She looked between Ryk and Eth, suddenly realizing what was going on and hugging him to her. He stood in her embrace, unresponsive and unmoving. "No. No! There has to be some other way."

"There isn't," Ryk said. She could feel him shaking as his arms rested on her shoulders. "This is the way we've found."

"So we'll find another one," she said, shaking her head. "You can only see the future from your perspective, right? So maybe we just veer off so far from what we've normally... do now that we find another way."

He shook his head sadly. "No. Eth and G... the other Imminent, they've seen where this goes after. This must always have been the path or we wouldn't have done it this way for so long."

She wanted to shake him then march over and slap some sense into Eth for good measure. Instead, she clutched his hands on her shoulders. "I don't believe in this fatalistic crap. The future isn't locked in place. We can make different choices, get different outcomes."

"Thousands of Imminent over thousands of years have made uncounted choices as hard as this one to steer us all here." He stepped back, released her shoulders, and tried to pull her arms free, but she clung to him. As he looked into her eyes, visibly steeling himself, she wondered how much of what he said was to convince her and how much was to convince herself. "If we choose differently, then all that they've done, all that they have sacrificed is for nothing."

"They made their choices. They're just dust now, but we're still alive!" She pressed one of his hands to her heart. "Feel that? That's us still being able to choose. Something worth choosing for."

His expression wavered a moment, lip trembling, eyes meeting hers, a hint of hope lighting his features. Then he took a short, sharp breath, pressed his eyes closed, and slowly pulled his hands away from her. As he tried to walk backwards away from her, she followed, but then Eth was there shoving between them. It was all Aida could do to not grab the girl and pitch her off the Terrtle skull.

"He has to do this and you're not making it any easier." Though her words came across flat with only and hint of her usual bite, the fury in Eth's eyes and the tension locking her whole body made her wonder if the girl was restraining similar impulses. Aliasara stepped up beside Aida protectively, but Aida waved her away.

"What if he doesn't? What if we do something different?" Aida looked over the top of the teenager's head to where Ryk collected his spear, tightened his sandal straps, and checked his armor. Parathas had showed up sometime while Aida had been talking to him and now chatted quietly with the Paragon. The skinscribe saw her looking their way, glanced back to where his wife stood watching warily as his sons clambered about on the nets. When he looked back, he wore a beatific, grateful smile.

Another time the look might have warmed her heart, but it was busy breaking.

"How did he find them in all that anyway?" Aida said, half to herself.

"I told him where to find them. Told him all the way back before you asked me a bunch of pointless questions on the top of the shell." Eth pointed up to the shell's apex where a cluster of Munes stood taking in the vista.

Aida nodded, but then clenched her jaw and glared at Eth. "You mean that conversation with Parathas after, you set that up?"

"Of course. Same way I sent Strygen after Semon. Same way I just sent Hanyon and Arsten there to hide out until the Rega's ziggurat is done and make sure they survive to tell the tale and close the loop." Eth closed her bloodshot eyes and rubbed them. "Planting seeds. Tending the garden of fate."

"So you've manipulated everything and everyone just so we could get here and Ryk could die?" Aida half-shouted, yanking the girl's hand away from her face.

Eth yanked her hand away and glared back. "Yes. From the moment I was old enough to talk and walk. While you were off playing and being a kid, I was sending people to their deaths, steering Dynasts, and telling uncountable lies and half-truths so I can march off to that jungle and watch the man I lo... the man you love die for us."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"How do you know we can't..." Aida began to speak in anger, but as Eth's words sank in, so many things made sense. "Wait... you love him?"

"No. Slip of the tongue. I always have done that though, so maybe I had to say it to be sure it all follows the path," Eth said, slumping and staring off anywhere but at Ryk. Aida had been so caught up in herself, she hadn't even noticed the exhaustion literally shaking the little Imminent. "Imminent don't have time for love."

"That explains why you've hated me from day one," Aida said, glancing between Eth and Ryk with newfound understanding and compassion. "My god, how did you do that? Sending him off to me when..."

She expected anger, but instead Eth continued to stare away, her voice tired as she listed off a litany of actions. She spoke as if at a confessional, relating long-hidden sins. "Same way I made sure that you'd have companions who would survive the plague, that they were all in place for your arrival. Same way we steered the Dynasts towards this war that's killing millions just to keep them distracted with each other so they didn't just crush you as soon as you showed up."

"Same way I set up Fallon for the rebellious fling with the man who would fall in love with him, who Ryk would maim, and who would turn into Cleft Hand, ensuring that Fallon's disgrace so he would be the one to fetch you and guide until you could stand on your own." Eth stared off towards Ryk's training ground then, dread written on her face. "Just so he could betray you then I could lie to him and send him to his death killing that Inviolate on Heaven's Tread. Same way I directed Wretches to rescue a young woman in a green dress after a god nearly killed so she could die as your Martyred Prophet to be sure the Mother's Martyrs came to be. Same way Imminent have done since the first and last of us died to birth us."

While she'd though she understood the scope, scale, and depth of what the Imminent did before, Aida stood stunned at the weight of what the young woman was carrying inside. Eth stared past Aida to where Ghillie stood nearby with her ever-present vigilance.

Aida glanced at Ryk, who likewise stared off towards his training grounds and, apparently, his doom. A chuckle surprised her as another realization hit. "His training ground. All this time I thought he was just practicing for whatever, but he was training for the exact battle he'd be facing in the exact spot he'd be facing it."

"All setup in advance," Eth said bitterly.

"Then why not get reinforcements there? What about Ghillie or, or we could go get some Keens from the Syphon first to help!"

Eth shook her head slowly. "More variables. I've said this before, but maybe you get it this time. We walk a narrow path. A terrible, twisting, murderous path towards the one way out of this mess we didn't create but that fell onto us to fix. Towards the horrors paving the path to salvation. Maybe a better path with ten times less suffering and death lies just beyond our sight and if we just dared to take a few steps away from our chosen route we'd find it. Or maybe we'd stray too far and lose all hope of finding this meager thread of hope ever again."

Maybe she'd been too stubborn to hear it before. Maybe she'd refused to believe in fate, destiny, predestination, or whatever it was the Imminent did. Maybe she had been too busy warring with herself to accept it. But something shifted in her now. A sense of accepting the inevitable that she'd fought against her whole life settled on her. No matter how much she wanted to change things, some things couldn't or even shouldn't be changed.

"I understand," she murmured, wrapping Eth in a hug. The Imminent had to know it had been coming, but even so the girl tensed against it for a moment. Then she melted, clinging to Aida. The girl let loose great, wracking sobs that occasionally broke into moans or wails of grief and pain. As Aida held her, Ryk glanced their way. Determination and resolve writ his posture and expression, though she could read the fear and uncertainty he fought to hide and contain.

Letting go her selfish desire to keep him to herself, to fight against the death he'd probably spent his entire life preparing for, she smiled at him. All the love she held, every memory of every great moment they'd shared, and all of the support she could offer him flowed through that look and that smile.

He stood taller as he took it in, some of the fear and worry seeming to fall away. A hint of the easy confidence came back to the surface and he found a hint of that amazing, easy smile she'd fallen in love with to send back.

"I love you," she mouthed.

He nodded, slung his shield over his back, and began to climb down the nets.

"It's time," Eth murmured.

"It's time," Aida said, letting go of the girl and Ryk both. "For all this, tell me Jaxe dies. The truth now."

"Ryk's Hundred leads to Jaxe's death," Eth said as they walked towards the nets themselves.

"So Ryk doesn't kill him?" Aida said, trailing behind.

"No," Eth said as she dropped over the side of the Terrtle skull. "That's a family affair."

"Jaxe is family now?" After a moment of shock, Aida smiled wryly and rolled her eyes before following. "Just can't help yourself with the cryptic riddles, can you?"

For the first time, Eth looked at her and smiled.