The temple was very quiet. It had been so to begin with, but with what had then gone down, over what Ayna realised were only a few seconds, the silence had a different feel to it.

She did her best to walk across the floor carefully, as was her instinct, but her upbringing hadn’t included sneaking across ankle-deep water. Faint splashes did echo through the air as she approached the carnage Saketa had left behind her.

Ayna stopped by the body of the axeman.

It wasn’t the gruesome injuries that disturbed her. It was the smell of burnt flesh. Saketa hadn’t caused that one, after all.

Ayna reached down and nudged the head to the side, getting a proper look at the face. Like the others, he’d been quite young. Just an adolescent.

She kept on walking, going most of the way through the ruins until she reached some sort of deck area. Another long-broken fountain was there, dribbling out a small stream that had dug itself a bed into the rock as it headed out of the ruins and downhill. Saketa sat crosslegged next to it on the very edge of the grounds, framed against the surrounding countryside. All of the woman’s clothes were neatly stacked next to her and she was slowly washing herself with a cloth.

Ayna cleared her throat.

“Can I approach?”

“We are both women,” Saketa replied without turning around to look at her.

“Well, some cultures are weird about even that,” Ayna said and walked over. Saketa wet the cloth in the little stream, dried it a bit with a slow squeeze, then lazily ran it down from her left shoulder and all the way to the fingertips. Then she wet the cloth again and repeated the process with her right arm.

“This all looks... formal,” Ayna commented as she knelt down next to her.

Saketa did a slow inhalation followed by a slow exhale, then she did turn to look at Ayna.

“It is a ritual purification. My people... we are encouraged to do so after combat. Violence is corrosive to the spirit.”

“Yeah.”

Feeling awkward, Ayna scratched her head before continuing.

“Do you mind telling me what all that was about?”

“What do you think?”

The woman started doing her arms again. Ayna shrugged.

“So they committed those weird murders?”

“They were lost, angry youths,” Saketa said. “Without hope or purpose. There are people who will readily take advantage of such creatures. A wanderer stopped by here; you may have heard of it during your stay. This person took them in, taught them tricks and gave them a holy place to obsess over and defend. I suppose those first four victims trespassed.”

“And is this why they killed that labourer, Kenn?”

“I suppose it must be. They decided their stewardship extended to the ruins being uncovered. Or at least that is how they framed it to themselves. It is probably more accurate to say that they found another target for their anger at the universe.”

“Do you have a lot of experience with this kind of thing?”

“My people do.”

“And Bers’s people as well?”

Saketa began cleaning her torso with those slow strokes.

“His people and mine do not fully agree. But we have a long history, and an understanding, and they do possess a wisdom of their own. I asked him to take over in this matter if I should fail and fall.”

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“Seems risky,” Ayna said. “Why not just ask him to come along?”

Saketa’s gaze went distant and haunted.

“I am poor at asking for help,” she stated simply. She was briefly silent before turning her attention back to Ayna.

“You are upset.”

Ayna looked away and inhaled.

“Death is simply a fact of life back home,” she then said. “But people killing people is much rarer. Since leaving, I have had to defend myself a couple of times. But I’ve never killed anyone.”

“The one with the axe,” Saketa said. “You did not kill him. I did. There-”

The woman seemed to catch herself and Ayna couldn’t tell if the look on her face was surprise or disgust.

“No,” Saketa then said. “No, no, no. That is a dangerous road to go down. We must own our deeds. You did fire with the intent to kill, even if for the right reasons. It is not a thing to be dismissed. And it is to your credit that you are not unaffected. Taking human life is a big threshold, not to be done without certainty or necessity.”

“Is that why the... blood?” Ayna asked, and indicated the left side of Saketa’s face, although the woman had already cleaned off the gore she’d smeared on herself.

“Yes. It... it... we have words for it in our tongue. It is a touch of reality, a physical marker of violence, an acknowledgement... no,” the woman shook her head, “I do not think I can explain it properly.”

“You... did look very ready to execute that woman on Uktena Station,” Ayna countered carefully. She was rather surprised at the strength of Saketa’s reaction. It looked like a flash of anger followed by shame. The woman bowed her head with a haunted look.

“I shouldn’t have been like that,” she admitted. “Nor should I have had so much trouble with such unremarkable foes. And I should have found them much sooner, before another death. But I am much diminished.”

“I am sorry,” Ayna said. She didn’t understand any of this, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

“Thank you,” Saketa replied.

“Still... diminished? You jumped like five metres. How were they... you... so fast and strong? And what was that light? Two of their victims... the bodies were so weird. You were tracking that wanderer, weren’t you? That’s why you went to Uktena and then here. What is... what is going on?”

She came to a stop and the woman watched her impassively for some breaths.

“You have proven that you possess quite the curiosity,” Saketa then said. “I can’t be sure if I’ll inflame it more by giving tantalising hints or just being quiet. But I will err on the side of being quiet. My conscience is more at ease with that, since discouraging you clearly doesn’t work.”

Ayna stared at her and tried to keep from pouting.

“That’s not fair,” she sighed.

“Well, I disagree,” the woman stated simply.

“Clearly you do.”

With information cut off, Ayna’s mind went back to mulling over what had happened. She turned around and took the ruins in from a new angle. She honestly felt a bit lost, and turned back to Saketa with an awkward smile.

“I don’t suppose you have another rag?” she asked, dressing it up as a joke.

Saketa reached into her pile of clothes and took the shawl. With a bunching of those wire-like muscles she tore a piece out of it.

“You... you don’t need to wreck your clothes for my sake,” Ayna said as Saketa handed it over.

“It is a mistake to get too attached to material things,” the woman replied as she pushed the rag into Ayna’s hand. She then went back to her own cleansing. Ayna stood still for a few breaths, then she undressed and sat down on the other side of the stream. The night air was just chilly enough against her bare skin to be refreshing rather than biting.

“Think on what you have done,” Saketa told her. “How you have affected the galaxy. What troubles you, and what you might have done differently. Acknowledge your faults rather than deny them. Wash away their stains but leave the lessons.”

Ayna dipped her rag into the water and slowly pressed it against the top of her head. She had to suppress a gasp at the coldness, but the second time was easier. She had never been one for much in the way of introspection but she did her best to do as Saketa advised.

As spiritual metaphors went, this one was very simple and accessible. Maybe it was the quiet, maybe it was the babbling of the water, maybe it was the introspection or just a bit of company, but she did feel a bit more at ease as time went by. Just one slow stroke after another.

They’d been murderers. Saketa had given them a chance to stand down, and instead they’d attacked. Ayna hadn’t acted out of some desire to punish or pass judgement. She’d acted because it had seemed that Saketa might not survive.

Ayna’s spirit seemed to gradually come to agree with the woman; what had happened shouldn’t be dismissed, but she shouldn’t torment herself over it either. And perhaps with a bit of time that agreement would sink deeper into her being.

By the time she stopped she realised Saketa had stopped as well.

“Are you finished?” the woman asked.

“Yes.”

Ayna inhaled deeply.

“I do feel a bit better.

Saketa nodded, then stood up and started dressing.

“Did you come here in a vehicle, by any chance?” she asked.