“...close behind her.” Hanyon rasped the last words curled in a fetal ball, eyes as unseeing as the garish eye tattooed at the base of her throat. Her fingers gnarled into claws and she convulsed.

“Damn you!” the Empress shouted, rising from the Throne and shoving the Seericide's body with her foot. As Hanyon's corpse tumbled and rolled down the Ziggurat stairs, the First and Last Empress slumped back.

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After a moment, the strings at her throat thrummed to life. She rose tall, her voice booming loud enough to reach half the verse and however many still lived within it. “The Empress seeks answers. Whomever brings me another Seericide shall receive their weight in currency as reward.”

Volcanoes rumbled in the distance as if echoing her words.

Her will made known, she sagged back and stared out unseeing, a hundred questions jumbling through her thoughts but only the simplest reaching her lips.

“Why?”