstep, her eyes flicked to him — flashed, briefly — and then her expression softened, though her form remained entirely implacable. "Hey," she said, simply, in an uncharacteristically weary and quiet voice.
"Hey," Jaheed returned. It was clear, then, that not a soul would be granted entry to the infirmary. To guard, to protect, to covet — these things were baked into the essence of Sekhmet's very soul, and she clung now to her charge with a grip that could not be loosened. Jaheed saw that she, too, was restless, though she was also tired beyond all belief.
"You did it," Sekhmet remarked, apropos of nothing, as Jaheed took up position on the opposite wall. He arched an eyebrow, at that. "You brought her back."
"You brought her back," Jaheed dismissed, waving a hand. "All I did-"
"Was everything I could not," Sekhmet interjected. "I failed her, Jaheed. You did not."
A long silence passed between them.
"Thank you," Sekhmet told him, finally, in a voice that was barely even a whisper.
"You're welcome," came Jaheed's quiet reply. And then: "Goodnight, Sekhmet."
"Goodnight, Jaheed."
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Ammit
Days earlier, and light-years away, Ammit awoke.
She did so in the violent manner instinctive to all Se-dai, leaping to her feet with eyes blazing — only to see the faces of Ket Sal and Maít, her beloved benefactors, upon which her mind immediately filled in the gaps and understanding was made clear. She had just awoken from surgery, she remembered, having submitted herself to act as a living model for Professor Raiqas. She took stock of her own self; found that her body was largely undamaged and undiminished. The itinerant Professor had done an admirable job stitching her back up, all things considered, and though she could feel the imbalanced weight of her now-missing sections of carapace she felt, nevertheless, as though she were at all but full capacity.
"Ammit," Maít greeted her warmly, which made the Se-dai quite happy. "How do you feel?"
"I feel just fine, Lady Maít," Ammit answered gracefully. Her silver eyes darted about the room, then settled upon the birdlike face of Cervas Raiqas, who was watching from the corner with folded arms and a smug expression. With that face, then, came another memory. An imperative. A promise made, soon to be fulfilled.
Ammit glanced back at Ket Sal; the Scion answered her unspoken question with a slow, steady nod.
"A deal's a deal, Ammit," Ket Sal told her. "Do as you wish."
For all his obdurate lack of social graces, Raiqas was still able to detect the change in atmosphere at once. His hackles rose; his shoulders tensed and his eyes went wide. He opened his mouth to protest, to beg, to demand. Yet Ammit was a blur, slow for a Se-dai and blindingly fast for a human. One moment she was standing at the foot of the bed. The next, she had her hand around Raiqas' skull, and with little fanfare she simply crushed his head against the nearest wall.
Knowledge of the Fleshweavers' vile work would die with Raiqas; that was the promise Ket Sal had made, in exchange for Ammit's cooperation. It was her duty as one of The New Blood to silence his voice forever, and so — for the sake of her sisters — Ammit had done just that. Now, Ket Sal was lighting a cigarette and Maít was wiping a splash of blood from her cheek as Ammit rolled her shoulders, casting the headless Professor the briefest of glances before turning to her charges once more.
She was grateful, if nothing else, for their understanding.
"I snuck out and found the boiler room, last night," Ket Sal offered, hiking a thumb over his shoulder. "Charges are already planted. You wanna get outta here?"
And so, minutes later, the three of them were standing at the edge of the landing pad and watching, amidst the bitter wind, as the manor burned.
"Must you always make such a mess?" Maít complained, for her dress was thoroughly stained with brain matter.
"My apologies, Lady Maít," Ammit said, bowing her head, and she did feel genuinely quite bad. It was a rather nice dress, all things considered, and the execution had indeed been somewhat messy.
"Don't sweat it," Ket Sal told her, with a reassuring pat on the shoulder. And then, apropos of nothing: "Let's go home, shall we? I tire of all this..." He trailed off, and merely gestured at the blazing pyre before them.
And so, without further ado, the three of them boarded their shuttle and did just that.