Authors' Note: We know this a terrible time to announce a hiatus, but for the love of all the gods, we just can't handle the holidays and turn out the quality and quantity of writing that we want to. Coauthor Lois is working 12 hour days in retail, aka the tenth circle of Hell, with little help and a manager who is about to get himself fired for several layers of foolishness. This is literally the worst Christmas ever for her. Coauthor Anissa is acting team lead, filling in for her manager when said manager has to be at the hospital with her daughter, and just for an extra dose of craziness, will need to get tested for Covid-19 this week because she might have been exposed at work. YAY.
We are not stopping. Too much of the end of this fic (and the beginnings of the next ones) are written already. But we are taking a hiatus until the New Year. We both hate doing this, and we apologize in advance to all of you. Please be safe, and know that somewhere in the future, Jay and Kala will be sharing hot cocoa on Christmas again.
Batman had made his own rounds. He trusted Oracle to see to the safety of their people; he was looking for the rogues. Joker was locked up securely in Arkham, with four doors between him and the slightest hope of seeing daylight. Good enough, for now. Two-Face brooded in an office building, turning his coin over in one hand as one of his men reported on the night's losses. They didn't seem to know this location had been flagged by the Bats, and Batman threw a Batarang through the window, leaving it embedded in the wall, just to keep Dent on his toes.
Black Mask had just been freed, and he was deep in consultation with his right hand, Ms. Li. Batman listened in to their conversation by means of a bug he'd placed on Ms. Li's purse a week ago. He'd studied Selina's skills over the years, and found them more useful than he'd like to admit. Though the two spoke plainly, Sionis appeared to be more concerned with securing his own operations than making any big moves just yet. He did have a high-profile case against him that he'd have to fight, though, so his attention was divided.
Lastly, Batman visited the Iceberg Lounge. Its security was good, but he was better. He infiltrated the club and made his way upstairs, to Penguin's personal rooms. From the hallway, he could hear voices in the office – Cobblepot, and a woman. It didn't sound like business. Just to keep him guessing as well, Batman left a Batarang flicked into the doorjamb, for Oswald to find whenever he stepped out.
With warnings delivered that would hopefully keep the villains cautious, and intel acquired on Sionis, Batman checked in on the last of his rogues. He drove by Park Row and slipped into Selina's apartment via the window.
Miss Kitty was sitting on the coffee table, staring directly at him, and she stood up to stretch, letting out an interrogative chirp. Selina strolled in from the kitchen, wearing a robe, with a towel over her arm. "Well hello, handsome," she purred, smiling. "You're out of luck, I was just about to slip into a hot bath."
"I know you were out there," Bruce told her, the Bat melting away from his facade and his voice.
Selina shrugged. "Maybe so. Maybe I did what I could, while keeping my skin intact. You and yours had a rough time of it, I heard."
"It wasn't as bad as it could've been," he told her. It rarely was. Bruce could always imagine worse.
She tilted her head to look at him, and Miss Kitty angled her ears forward. "Come with me," Selina said. "Take a shower first, get all the grime off you, then soak in hot water up to your chin with a gorgeous woman who'll rub your shoulders. You need a break."
"I can't," Bruce told her. He needed to head back to the Batcave, check the incarcerated gang members, make sure none of them slipped away on technicalities. And make sure none of his own informants had turned traitor in the midst of the fighting.
Selina shrugged again, and turned away dismissively. "Your loss," she quipped, and let the robe fall from her shoulders.
Bruce found himself staring after her. The part of him that was always, always calculating noticed a few fresh bruises, and knew she'd been less careful in last night's fighting than he could wish. Most of him was spellbound by the sway of her hips.
Miss Kitty sneezed, and gave him a contemptuous look. Bruce favored the cat with a smile, and pulled off his cowl. He'd keep his communicator handy, but a long soak in hot water would be good for his strained muscles.
The company would make that all the more therapeutic.
…
Halfway across the world, Talia took two men and headed down to the Lazarus Pit, where Adem said Shiva had been in the midst of fighting with Batgirl and Spoiler. She left the rest of their forces under Adem's command, sweeping up the traitors as they secured the compound. Her business was with the Pit.
She could smell it, even this far away, and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from trembling at the stench. Once the scent of rot and jasmine had been merely noxious. After Nyssa, it was a nightmare, waking vivid flashbacks. Talia's chest and throat and head all ached in memory of more deaths than she could count. Worse than the pain, weakness, and humiliation was knowing her foe would cast her into the Pit and bring her back only to do it again … and again … and again.
Talia's teeth met, a flash of brief pain before the taste of salt and iron, but it cut through the images for a moment. Given the choice, she would never have come within sight or scent of a Lazarus Pit again in her life … but duty demanded she handle this insurrection. So she made herself stride toward it without any visible hesitation, no sign of weakness before her father's men.
The tunnels grew narrower, and close to the Pit itself, Talia heard running footsteps. One person, moving irregularly. She drew her sword, expecting to cut down a fleeing deserter.
Instead, she saw a young woman, her clothes tattered, a mask over her face half-gone to reveal a shock of wet blonde hair and a wild staring eye. Talia raised her hand, halting her men, and they kept their guns lowered.
Until the other one rushed past the first. Batgirl, Cassandra Cain, trained as living weapon, now set herself in a defensive stance, her staff ready to strike or parry. Talia took her in with a single glance, assessing the younger woman as lighter than herself, with a shorter reach … but those were not enough to rely on in battle. Cassandra was phenomenally gifted and rigorously trained.
It would be best if this encounter did not become a battle.
"Hold your fire," Talia said, her voice cold and commanding. She took a step forward, ignoring the blonde – that was Stephanie Brown, who had been Robin and was originally Spoiler, and whose eyes should have been blue according to the data Talia had on all of Bruce's flock. Just now they burned a menacing yellow-green, an effect caused by the same corrosive waters that had damaged her uniform. She was maddened by Lazarus fever, and as likely to strike out at Cain as to attack Talia. For the moment, she held her place, panting harshly and trembling as if with fever.
Talia looked intently at Cain, her cowl torn so her dark eyes bored into Talia's lighter ones. And then Talia sheathed the blade she carried, as if there were no threat hanging in the air. "I see you bear Lady Shiva's sword," Talia said in conversational tones. "Is she dead?"
A few seconds' pause, and then the young woman answered in a taut voice. "Don't know. Wounded. Disabled."
Interesting. Shiva had meant for this encounter to end in death, Talia knew that much. She nodded to Cain. "Shiva betrayed my father. I am charged to bring him her sword. Surrender it to me, and I will let you both go."
This was the most dangerous moment. Talia could only hope she'd played it right.
…
Steph breathed raggedly beside her, and Cass knew they didn't have much time. With Lazarus pulsing in her veins, she would lose patience and attack. And in this narrow corridor, the two men with their guns ready would cut them both to pieces. There simply wasn't enough room to effectively dodge.
Talia spoke with an edge of frosty contempt, and Cass saw that her men believed they'd be called upon to kill her and Steph as soon as the sword changed hands. She could almost see the calculations in their minds, realizing the sword might get damaged in gunplay. So they waited, confident and calm, for the right moment to commit murder.
And yet, for all her coldness, Talia's body language said something diametrically opposed to her words. She wasn't obvious about it, no broad gestures to read, but the line of her shoulders and the angle of her jaw weren't those of a conquering queen collecting a trophy. Instead she looked … conciliatory. Almost pleading, in a very subdued way. Her eyes on Cass' weren't cold, but they were afraid.
No real time to choose. The men would shoot if she struck. Cass played for time. "Promise?"
Talia touched one hand to her heart, ever so briefly. Standing in front of her men with them focused on the girls, they likely didn't even see it. Only Cass did. "I never break my word – but I make no promises to traitors."
And what was she supposed to read into that? Cass could pretend to hand the sword over, and strike as Talia's hand closed on the hilt. Take her out, foul up the two men, they wouldn't risk shooting their boss' daughter. But there were more coming behind them, and the odds would be worse.
Steph stirred, and time was up. Cass had to decide – and she chose to put her faith in her first language.
Grounding the staff, she stepped forward and offered her mother's sword, hilt-first.
Talia took it, and looked across the blade at her. At this distance Cass was sharply aware that Talia could potentially land a blow before she could deflect it. She saw that Talia knew the same held true for her. For a breathless instant they were both holding the sword, looking into one another's eyes.
Shoulders lifting a little as she breathed in, Talia relaxed minutely, and Cass saw how good her control was – saw that she could manipulate body language almost as well as Cass could read it. That alarmed her into taking a quick step back, her hands on the staff taking a defensive grip.
Talia cocked her head, taking a prudent step back herself. "Poor child, did you really think we'd let you go?"
Steph began to move, Cass tried to shield her, and in the second before she uncoiled to strike, Talia's men moved forward, taking aim. Talia herself fell back, her arm coming up, and the man on her right never saw her move.
He never saw Shiva's sword, its edge still fantastically sharp even if the blade had broken off, slice across his unarmored throat. The gout of blood shocked him into grabbing at his own neck, and the man on Talia's left registered the chaotic movement, turning his head a little to glance at his partner.
That one got the broken end of Shiva's sword rammed into his eye, the crunch of bone distinct as the blade penetrated to his brain. He stiffened, his gun falling, and Talia let it hit the floor.
The other one stared at her, arterial blood spurting from between his fingers. Talia withdrew the sword and turned back to him. "I do regret this," she told him, and to Cass' eyes wide with horror, it was true.
Talia cut the man's arm at the joint in his armor, severing tendons so he couldn't keep pressure on his wound, and then grabbed the muzzle of his gun. She had her hands full, keeping it pointed away from her and also trying not to get doused in blood. It only took a few seconds for him to bleed out, and Cass could've made a run for it.
She was too stunned, and when Talia turned to her, she brought the staff up belatedly. Talia clicked her tongue in irritation. "I just wasted two men's lives so that you could escape. I have no intention of harming you. You can see that, Cassandra, trust your eyes and not your ears."
Cass lowered the staff carefully, feeling Steph crowd close to her side, trembling. "Why?"
Talia gave her a rueful smile. "I did promise your Oracle that I would look after you. Perhaps I dislike killing innocents, and you aren't the one who went to war with us, so you shouldn't have to pay the price. Or perhaps I'm all too aware that Batman would never forgive me if I let either of you come to harm. Perhaps I think the world is better with you in it, using all your gifts for the greater good. Or again, I might simply not be in the habit of murdering children."
No longer quite trusting her eyes – Cass had never met anyone who could so convincingly lie with body language – she still thought that all of those reasons were true, in varying degrees. She watched Talia closely, and asked again while nodding to the slain men, "Why?"
"I cannot give them orders to spare you. My father would be very displeased. This way, I can tell him honestly that they fell to Shiva's sword." She shrugged, dismissing the deaths, and looked past Cass at Stephanie. "She's been in the Lazarus Pit."
"Shiva. Sword through chest. She fell." Truth deserved truth, and there was no point in lying now.
"Did you cripple Shiva for that?" Talia asked with interest.
"Trying to stop her," Cass replied. "Whatever it took."
Another nod. "My father will kill her, if he learns she made use of it. He would prefer to take you alive, but will not hesitate to kill you also. You must get her out of here without being seen again."
Cass nodded to that, reaching for Steph's hand. The blonde's grip was too tight, and Cass glanced at her to see Steph glaring at Talia, her posture rife with threat.
Talia seemed not to see it, or disregarded the possibility of being harmed. "She will be safe in Gotham. Jason Todd is there. He will know how to help her deal with the side effects. Go now, Cassandra, and keep her safe."
"Will," Cass replied, and moved past her cautiously.
Steph sidled along the wall, holding on to Cass' hand, her eyes fixed on Talia. The taller woman looked back at her steadily, and Cass saw that their eyes were the same shade of yellow-green. She tugged on Steph's hand, pulling her away, trying to suppress the itch between her shoulders at turning her back to a potential enemy.
It was a long way to Gotham, and she was going to have to manage Steph the whole way. But Cass had gotten her into this, she felt responsible for the whole miserable situation, so she would do everything she could to make it right.
Starting with what she should have done the moment they realized where Shiva was headed: call Babs.
…
Talia watched the girls go, worry taking a ragged bite out of her heart. Bruce loved them both, she knew; he plainly cherished Cassandra, and he'd told her once that his primary concern with Stephanie was protecting her from her own courage. For his sake alone, she would have spared them, but fate saw fit to give her other reasons, too. And not just Barbara Gordon's plea for their safety.
She saw an echo of herself in Cass. Both of them were their fathers' creations, both of them had cause to resent that, though Talia thought she had been less interfered with. Both of them were supremely competent in their chosen specialties at the cost of missing out on a 'normal' life. Again, Cass had more burdens to deal with than Talia in that regard. It was still a commonality between them, one further deepened by their mothers' absence in their lives. Cassandra's mother had abandoned her; Talia's mother had died when she was three, and her memories were few and faded. It left them both reliant on their fathers' approval.
As for Stephanie, Talia could not help a rueful little smile. Bruce had also said the girl had too much heart for this business, and how many times had Ra's told her the same? No, the deaths of two men were not too steep a price to pay for letting them both escape. Talia could not admit, even to herself, that she was doing for them what she wished someone had done for her, setting them free of League of Shadows' machinations.
Neither of the girls should have been here in the first place, she thought, keeping the rest of it down deep in her mind, where Ra's would never see and suspect disloyalty. Talia turned and headed for the Lazarus Pit, to deal with Shiva.
…
Shiva noticed a strange thing. Usually, even the strongest scent dulled as time passed. A room choked with incense became more bearable the longer she forced herself to endure, until she scarcely noticed it. The Lazarus Pit's stench did not fade, still assaulting her nose as she lay helpless on the catwalk.
Perhaps that was because part of its composition was the odor of human decay. Nothing else smelled quite like a dead body, the decaying tissues releasing uniquely awful aromas. In her time Shiva had seen many corpses, long since acquainted with the stench of ruptured bowel, the faintly sweet smell of burned flesh, the greasy reek of decomposing fat, and the oddly spicy scent of rotting brain. It was not like the stink of burning offal or even a dead water buffalo, which logic suggested ought to be more offensive by virtue of greater size. Human death was its own sharply defined smell, and uniquely horrifying.
Then too the floral part of the Pit's odor was just as invasive and unrelenting. It wasn't quite jasmine; Shiva had visited temples where the tiny white flowers grew in drifts like snow, and their fragrance was so thick as to be cloying. The Pit was similar, but had a sharper edge, a chemical note that made her eyes water.
And focusing on the smell was just a way to keep her mind occupied. Shiva could barely turn her head, so her view was restricted to the cavern ceiling, flickering with unhealthy green Lazarus light. She could hear distant shots, cries of pain, shouted orders, all the noises of battle, and knew she should have been directing the defenses. None of these men were entirely trustworthy; some of them might already have gone back over to the Demon. Assuming Ra's would accept such fickle followers back into his flock.
Nothing from this cavern, which meant the men who knew where she was were either busy, or dead. There was nothing she could do until it was over, and the victors came in search of her. If the Demon won, his men would find her helpless, a perfect war trophy. Shiva closed her eyes and tried to meditate, to find some stability with which to face whatever might be coming. Time ceased to matter as she focused on her breathing, trying to calm her mind.
The metal catwalk under her vibrated slightly, a single set of footsteps. Whatever comes, I will face it with courage and honor, Shiva thought, and closed her eyes. One breath of Lazarus-laden air in, hold, then release. That was all that mattered.
Whoever had come stood over her a moment, unspeaking, then Shiva felt a touch of steel at the hollow of her throat. Surprised that she could even feel it, she opened her eyes and looked up the length of a scimitar at Talia al Ghul.
Which meant Shiva's own men were dead or dying or turning traitor, even now. Talia wouldn't be here if she hadn't won the main battle first.
"Your spine is broken," Talia said coolly.
"Perhaps I want you to think that," Shiva said.
The sword-point increased its pressure, and Shiva did not wince even as it broke the skin and her blood welled up around it. Still, Talia nodded. "You felt that. As you didn't feel it when it pierced your leg. It is most unlike you to play possum, Shiva. That's a coward's trick, and I have always admired your bravery, if not your ambition."
"If you had any ambition of your own, you'd carry your father's skull on a pike as your banner," Shiva said, trying to goad her. On the whole, she would prefer to be killed outright rather than toyed with. She knew how sharp Talia's claws could be.
Talia clicked her tongue, and wiped the sword on Shiva's blouse, sheathing it at her side. She folded herself gracefully to sit down on the walkway, still regarding Shiva with those unearthly green eyes – which here, so close to the Pit, sometimes flared bright with the same unclean magic that fueled the waters below. Shiva saw that, and no amount of meditation could prevent unease from creeping up the back of her neck.
Still, she tried for strength to spite her enemy, if nothing else, right up until Talia held up Shiva's own shattered sword, its length bloody. She could no longer feel her stomach, but it still seemed to have dropped. "You could never defeat Cassandra honorably," she said, keeping her tone level.
Talia regarded her a moment. "That is the difference between us, Shiva. You must have an honorable fight, by your own standards of honor. War is not honorable. War is ugly, and messy, and horrifying even to the victors. The era of the samurai is long past; bushido is nothing more than a quaint concept in this world of guns that fire a thousand rounds per minute."
"You shot her," Shiva said flatly. All of Cassandra's innate talent, all of her training, all of her experience, ended by a hail of bullets … it was a terrible waste. And the waste was what she mourned, not a child she'd never raised, barely even held. Not a life she could have had, the mother she could have been. Shiva told herself so, firmly.
Talia laid the broken sword aside. "I let her go."
Shiva blinked. "What?"
"She's not yet twenty, is she?" Talia said, with an edge in her tone. "She's a child, Sandra. A child whose life has been one long boot camp, preparing her for my father's war, or Batman's. I have my own code, and I do not kill children."
"Cassandra has never been a child," Shiva said, confused.
"You left your only daughter – the child you carried, feeling her kick inside your belly – in the hands of David Cain, who simply wanted your genetics to make a more perfect warrior." There was heat in Talia's voice now, and Shiva sensed a deep well of rage in her, simmering vile as the Lazarus Pit below them. "He raised her without once speaking to her. No lullabies, no words of praise, no whispered comfort when nightmares woke her. All so that she could be this thing my father wanted. Did you know how monstrous that was, Sandra? Did you care?"
"I was raised to be a warrior, too," she replied, trying to feel her way through this conversation. "As you were."
"My father loved me," Talia said, the words flat and heavy as iron. "He loves me still, despite everything. You and Cain used that girl like she was nothing more than a blade in need of sharpening."
Shiva managed a chuckle. "Ra's al Ghul loves you – as he loves his favorite sword. He'd cast you aside if you broke."
A pinprick under her eye, and she'd forgotten how fast Talia could be. There was a small knife there, pressing into her cheekbone, as Talia glared at her coldly. "Enough rehashing our history," she said.
"You began it," Shiva said carefully. That blade could so easily slice through her skin and flip her eyeball right out of its socket. She could see the intent to do so burning in Talia.
Who spoke softly, viciously. "I thought you might care that I let your daughter live, and her lover with her. Perhaps you do, and you hide it well. I hope that there is some trace of concern in you, Lady Shiva, and it eases your heart to know she's safe from all of our machinations. For now."
Her eye watered as she tried not to blink. Rather than respond to anything that might give away a vulnerable truth – never let the enemy know what you truly valued – Shiva asked, "Her lover?"
"The blonde you murdered to get her out of your way. You didn't know?" Talia chuckled, and withdrew the knife, absently walking it across her own knuckles. "You might've won, if you hadn't harmed Spoiler. You should know by now not to threaten anything a woman truly loves."
Looking back, Shiva remembered how protective Cass had been, how fatally determined the other girl was. She should have seen it … but it hadn't seemed relevant at the time. "What is it that you want, Talia?" she asked, trying to sound tired.
"To discuss the terms of your continued employment," Talia replied.
Shiva managed to laugh, her voice sounding rusty. Time to play her last card. "You're as cold-blooded as your sister. Nyssa Raatko was the one who told me where to find a Pit in North Africa, you know."
And had the satisfaction of watching those balefire eyes go wide with horror.
…
Nyssa Raatko. Talia had met her during one of her all-too-brief ventures in independence. At first, she'd thought she had made a friend, someone who seemed to understand her so well. She remembered eating takeout Chinese and talking, in roundabout terms, about her father.
The entire time, Nyssa had known exactly who Ra's al Ghul was. He was her father, too. Nyssa had a century or more on Talia, time enough to love their father, grow disillusioned with him, leave … and when he turned his back on her disloyalty, learn to hate him. She'd hated him so much that when she learned of the daughter Ra's had raised himself, she'd sought Talia out for the express purpose of turning her against him. Nyssa had thought it would hurt him more to die by Talia's hand than her own.
But she'd had to break Talia's will, to make her raise a sword against her father. And Talia did not break easily, in those days.
At the sound of her sister's name, memories flooded back into her mind, sharp and real as the moment they'd happened. Talia couldn't suppress a shudder, her stomach churning, the stink of the Lazarus Pit invading her nose and laying siege to her mind. Nyssa had killed her and brought her back, over and over and over again. Gun and knife and garrote, pain that roared or seared or crushed, and the horror was that not even death could end it.
Coming back, dragged through green hell into a body re-knitting itself more painfully than the injuries that had killed her, and what drove her into incoherent screaming rage was the knowledge that it wouldn't end, couldn't end. She came back howling with agony and fear and hatred, only for Nyssa to shoot her, or stab her, or strangle her. Again.
Talia remembered the knife most of all, her own voice cracking as she begged for mercy, her head bowed to the floor, grit under her cheek, pleading for Nyssa to stop, just stop, she'd do anything to make it stop … and Nyssa had stroked her hair gently before cutting her throat. The blade so sharp it whispered through her trachea and all the major vessels, so she choked on her own fountaining blood in the seconds before the dark closed in.
When Nyssa had finally stopped it all, wrapping her coat around Talia's shivering body and soothing her with hushed words like a child frightened of the dark, Talia had been so relieved for an end to it that she'd been grateful to her torturer. The shame of that burned, even now.
It had all been for nothing, in the end. When the moment came, despite all of the torment and conditioning, Talia could not drive a sword into her father's chest. He had run her through, she'd whimpered 'Baba?' through her own blood, and her dying eyes had watched her father claim Nyssa as his beloved child and greatest achievement.
He'd told her, later, that he had merely said what was necessary to make Nyssa kill him. Still. Talia remembered dying with that branded in her memory, and coming back later, a shell of herself, Nyssa's tool and nothing more. She'd been so far gone as to draw a gun on Bruce.
Talia dragged herself out of those memories, forcing her body to be still and calm even as her heart screamed. Eventually she'd pieced herself back together, but this was not kintsugi, her fractures were patched together with Lazarus' green fire, not pure gold. She lived, and she was saner now than when she'd gone to bed with Jason Todd, a decision that was surely madness – but had, for a while, given her a measure of peace. It had not ended well, he still did not understand what he had meant to her, and if Bruce ever learned of it there would surely be hell to pay, yet Talia did not regret it. No matter what the eventual complications might be.
The thought of him steadied her. Jason was many things, just as conflicted as Talia herself in his loyalties, just as torn between his own principles and his father's goals. But she had made the right choice, in sending those two girls his way. He would not turn his back on Stephanie. He would not, could not, ignore someone in need.
Looking down at Shiva, she kept her tone conversational, as if she hadn't just had a violent flashback at the sound of her sister's name. "You may not be able to feel much below the collarbones, but I assure you, I can make the brief remainder of your life extremely painful. Do not mention Nyssa Raatko to me again."
She'd stopped moving the knife, and it was not her way to threaten broadly, but Talia shifted her grip on it. If Shiva tried to toy with her again, she could do her negotiating with one eyeball dangling on her cheek.
Shiva swallowed, and said only, "Your terms?"
"The same as ever, Sandra. I want your loyalty – to me, not my father. Beginning with the fact that I spared your daughter. You might truly feel nothing for her, but I doubt it. So you will begin by keeping that secret from him." Talia watched her eyes closely as she spoke, and there was a flicker of something when she spoke of Cassandra. Even if Shiva regarded her child simply as the only martial artist on the planet capable of defeating her, that was still a kind of regard.
Besides, Talia had already thought of ways she could spin that decision. She'd killed the two men who had seen her release the girls, but Shiva had no idea of that treason. For all Shiva knew, Talia could have simply opted not to hunt the girls down. That would be simpler to explain to her father, if it ever reached his ears – and he would surely confront her quickly, which would let her know that Shiva had betrayed her. Move and counter-move and counter-counter-move, her life had always been a chess game in which the only hope of survival and even a taste of freedom was playing five steps ahead.
"Understood," Shiva said, and her chest hitched a little with her next breath.
"Obviously you are no use to us in your current state," Talia continued. "I assume, since you've stopped trying to infuriate me into killing you, that you'd prefer to continue living?"
Shiva scoffed slightly. "Wouldn't we all?"
Talia laughed, the bitter as bile. "Were our positions reversed, Sandra, I would ask you to kill me quickly. If that's what you want, I'll do it for you, and see your body removed so that my father cannot renege."
The other woman's dark eyes narrowed. "You would choose death, when the means of life and healing is mere feet away?"
"You haven't tasted Lazarus," Talia said. "I have more than drunk my fill. Once used, as Spoiler inadvertently did, the Pit will lose its potency within hours. It will take years for this particular Pit to be useful again. So if you want it, choose quickly."
She watched Shiva think about it, cautioned by Talia's own reluctance. "Ra's al Ghul will not be pleased with you, for resurrecting a traitor."
"A useful traitor, one who will, I hope, have sufficient guile to pretend to be chastened," Talia said. "I could break your mind. Repeated death and resurrection would be enough to make you my creature."
"So why don't you?" Shiva challenged.
"Your will is too strong to remain subverted forever," Talia said casually, as if she had no personal knowledge of such torture. Nyssa likely had not told Shiva all of it; she had always been careful with her secrets. "Besides, though my father would dismiss this as sentiment, I wouldn't like to see you broken."
"Even though I've betrayed you and your father?" Shiva asked. "I would have thought you'd prefer to see an enemy humbled."
Talia spun the knife in her hand, searching for the words to explain her stance. "I would prefer not to regard you as my enemy. You were the one who proved untrustworthy. Sandra, you are a superlative warrior, the finest example of your type. To break you for spite would be mean and petty, like a child breaking a toy his playmate refused to lend him. I am not that small-minded."
She could not admit, even to herself, that she admired Shiva's rebellion. Talia waited, letting her think it over, and glanced out into the main cavern. The fighting had been nearly done before she came here; Adem now stood at the entrance, alone, waiting for her to be finished. He had been splendid through all of this, handling every exigency as they occurred; he deserved a reward. Competency and loyalty always did.
"I suppose my reward for keeping your secret is my life?" Shiva asked, oddly echoing the run of Talia's thoughts.
"And your freedom, to the extent I can give it to you," Talia said. "I am a more kindly master than my father." She knew she couldn't entirely trust Shiva, but then, she didn't trust anyone completely. Shiva could not be trusted even as much as Adem was, but she would be more useful if she felt she was in a privileged position.
"I would prefer to live, and not as a quadriplegic," Shiva murmured. "Your father might not be as gracious as you are. I don't particularly want to walk into a trap that ends in torture and death."
"I give you my word, I will not allow that to happen," Talia said. Ra's would see this her way – he was also reluctant to lose Shiva's expertise – but if for some reason he did not, Talia could always offer a clean death. She would not allow anyone who owed her loyalty to be abandoned to torture.
"Then I agree. I will serve you, if you heal me." Shiva met her eyes to say it.
Talia nodded, and would have taken her hand, but Shiva couldn't feel that. Instead she gently brushed hers against the other woman's cheek. "Let us begin. I will help you through the aftermath, Sandra, but I warn you – the pain will be terrible."
"I am not unused to pain," Shiva said dryly.
"Not this pain," Talia cautioned. "The fear and rage and paranoia afterward are worse. Are you certain this is what you want?"
A low chuckle was her answer. "My other choices are death, or life in a body that has become a cage instead of the finely-honed weapon I trained myself to be. Do it, Talia. I'm ready."
No, you're not, she thought, but stood up, reaching for the chain hoist to lower her in. "Good luck," Talia said, and meant it.
