Three Powers. Between them, Unity. Oh, Unity, where have you gone?

-Anonymous Soldier, circa 1,500 Post Fall of Meridian

Unity. The elusive combination of all Three Powers, named after what the Church considered the most holy of all virtues. The legends claimed it could twist fate, burn away the Void, and transform the entire galaxy into a place where suffering would not exist.

Unity. Everyone wanted its benefits. But only Jadis Larsh was willing to pay its price.

Today, she hovered above the city of Sudav, one of the five cities on Mirador she considered large enough to be of consequence. They’d conquered four of those cities already, including Sudav. With the capital’s forces now in retreat, only one remained, guarded by a military that was now fighting to the bitter end, despite Larsh’s repeated attempts to negotiate a surrender.

Not that the citizens here were any better; the disease of rebellion had spread here like a thin coat of paint. Visible, enough so to cause problems, but easy to peel away. Of course, crushing the disorder early was crucial, which was why Larsh was here, rather than fighting at the capital.

She drifted over the streets, hands behind her back, ablaze with azure Ever, and alone, save for two dronecopters patrolling above her, and occasionally a bolt of plasma burst from the crowd as an angry rebel took their chance at assassination. She deflected those blasts easily, then shot them back into the rebels with a flick of her finger. They were fools to try it. Manipulating plasma was child’s play for a burner of her caliber.

She focused on the people, on their faces. Were they resolute? Angry? Defeated? She nodded, grim satisfaction filling her as she noted more and more expressions dripping with dread as she passed by. Displays like this usually did that. It had been so long since memory burning had been legal that the sight of it made commoners shiver. That, combined with the charred scar of the Endowed seared onto her forehead, would give her authority here. In time, she would use that power to unify Delti into a cohesive army. For now, though, keeping the galaxy afraid would have to do.

And afraid they were. She made certain to occasionally send bursts of energy flying into nearby structures, blowing them apart and raining rubble on the ground. It wasn’t enough to kill; Larsh never killed without reason. But it was enough to kill their spirits.

After half an hour of floating around the city, she eventually landed in a clearing near its outskirts. A play park, she guessed, before the grass had been scorched away and the toys blown to bits. A crowd had gathered here, shepherded into place by dozens of Talar soldiers, composed entirely of civilians, many of them female, even more of them children. At the head of the group, Traegus Yral, Larsh’s head advisor and one of her foremost generals, stood atop a cement block, tall enough he could sweep his helmeted eyes over the entire crowd. Two other Surgewielders, one wielding Ever and one wielding Purity, stood beside him.

Larsh gave a curt nod to Traegus, who stepped off the platform, leaving his companions to keep the masses in check. Together they moved toward a makeshift canopy nearby, where today’s victims stood in their chains.

She forced herself to meet their eyes. They were stripped near naked, and beaten to a pulp, but many faces remained resolute. Rebels, they were. The toughest of the lot, the ones she hadn’t broken thoroughly enough to trust Cyrla with. They were weaponless now, but each was a skilled fighter; Larsh may not have seen them during the mutiny, but she’d seen enough battles to know the rugged muscles of warriors when she saw them. They had lost, and they would die, but Larsh afforded them the honor of meeting their eyes as she condemned them.

Of course, she wasn’t just condemning them. She cringed as she saw the children tied up behind the rebels, also naked, also beaten. Their faces were all variants of the same emotion: the shock of innocence burned away. Try as she might, she could not meet those eyes. Not when she knew what was coming.

Aezer, Talar’s captive Voidling, had proposed this solution when Larsh had first encountered resistance from conquered populations, in those first few months after taking Ethea. In the beginning, she’d blindly ordered executions, then hung their corpses in the streets, hoping the horror of it would keep people down. In some areas, it had.

But, as it turned out, people had two responses to horror, not just one. Some had shriveled in fear, but a lesser portion had only worked against her with more vigor. The problem only continued to multiply when she killed the rebels, the most passionate among them becoming martyrs rather than examples.

She hadn’t told Aezer about the problem, but, somehow, he’d known. And he had a solution. She hated it, and it had taken her two whole years to realize that her captive enemy was right, but it worked.

She wrung her hands behind her back, forcing herself to stand straight as she barked a command to the guards holding down the group of children and rebels.

“Bring them forward, insurgents in one row, children in another.” She pointed to two specific guards. “Except you two. Get the ethium.”

The guards nodded, following her instructions. They were new to this. They always were; Larsh deliberately made certain no one had to perform this ritual more than twice. Though she did not believe in the Goddess of Justice, she did not want anyone’s soul tainted more than necessary.

As the guards worked, Traegus stepped over to Larsh, fingering his Surgeblade.

“This will be good. We’re stretched thinner than I’d like here. Recruitment is down, too.”

“I disagree,” Larsh said. “The people are already discouraged. Once I secure Valeo’s surrender, they won’t last much longer. I’m debating if this is even necessary.”

“But you’ll do it anyway,” Traegus said. “Because we can’t risk it, and there’s no going halfway.” It was not a question, just a reminder of a fact. Of a necessity.

Larsh pursed her lips, but nodded. “I will. And you will help me.”

The guards were almost done lining up the prisoners, and Larsh turned back to the crowd, briefly closing her eyes to light up with Ever, then drifting over to the cement platform. She kept herself glowing as she straightened, then spoke, burning trace amounts of Ever to amplify her voice.

“Quiet.”

It was a single word, said with no malice, but the chatter of the crowd immediately died to almost no sound, then to pure silence as Larsh raised an eyebrow. She continued.

“Your nation is vanquished. The capital fell early this morning. Your armies are routed, your men are corpses, your women are slaves. I expect no further rebellion. Your life as Miradorans is over, and I will meet any resistance to my rule with swift punishment.”

Larsh let her gaze drift to the captives, who were now in a straight line to the right of the cement platform, flanked by guards on either side. The children were prodded into place to form a line on the left. In the center, a man with a large spray tank of ethium waited, along with another man with a tank of water.

For a moment, Larsh hesitated.

But only for a moment. She turned her eyes back upward.

“However, some in this city have already chosen violence. Riots in the streets, attacks on supply depots, assaulting guards in the night. Petty measures, to try and stop me. Let me assure you that you have barely annoyed us -- but even annoyances cannot be tolerated.” She forced a wicked smile onto her face. “After all, to kill a gnat is no sin.”

She turned back to the rebels. “I will give you one last chance. Renounce your cause, beg me for forgiveness, and I will kill you quickly.”

There was no reply. There never was, those who would have given in to such an offer had already been sent to the slave squadrons. Larsh nodded, and her smile faded; she could not pretend joy for this.

“So be it. You have played games rather than admit defeat, and, in return, a game you shall receive.” She gestured toward the children. “The rules of this one are simple. A guard will hand you a knife. You will use it to kill yourself, right here, right now.” As she spoke, the man with the ethium tank doused the first shocked child in fuel. “Should you refuse, a child burns.” She hesitated, again, then steeled herself. “Begin.”

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The guards immediately shoved the first rebel forward, slamming a knife into the palm of the man’s hand, then placing their rifles against the man’s head. The rebel’s eyes widened, drifting between the crowd, the child, and the knife. Larsh let him stand there for a moment, feeling his panicked thoughts through her memory sense. Seeing his face slowly contort in rabid fear.

Then she waved her hand. A guard fired a plasma bolt into the first child’s leg. The child shrieked, and the ethium lit. The young boy’s skin peeled away almost immediately, and the red flesh beneath it blackened as fast as flaming paper. His eyes boiled, and he fell to his knees, curling up as he died. The crowd screamed and wailed in shock. Most stepped backward in horror, though a few of the men tried to step forward, their thoughts betraying their rebellious intent. Larsh waved her hand, burning Ever, and bursts of plasma leapt from it, sizzling the ground in front of them. They stopped, then stepped back, anger fading into the shame of cowardice.

The first rebel hesitated a moment longer, trembling. Then, finally, he rammed himself through the chest with his knife.

He crumpled as blood spurted from his chest, twitching for several long moments as he died. Per Larsh’s orders, the Talar men did not finish him, instead letting the gruesome scene play out completely before rolling him away and pushing the next man in line forward. That man killed himself immediately. And the next man. The man after that let a child burn, but then he, too, ended his life, weeping as he did.

And so it continued, each rebel faced with a choice, a child punished until they made the right one, the crowd forced to watch by guards who patrolled about them, slamming them with the butt of their rifles if they tried to close their eyes or look away. Of the forty rebels they’d rounded up for today’s display, twenty-three killed themselves immediately, but thirteen of them waited for at least one child to die, and three of them were so conflicted Larsh had to burn two to push them over the edge. Nineteen children, total. Larsh made sure she memorized each of their faces, and probed their thoughts to learn their names. She would not spare them, no matter what she found. But the least she could do was hate herself for killing them. She let go of her Ever as the slaughter continued, instead reaching for Void, letting the corrupted Third Power flow through her, numbing the guilt almost completely.

Almost.

It was such a beautifully clean solution. Whether the rebels died to their own blade quickly, or whether they tried to resist, their deaths were pathetic either way. The public could make a beheading into a martyrdom, but a whimpering suicide? Never. That, combined with the sheer brutality of the burnings, was almost always enough to shut down any further insurgency.

Even if it came at a terrible price.

Finally, the last rebel stepped up to the front. He stood straighter than the rest, his eyes afire with determination. Larsh winced, knowing what came next. Knowing what she would have to do.

The guards slammed the dagger into the man’s hand, but he immediately dropped it. Snarling, the guard kicked him in the stomach, forcing him to his knees, then snatched the dagger, shoved it into the rebel’s hand again, then yanked him back to his feet.

He is enjoying this too much, Larsh noted, frowning at the guard. I should pull him off duty for a while. Not that she could afford to do that. The army was stretched too thin already.

She focused back on the rebel as he rose to his feet, this time twisting towards the guard, trying to plant his knife in the soldier’s chest. The Talar soldier easily grabbed the prisoner’s arm, then slammed the butt of his rifle into the man’s skull, throwing him back to the ground. This time, the rebel remained on the floor, gasping.

“Two children,” Larsh said. The soldiers carried out her order immediately, and two young girls whimpered as they were thrown forward, then lit ablaze. Larsh did not watch this time, instead raising an eyebrow as she stared at the insurgent on the ground.

He lay there for a long moment, wheezing. But, as she’d predicted, he rose to his feet, legs trembling, but standing. Spitting out blood, he spoke.

“Their death is on your hands.”

He spoke without vitriol, without hatred, but firmly nonetheless. For a moment, Larsh was actually taken aback. Then she snorted.

“Two more.”

The guards repeated the process with impunity, and the rebel’s resolute expression fell, just a little, but enough. Larsh could feel his thoughts, quick and barely coherent, but there was still a pattern to them, and she knew what he would say next.

“Their blood is not on my hands. I’ve seen people like you. You’ll kill them whether or not I play your game. You can’t let a kid live after putting them through that, they’d talk.” His face turned to steel. “So kill them. Kill me. Send us to Torment, laugh as we suffer, I don’t care. If I must die, I will not die kneeling to a tyrant!”

He had no microphone, nor any Ever, but his words rang out loudly to the entire crowd. Larsh let them hang there, outwardly composed, though, for once, her thoughts betrayed her.

He is right, they whispered. Hyran would never approve of this.

He would hate you, for what you’ve become.

She hesitated, for one agonizing moment, the image of her husband’s pleading eyes blazing in her mind. For that moment, it was almost too much. No, it was too much.

She Reached, harder this time, pulling in as much Void as she could grip.

She felt a sharp stabbing pain in her chest as her emotions fled, pushed away as the corrupted Third Power burst alight in her veins, then spread into her skin. She felt the dread of the crowd, the terror of the children, the horror of the man who defied her.

And somehow, simultaneously, she did not feel any of it. She knew it perfectly, but with Oblivion’s presence in her mind, she did not care. That was the great danger of using Void, a danger most knew nothing of. People always heard stories of opening yourself up to the Third Power and being possessed, but those instances were rare. More often, disasters happened for the simple reason that, when your fear of retribution was numbed, and your sense of morality dulled, it was far too easy to let the knife slip.

Larsh forced some of the numbness back, mentally willing a portion of the Void to flee. She did not want to be totally unfeeling, not with the carnage that lay around her. But she needed to be strong enough to do what must be done.

She stepped off the platform, letting the man’s accusations hang in the air, but meeting his eyes with hawkish impunity. She waved her hand.

“Release the children.”

The guards hesitated, not out of disobedience, but simply because they hadn’t expected the order. Larsh raised her voice.

“Release them. Their duty is done.” She turned back to the rebel, who looked both relieved and confused. Tucking her arms behind her back, she stalked toward him. His lips turned back up in a sneer as she did.

“You’re still a murderer.”

“I am.”

“And a tyrant.”

“I am.”

“I’ll be sure to spit in your master’s face when I see him in Torment,” he spat.

Larsh’s lips turned upward in a smile. “And that is where you are wrong. Oblivion is not my master. The Rift is not my creed. I am my own god.” She released her hands from behind her back. “I do not hate you, friend, for I am not of Oblivion. I do not love you, either, for I am not of the Three Bladewielders. However, to me, you have committed a sin. A grave sin, I fear: you are in my way.”

She burned the Void in her skin, and tendrils leapt from her fingers, thrashing through the air, then into the man’s flesh, slamming through his eyes, snaking into his mouth, then tearing him apart from the inside as they burst back through skin, sending a spray of blood all across the ground. When the tendrils faded, there was nothing left but a gruesome puddle.

Larsh whipped toward the crowd, releasing the last of her Void, then burning Ever. With it, she ripped the ethium tanks from off the backs of the guards, then sent them flying into the air, then blew them to pieces at the apex of their ascent. The fuel exploded with a thunderous crash, and ash and debris rained from the sky, none of it large enough to cause any injury, yet still enough to cause a host of coughing and confusion.

Larsh burned more Ever, pushing the smoke away, then rose into the air. She amplified her voice one last time.

“I am not here to oppress you. I am not here as your savior. I am here simply because I want to be here, and I always get what I want. Let this be your lesson: that from this day on, there is only one rule.

“Do not get in my way.”

She turned and shot into the sky without another word; the military complex in the capital had finally fallen, it seemed, and she needed to talk with General Valeo once she was captured. And there were the final preparations for the landing on Grahala. And she needed to inspect the other forces, the ones preparing for a larger campaign on Artensia.

So much to do, so little time. She wasn’t sure exactly when the calamities the Tower of Foreseeing had prophesied would occur, but it couldn’t be longer than ten years.

Ten years. A long time, for most. But to assemble all the galaxy into a unified army? To kill a god that had terrorized mankind for millennia?

Ten years was nothing. Larsh herself was nothing. But without Larsh, the worlds would fall, so she did what she had to.

Unfortunately, it seemed the best way to stop a god from burning the galaxy was to make certain you burned it first.