Chapter 55: Apocrypha

What the hell is taking him so long?

The thought poisoned Catra's mood. She sat in a passenger shuttle idling in the Constable's tiny hangar bay, arms folded and slouched down in her bucket seat. Diallo was late and Taline had told her they couldn't head planet-side without him when Catra had suggested it. Everyone else in the shuttle—Trayn, Keren, a handful of other guards, the analyst team that had been tapped specifically for this mission, and Taline herself—all chatted with one another or, in Taline's case, brooded. Catra seemed to be only one royally pissed off about being made to wait on that asshole.

Finally, he showed.

"S-sorry I'm late, everyone," Diallo said, ambling up the ramp into the shuttle with a genteel expression. "Had some l-last minute preparations t-to attend to."

Taline stood and disappeared through the doors to the cockpit to give their pilot and co-pilot the go-ahead, and Catra side-eyed Diallo the entire way out the hangar. It was only when Pip started buzzing around his head making rude gestures at him that she stopped, fearing she might smile because he couldn't see her.


They were headed for a massive refinery embedded under the Archanas' surface. That much Catra knew, but they'd ridden for nearly an hour without seeing anything of the planet they were to land on: the windows of the shuttlecraft also had their blast doors sealed shut. The artificial lighting inside the passenger bay made Catra feel trapped.

She hadn't even seen pictures of Archanas' surface before. The Vestamid refused to photograph their holy site, and no one else had visitation rights to a still-quarantined world laden with imperial protection orders. Well, there was one person Catra had heard of. The one person purported to have successfully visited after forcibly crashing on the surface was still babbling, insane, and frothing at the mouth years after the Vestamid rescued them—a minor infamous celebrity made permanent resident at a major psychiatric hospital deep in the Heartlands.

The co-pilot stepped through the door leading separating the crew hold from the cockpit and leaned down to whisper something to Taline, seated again near the front. It was only Catra's enhanced hearing that let her hear their exchange over the sound of the shuttle's engine and the muted, nervous conversation from the other passengers: they'd burned through Archanas' atmosphere and were minutes away from their destination.

Taline nodded and whispered something back Catra didn't catch. The co-pilot disappeared back into the cockpit and Taline stood. Conversation died as, one by one, everyone looked at her with anticipation.

"All of you have been chosen as participants in this landing party because of the exceptional mental fortitude scores you earned screening for this mission," she said, looking over each of them. "During transit, procedure has been to prevent anyone from gazing upon the planet we were traveling to. Once we land, however, that will no longer be feasible."

The blast shields covering each of the windows folded up. Sunlight bathed the interior, casting through the windows in great, blinding rays.

"Behold," Taline said. "The final Dead World of the last Beast War."

The vista pulled a gasp from everyone in the shuttle except Diallo. Catra felt rooted to the spot despite already having been strapped into her bucket chair for over an hour.

Archanas' surface looked like a living, roiling ocean had been flash frozen mid storm. Brittle black obsidian veined with red stretched beyond the horizon in every direction. Craggy stalagmite growths and enormous cornices formed from crashing waves stopped in time formed petrified mountain ranges. Their shuttle passed between these at speed as they raced forward.

It was violence, personified and hardened into karsts vast enough to blanket a whole planet's surface. Catra could only stomach looking out the window for a few moments before she had to avert her eyes.

The rest of the landing party had done the same; they were sitting timid, shifting in their seats, avoiding eye contact with everyone else. Only Diallo and Taline were still looking out the viewports: Taline with a cold, unreadable expression and Diallo with unrepentant, near-manic glee.

"Even with Taline here, she can't offset all of the planet's effects," Pip said. "She can't fully protect everyone. It's nearly overpowering."

Catra couldn't disagree.

Just when she started to feel like she wasn't on the verge of emptying everything she'd eaten earlier at the ship's cafeteria out on the floor, the sunlight streaming through the windows disappeared and the lights inside the passenger hold turned on once more. Their pilots had taken them down, an enormous gorge splitting the surface of the planet swallowing them like some terrifying dragon. The canyon that enveloped them was so deep it had eclipsed the sun overhead.

A half dozen landing pads jutted out the side of the canyon wall and their shuttle approached the largest one. Catra could see a group of seven already waiting for them on approach.

The ship touched down. When the ramp leading outside lowered, cool air flooded the compartment, and Catra picked up on a subtle sweet aroma in the air, threaded with an even subtler scent of what she could only describe as bitter almonds. It was alien but not altogether unpleasant, and that wasn't what she was expecting after having nearly had a crisis just looking out the window earlier.

Everyone filed out of the ship onto the landing pad in order, with Diallo, Catra, and finally Taline exiting last. Their greeting party met them a few steps from the ramp.

"Greetings, Taline," the closest person to them said, stepping forward and bowing deep. He wore a dark suit fringed with deep scarlet, while the other six around him wore scarlet robes fringed with black. "I am Larian, a High Primate of the Vestamid and Archbishop of Archanas. Welcome to our holy compound."

Catra looked around at the smooth metal of the compound embedded within jagged obsidian. "This is an industrial complex."

Larian smiled. "What better way to foster a deep and powerful relationship with God than to mine for and refine His holy body?" His response sent something unpleasant shooting down Catra's spine. She shuddered, and Larian regarded Diallo with a glassy-eyed expression. "Governor! It is so good of you to finally visit. I am sure you are happy to at last step foot on our holy place yourself, as well?"

"Ecstatic," Diallo said, cracking a grin that showed all his teeth.

Trayn cocked his head, the fine bony plating on his face coming together to approximate his version of a furrowed brow. "This is your first time here?" he asked Diallo. "But you've been the Governor of this sector of space for years."

"Diallo is our governor in imperial affairs, true," Larian said, "but not even he is granted rights to step foot on our sacred ground for such business. We send delegations to another world within his jurisdiction for all official matters." He turned to Taline, and his tone grew even more effusive. "But for the fabled Seraph of Archanas? Such a visit is an honor none of us had expected to receive."

The more Larian spoke, the better Catra was able to place what about him unnerved her. It wasn't just the glassy expression in his eyes. His face looked artificial, like a great deal of cosmetic surgery had rendered it ill-fitting and tight.

Taline scowled at him. "I'm not here for pleasantries. I've informed you already of my rationale for the sudden visit. I'm to assume you've read the message over already, ahead of my arrival?"

"Of course!" Larian said. "I pored over your message with my inner circle, and our senior-most team of preservationists will ensure your words are recorded for all of history."

Taline winced. "It's only an official notice," she said. "A template letter with my signature is hardly something worth getting worked up over."

"Nonsense. Any communication from the Seraph shall be preserved in our archives for prosperity, no matter how trivial. And I'd hardly say the matter is trivial at all. It's not every day one is under audit over suspicion of having forged a key to the house of God. I'm not sure whether to be offended or amused."

Catra stood bewildered by the whole exchange. She understood how someone like Taline might inspire awe in those with even just a superficial understanding of the previous Beast war. With how peculiar everyone knew the Vestamid to be, she'd even prepared for a certain level of eccentricity on this trip. But preserving Taline's warning to them and speaking of it as if it were a sacred edict? That was beyond weird, and judging by Trayn and Keren's reactions, they felt the same.

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Taline said with finality. "The activity laid out in the notice is serious, and I expect you to provide my team full access to your entire infrastructure. Whatever technology was used to encrypt that message to Administrator Moriarty, we need to perform a full analysis of. A full accounting of the contents of that message is in order as well," Taline said, narrowing her eyes at him. "Some of what was in that drive is…alarming, to put generously. I expect you to help clear up any ambiguity."

"It will be quite a lengthy audit then," Larian said, speaking as one did when they were confronted with an inconvenience they fully expected to run into anyways. "Let my priests conduct their scans, and I will ensure you have everything you need. We will cooperate fully, as we have nothing to hide."

Taline nodded and the robed priests who had accompanied Larian divided the members of Taline's entourage between them. One priest stopped in front of Catra and held up a scanner to her forehead. Pip floated up near it, bent over at the waist and staring at it as if she were examining a home appliance. Catra at first didn't understand why she seemed so intrigued until she remembered Pip had never been off station and hadn't seen how the Beast was screened for at points of intake.

The scanner gave Catra the all clear, and the priest moved on to Diallo. Catra watched them hold the scanner to his forehead, and Diallo seemed amused she was watching him so intently. Catra didn't care. She probably wouldn't have been surprised if he set the scanner off, truth be told, but it beeped clear for him as well and Diallo shot her a smug look.

"Expected m-me to set off the alarm?" he asked, adjusting his glasses. "Sorry t-to disappoint."

Catra scoffed and rolled her eyes when an alarm from a different scanner screeched in warning nearby. She whirled to see who it was. One of the priests was holding their scanner up to Taline just a few paces away.

A commotion broke out. The priests stopped what they were doing, dropped their scanners to the ground, pressed their palms together, and started chanting rushed prayers under their breaths, bowing low to Taline. Catra could tell even amidst the chaos that the prayers were reverential—they weren't scared of her. While the Constable's landing party looked on the verge of panic, the priests were worshipping her right there on the landing pad.

Taline looked like she either wanted to hide under a rock or deck the nearest priest in the face, Larian looked enthusiastic, and Diallo, perhaps not so surprisingly, seemed just as elated.

"That is enough, my friends," Larian said to the priests. They ceased their prayers after another deep bow done in unison toward Taline, and picked the scanners from the ground. "Follow closely," he said to the rest of them. "I will bring you to the main sanctum."

Larian moved for the industrial doors at the back of the platform leading into the canyon wall and Diallo followed after. He looked at Catra as he passed, and the expression on his face said, I told you so. Catra stuck her tongue out at him and he laughed it off.

The priests followed after, but not without another quick bow each toward Taline. She wasn't paying attention, and Catra instead caught her looking back at their landing party with an uncharacteristically forlorn look on her face. Their team whispered frantically amongst themselves, casting secretive glances back at Taline.

Her gaze hardened, and Catra wondered how many times she'd had to do that—remind herself to stay above the whispers and rumors about her, personal, human feelings aside. It seemed almost habitual. Taline turned to follow Larian, but not before locking eyes with her, freezing. The forlorn look returned, and Catra nearly went to her when a shadowy figure moved out of the corner of her vision.

Catra spun around to see who was suddenly trying to sneak up on her and saw…nothing. Just the other side of the gorge, miles away.

::Did you see that?::

Pip floated near her with an equally spooked expression. "You saw it, which means I saw it," she said. "And now I don't see it anymore. I don't like this place."

A large, heavy hand landed on Catra's shoulder, engulfing it, and she almost jumped out of her skin until she realized it was Trayn. The landing party was following Larian and the others, now, and he'd grabbed her attention before they left her behind.

"Did you know about this?" he asked as the group walked together. "Did you know about Taline?"

Catra shook her head. "I didn't."

One of the many analysts looked at her with suspicion. "I don't believe that for a second. You're her new Sentinel. Battlemages don't take Sentinels unless they know each other well." They pursed their lips and narrowed their eyes at her, and Catra wondered if everyone except herknew how Sentinels were commissioned. "Aren't you the one she took in years ago, too? Yeah, I think you're full of shit. You knew Taline was an Abomination and chose not to say anything this whole time? For years?"

"That's jumping to conclusions far too fast," Keren said as the analyst stared wide-eyed at Taline far ahead of them, muttering under their breath about walking into a death trap. "Taline has been one of the most well-respected administrators on Phoenix for years, and she was a war hero that saved countless worlds in the Beast war before. It should come as no surprise she's been saturated, to some extent, but that doesn't make her an Abomination."

"All of us would have been thralls by now if she were," Trayn said.

The others in the group grumbled to themselves, but no one challenged Trayn and Keren. Catra nudged both of them with her shoulder, one after the other.

"Thank you."

To Catra's surprise, despite defending her, neither Trayn nor Keren looked particularly forgiving.

"You swear you didn't know about this?" Keren asked. "You had no idea Taline was tainted enough to set off a routine scan?"

"I promise I didn't," Catra said. "Neither of us had left Phoenix. Not since we came, years ago. She wasn't allowed to without a Sentinel to watch her."

They finally passed through the doors leading into the compound—into the cliff face—and their footsteps echoed around the massive concrete sanctum foyer.

"You were with her when you first arrived," Trayn said. He'd lowered his voice so no one else could hear and Catra was grateful. "She brought the Angel, too. She didn't set anything off back then?"

Catra scrunched up her face in recollection. Taline hadn't brought them through customs or security at all back then. There was no formal security at their point of arrival, and they'd had preferential treatment all the way up through both of them earning imperial citizenship.

When Catra told them as much, Keren and Trayn's skepticism deepened.

"It's…it's not like that," Catra said. "An Abomination wouldn't stick around on Phoenix for three years holding office hours and becoming one of the most popular administrators on the station. You said it yourselves. Of course she'd have been exposed given what she lived through, but that doesn't make her an Abomination. And it's my job to prevent that from happening, now."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I'm not confused and pissed off after this, though." Trayn looked Catra in the eyes and said, "Being saturated enough you set off the alarms? Tell me you're not even a little bit concerned after seeing that."

Catra chewed her lip as they walked. It did bother her. Was she liable to set off alarms even three years ago when they first met? Or was the exposure she'd sustained getting worse? Taline had made it clear as day that Catra would have to be the one to end her if she'd slipped too far. How close were they to that moment, and why had Taline decided not to mention any of this before giving so many people a heart attack?

Diallo's warning echoed in her head. She's not who you think.

Pip floated into view as they continued to walk, no doubt sensing her distress. "Go and talk to her," she said.

::Did you know this was going to happen?::

Pip fidgeted. "I…might have suspected it could happen." When Catra scowled at her, she hurried to say, "I wasn't sure, okay?"

::Why didn't you say anything? Do you know what's happening to her?::

"It's not my place to say! It's personal, and it's not like I'd go around telling everyone about your problems, either. You wouldn't want me integrated so deeply in your head if I did that. You'd fight me." She crossed her arms and shot Catra a defiant look. "Besides, even if I wanted to tell you, how was I supposed to bring it up? 'Hey, here's a random and extremely personal tidbit about this person you've looked up to for years but only just figured out how to approach. Taline's liable to screen as an Abomination because she was—"

Pip's eyes blew wide and she shut her mouth with a click, undoubtedly realizing she was about to spill even more without realizing it.

"You didn't know how to bring up why you avoided her for three years because you thought it was a stupid and embarrassing reason," she said instead. "But you told her when she finally asked. Why can't she have the same kind of trouble figuring out what to say to you? She doesn't have anything to hide, but she's not going to dump her life's story in your lap unprompted. Just go talk to her."

Catra sighed through her nose when she realized Pip might be right. Taline had a bad habit of not saying things, but that didn't absolve Catra of the responsibility to try. She batted away the flashes of smug of course I'm right emotions Pip sent her before power walking to Taline and the others ahead.

She caught up to them just as Larian, Diallo, and the priests rounded a corner, and whatever question had been on the tip of Catra's tongue dissolved into thin air.

A pair of statues stood as the centerpiece to this part of the triple-height room, tall enough they nearly brushed the ceiling. One was another rendition of the Shaper Corynth, standing tall in his mask and robes, one hand outstretched toward the second statue as if to command them to halt.

Catra didn't recognize the second figure, though. Not immediately. It wasn't until the group threaded around the statues toward another pair of doors at the far wall that she got a clear look at the face carved into the stone.

It was Taline. Her expression was twisted in ghastly fury as she gestured to attack Corynth with magic. There had been no statues of Taline on Phoenix, and Catra was surprised to see this one. She didn't like it.

"The Dance of the Revenants."

Larian brought Catra's attention back to the present. The others had caught up, most standing transfixed, staring at the statues like Catra had until Larian had spoken.

"A beautiful work of art, if I do say so myself. It commemorates the Seraph's first fight against the Shaper Corynth was the precipitating event to Armageddon." He turned and spoke to everyone but paid special attention to Taline. "It was only upon the Shaper's return here, to Archanas, that they parleyed with God and negotiated a period of peace. Purgatory. A chance to atone for sins before the World Eater Himself returns. It is this period we have been living through for over the past decade, now."

Someone in their group whispered about how the Vestamid must be insane. They clearly didn't intend for anyone to hear it, but Catra did thanks to her ears. Whether or not anyone else heard, however, she couldn't tell.

"What do you mean by first fight?" Catra asked. There only ever was one. "Saying it like that implies—"

"That there will be a second," Larian said, nodding. "Astute observation. It is prophesized that, upon the eve of the second battle, the doors to God's kingdom shall open once more, our Purgatory shall come to an end, and a new age of Armageddon shall usher forth."

More whispering from the group, met with steely glares from the priests, as if being alarmed by such a statement was itself offensive. Behind her narrowed eyes and pursed lips, Taline was impossible to read, and that worried Catra even more. Was this news to her? Had she known these 'prophesies,' already and that was why she did everything she could to avoid coming here?

"Who says this?" Catra asked, earning Larian's full attention. "Your doctrine? Your holy books?"

"Our patron goddess." Larian spoke with a finality that brooked no argument, like he was reciting naked fact. "Long before God Himself deemed us worthy of hearing His words directly, we received visions from the goddess, instead. Visions of the coming conflict and its key players. Visions of God's judgement, hanging in the balance.

"Many of us thought ourselves insane, naturally. After all, hearing a voice speak in your dreams sounds crazy, does it not? Visions of two great demigods fighting to prove to God Almighty that the living deserve a chance at salvation sounds the stuff of fantasy and fairytale."

"It still sounds that way today," Trayn said under his breath, earning a snicker from those around and a sharp elbow in the ribs from Keren.

"Nevertheless," Larian said, continuing as if Trayn hadn't said anything at all, "once His wrath visited us in earnest, events unfolded exactly as our goddess proclaimed. The Seraph rose to prominence, the emperor was rebuffed and the ancient order of Shapers revealed themselves under the leadership of a new mythic king. We realized our dreams were not a product of insanity, but a divine vision from beyond. A vision from our patron goddess of the Vestamid. It is she who proclaimed the first battle between Seraph and Shaper, and it is she who proclaimed the second."

"Is this the same goddess that told you to create that test tube Abomination on Eden?" Taline had, at some point, pulled away to stare up at her statue with disgust. But when she spoke to Larian, her expression had returned to something unreadable. "Or taught you how to encrypt your message to Moriarty well enough imperial code-breaking software thinks it uncrackable? We know it's encoded the same way the Barrier is maintained."

"Our devotion to the faith and time on this holy site has opened new realms of enlightenment and transcendence," Larian said. "Goddess is gone. The World Eater Himself speaks to us, now." He turned to Taline and said, "It is His teachings that scrambled our message to Moriarty. No one else's"

Taline's eyes widened in surprise, as did Catra's.

::Did he just admit the Beast taught them the Barrier algorithm?::

"That sounds really, really bad," Pip said. "Even for the Vestamid. The Beast is long dead on this planet. Even if its effects are still strong, it wouldn't be able to talk to you, wouldn't it?"

Catra ignored her and went straight to Taline while Larian moved the group past the statues and beyond the next set of doors. He navigated them through a hallway, passing several other priests and Vestamid staffers along the way.

"I told you things would be confusing when we got here," Taline said under her breath to Catra when she got close enough. "Do you understand now why I wanted you to see some of this before answering questions?"

Catra nodded and asked her what Pip had asked about the Vestamid and the Beast.

"I don't know," Taline said. "Whatever it is, it certainly doesn't bode well if they are talking directly to the Beast as Corynth and my sister had. Their goddess is an enigma as well."

"You mean you don't know anything about that?"

Taline shook her head. "I'd never gotten involved with the Vestamid and did everything I could to stay away from them. It's probably not hard for you to intuit why, but that also meant I had no insight into their beliefs or their dogma. I don't know what their goddess is."

"Evie could see backward in time," Catra said. "Maybe—"

"No." Taline set her lips into a thin line and shook her head again. "Evie saw thousands of years into the past, but I'm not aware she could ever interact with anyone, only observe. And her ability to look forward in time was even weaker. She'd warned us of Etheria's coming, but could tell us nothing aside from the fact it would show and that it was important. There's no way she was able to influence enough people to generate a religion out of seemingly thin air."

"They seem to be under no impression that Corynth is really dead, though," Catra said. "They seem to believe it more than you did, and with less proof."

Taline grimaced. "That scares me," she said. "This talk of us confronting one another again as if it were written into some ancient book when I've only just confirmed he's still alive. It's unnerving."

Catra nearly asked about her having set off the scanners earlier, but their group passed through yet another set of wide, sliding blast doors into the large, circular room. The Vestamid's central command center on Archanas was laid out like a college lecture room. Rows of technicians sat at desks, plugging away at computer stations installed in concentric semicircles around an open main floor in the center.

A scaffold supporting dozens of screens dominated the far wall, each displaying different dashboards—different visualized data or heuristics. There was also surveillance footage taken from various other parts of the compound. Catra caught sight of dozens of barracks filled with soldiers, and several hangars full of fighters, ready for take-off at a moment's notice.

Windows ringed the outside edge of the room and gave a clear view of the planet's surface. That also surprised Catra; how had they gone from a landing platform dozens of stories underground inside a ravine back up to the surface of the planet so quickly? They hadn't boarded any elevators, and the short hallway they'd traversed wasn't even built at an incline. Along with the surveillance footage, the whole compound was beginning to feel like an impossibly dense and complicated termite's nest, rather than a well-organized facility.

"We scanned the planet from orbit before coming down here," Taline said to Larian as they pushed further into the command room, the staffers at their consoles watching them as they went. "The captain of my ship thought they'd picked up a surface to orbit canon near the compound but couldn't confirm. Archanas emits too much radiation for our instruments to function properly. But that," she said, pointing out the window, "is unmistakable."

Catra followed her line of sight and saw an enormous cannon jutting out at an angle against the horizon. Even miles away, the thing seemed to rival and even blend in with the mountain-sized karsts cutting across the horizon.

Larian whispered something to the nearest tech in the pit, who then gathered a few of her colleagues from their consoles and gestured for Taline's analysts to follow them to the front. Larian then indicated for Taline and Catra to follow him to the window at the back she'd pointed out of to give them privacy.

"Do you like it?" he asked, once they'd put enough distance between them and the others.

"You have no need for it," Taline said. "No one comes here uninvited, and it's not just because it's a protected site. Why have one?"

"Because God demands it." When both Taline and Catra gave him skeptical looks he laughed and folded his arms. "Oh, come now. You can never be too careful. You never know when the day may come that enough people look at what we're doing here and deem it blasphemous, try to attack from the safety of space, protected designation or not. Merely having a weapon powerful enough to strike back is a strong deterrent."

"The orbital cannons installed on Heartland worlds require generator farms stretching entire city blocks to power," Taline said. "Even having one is cost-prohibitive to a world that has only the infrastructure to support a single installation, no matter how sophisticated. You don't have enough energy to run your operation and keep that thing primed to fire, regardless of what your God demands."

"Supplying power is no issue," Larian said. "Administrator Moriarty expedited our energy project over a year ago now. I believe that was controversial enough it ended up headlining mainstream media for several cycles, no?"

It had. Catra remembered those news cycles well. Dax had even brought it up when they talkeda about half his precinct getting let go.

"I have no idea what you've concocted that lets you power that thing," Taline said, frowning, "but I have serious doubts it works as intended. If the Beast—sorry, if your God is destined to return, as you proclaim it to be, and if that return is inevitable no matter what anyone does about it, why go to all the trouble? Why openly disregard procedure to power a space gun you have no need for other than as a hypothetical deterrent? Especially if it only tarnishes the public's already dubious opinion of the Vestamid?"

"What a question," Larian said, grinning. "Oh, what a question. The 'Beast,' as you call it, may be inevitable, but it is fear and superstition held by nonbelievers that pose the greatest threat to us. Who would not wish to arm themselves against a threat? Despite what the general populace may believe of us, we are not so crazy as to forgo our own protection."

His grin turned predatory and full of manic glee. "Let us not pretend you haven't done far worse than pressure a politician to protect yourself and those institutions you identify with. The very people you served would have put their precious 'Seraph of Archanas' in front of a firing squad had you not spun such atrocities in the name of their self-preservation."

Pip, who had been sitting silently on Catra's shoulder the whole time, shot outraged to her feet and shouted obscenities at him that he couldn't hear. Catra's ears pulled back and she hissed, her claws extending from splayed fingers she held down at her sides.

"I'd be very careful about what you say next," she said.

Larian didn't so much as glance in her direction. Taline's expression remained stony and unreadable, and Catra wondered how she kept it together. They'd only been on this god forsaken planet for less than an hour and she was already about to lose it.

"You mentioned the method you used to encrypt your message to Moriarty was given to you by your God," Taline said. "Did Corynth have anything to do with that process? Is he the conduit?"

"Pardon, Seraph?" Larian seemed to not expect the question.

"He's the only one that might have had any knowledge about its creation. Last I checked, he was still dead, yet you made it very clear we were expected to face each other again in battle. Unless you're communing with the Beast in some other way, there's no other way you would have learned the encryption."

Catra looked at her in surprise. Taline was lying. They'd both seen Adora's message, she was just trying to catch Larian lying to her.

"We have not seen him." Larian seemed confused by the question, which in turn confused Catra. "As far as I'm aware too, he has remained dead after perishing here, although something as trivial as death wouldn't stop a Shaper. I believe that's part of the reason why the statue outside was called 'Duel of the Revenants', yes?" He laughed and nudged Taline with his elbow, to her great annoyance. "Besides, your people will be tearing through our records any moment now. You will see for yourself we are innocent of any crime you believe us to have committed. We've merely been rewarded for our devotion in our faith. That is all."

Larian bowed low and excused himself, saying he wanted to check up on his people and ensure they'd have no issues assisting Taline's analysts. Catra watched him go, then watched Diallo catch him on the way to the front of the control room, likely to pester with questions. Only after she was certain they wouldn't come back and bother them did she sheath her claws.

Taline's stony mask had crumbled—she looked exhausted, facing out the window again, leaning against the windowsill, appearing as if she hadn't slept in days.

Catra reached out a hand to lay on her shoulder by instinct, then forced herself to pull it back before Taline had caught on. "I—"

"You feel it already, don't you?" Taline asked, casting her a sidelong glance. "The air here is toxic. It messes with your head. We can't risk staying here any longer than absolutely necessary, and I don't want anyone who's accompanied us here to experience lasting effects. Even with my protection, this place can still take a toll."

Catra thought to mention the shadow she'd glimpsed earlier out the corner of her eye, but seeing as it hadn't come back and no one else seemed to have noticed it, she decided to go straight to the important questions.

"What happened back there on the landing pad?" she asked. "Why did you set off the alarm when they scanned you? And what the hell was Larian talking about when he said you'd committed atrocities?"

Diallo had mentioned, back when she'd woken up in a cell on Phoenix, how people committed atrocities in the previous war. Hearing Larian praise her as a holy figure one moment then mention she specifically had committed some the next, however, was unnerving.

Taline didn't respond at first. When she stopped looking at Catra to gaze out the window again, Catra thought she might not respond at all.

"It's really a shame Glimmer got stuck with that nickname," Taline said, finally. "'Angel of Archanas' is just unfair, especially considering she's never set foot here. All those journalists that pushed the name saying it inspired hope the same way 'Seraph of Archanas' does…they did so without knowing how I earned that name in the first place. Where it came from. How much it cost."

She stood between two extremes: Her profile cutting sharp relief against the darkness from the control room behind them and the light seeping through the window in front. Catra saw tears welling in her eyes.

"This planet used to be beautiful," she said. "Did you know that? An economic hub. Tens of billions of people living in cities. Beautiful plains with grazing animals stretching for endless miles, only stopping when they sand and those sands hit oceans. Now no one can visit for more than a day without going mad, and the only permanent residents are maybe a few hundred insane zealots, mining the remains of the Beast."

Catra wondered why it sounded as if Taline was blaming herself for the change.

"My team named me Seraph because of what happened the first time I was here," Taline said.

"Your team?" Catra knew she had other Sentinels before. Narre and Miri were never far from her mind, just like they were never far from Glimmer's, but this was the first time Catra had heard Taline talk of them explicitly.

"Before you. Before Narre and Miri, even, although by the time I met you they were the only ones still alive. She leaned forward and put white-knuckled fists on the windowsill to stabilize herself. "There used to be ten, back during the first war."

"The Beast had started to spread here and we were deployed to defend it. Evie had discovered ignominite already so we had a fighting chance of pushing the infection back if we got in fast enough. My group was stationed at a forward base near the shoreline. We were overrun one day…completely overrun. Thralls and troopers everywhere. Then Beast came for me directly. One big tendril of concentrated biomatter out of nowhere. Slammed me against a wall when I was distracted and completely encased me."

Pip was staring glassy-eyed at nothing. Catra couldn't tell whether she was disassociating because she'd heard this story already or not, but she figured she already knew how this story went: Taline had wrestled with the Beast and somehow gotten away alive while it consumed the planet.

"I died here," Taline said, blowing Catra's carefully preconceived guesses to smoke. "Over a decade ago, on this very planet, the Beast killed me."

"But…" Catra gestured at her with two open palms, trying to get her intention across while sputtering. "But you're here. You're alive."

Taline looked down at herself and frowned. It was as if Catra's words had been news to her—news she had to seriously consider as if it were new, revelatory, world-shattering information.

"I suppose I am," she said, halting. "It sure looks that way, doesn't it? But it doesn't feel that way. Hasn't felt that way in years." She looked back up and out the window as Catra felt a beat of magic pulse, her eyes glowing and ley lines appearing on her skin before disappearing. "Never used to be able to do that, before. I keep looking out this window expecting to see a tombstone with my name on it, maybe next to Evelyn's. I keep expecting to wake up."

Catra opened and closed her mouth, trying to find the words. What could you even say to that? Taline mentioned this place fucked with your head, but was it getting to her, now?

"When I woke up, I was told I'd fought it off," Taline said. "I'm not an Abomination, contrary to what our landing party must assume. I have a feeling it's because I know what happened to me. Salas once put it into words. Like a lucid dreamer, he'd said. Someone who knows who they are and knows what reality is well enough to keep their wits about them.

"Suddenly, it was like the rules of magic no longer applied. I saw…too much. I could cast spells without runes, although I wasn't as skilled with it. And when I emerged, I fought off the hundreds of thralls and troopers that had surrounded our position on the beach. Single-handedly. Those under my command pledged themselves to me as Sentinels. They called me Seraph—a high angel." She scoffed, and the disdain on her face was unmistakable. "A savior."

"You did the same thing Corynth did for your sister," Catra said. "I thought he was the only one to ever actually defeat the Beast."

"I was to be a Shaper too, just like him, remember? It was because of that moment they tagged me for reecruitment."

Catra nodded, but something still didn't add up. "You saved the base. Archanas didn't fall."

"I evacuated all the megaliths under my jurisdiction," she said. "Then we left. Myself, my remaining troops, and the few hundred thousand Archanan refugees that were processed onto the ships all left. Immediately. There were hundreds of other evacuation sites still on the planet, but I pulled my people out. They then shuttled me directly back to the Heartlands for a full examination amidst a quarantine. That's when the envoy came, and shortly after that, Evie's trial and my very public falling out with Corynth."

Catra swallowed. It was hard to imagine the whirlwind of change and confusion Taline must have endured from all that. To have survived—maybe in just the literal sense, from how she'd put it—a direct attempt on her sanity by the Beast? Then verifying the existence of a secret cabal of assassins, only to discover someone close had been part of them without saying anything from the start? And then losing her sister…

"I was redeployed to the front lines again after that," Taline said. "The Emperor wanted me out of his sight for failing to stop Corynth and his Daiamid from leaving. Probably expected me to die on the battlefield properly this time. Except now, I'd learned to anticipate the enemy. After rebuffing its attempt to take me, I could read the Beast almost like a well-seasoned commander could anticipate a terrestrial enemy. Before long, I'd gone from commanding ground squads to whole ground-side theaters. Within a year, I was commanding whole fleet operations, maneuvering in terms of systems and regions instead of planets and continents.

"Archanas remained deeply contested, but I'd managed to prevent the Beast from taking many of the other major population worlds, the ones that would have empowered it to win. For several years it never advanced beyond the Kaloshi border—beyond this very planet—because of the tactics and strategy I'd employed in neighboring sectors."

"You're a war hero," Catra said, somewhat breathless. She'd read of her exploits when researching the history of the war, of course, but hearing her speak them made it seem all the more real.

Taline languished under the comment in a way that surprised her. "You can't save everyone, and in a war where every dead ally multiplies the strength of the enemy…you have to make some drastic choices and shoulder some heartbreaking responsibility in turn."

Catra furrowed her brow, but kept silent.

"How many worlds do you think I lost, once I'd assumed command?" she asked. "Did you ever see a number? I know how thorough your interest goes in such history."

"Several hundred at least," Catra said, trying to remember what she'd read in the past. "But the number you'd managed to save was—"

"I only lost one, Catra," Taline said, gently, as if correcting someone for having gotten a minor detail wrong.

"I'm sorry?"

"I lost only one planet. This planet. All others the Beast occupied, I ensured there was nothing around for it to feed on. Those planets they say I saved are accurate—the infection was pushed out or enough were evacuated the media could avoid calling it a tragedy. The Lost Worlds, however, were only lost because we had limited resources and I deemed them not worth the expenditure. And even in that case, I still ensured the Beast had no living material to feed on when it eventually arrived."

Taline finally turned to look at Catra, and there was deep shame in her eyes. Enough Catra held her breath and felt her knees threaten to knock together or give out or both.

"Military leaders still order full-scale planetary bombardments of a planet when and if the Beast is fated to win," Taline said, continuing inexorably forward. "As many refugees as possible are funneled out beforehand, of course, but not everyone makes it. For those that don't, 'Operation Scorched Earth' is enacted to ensure the Beast has nothing to feed on, nothing to grow more powerful from. Colloquially amongst the admirals, it is still called 'Operation Seraph's Wrath.'"

Catra couldn't process what Taline had told her. All the pieces were there, but her brain couldn't get any of them to fit. Almost like it didn't want them to. Then, physically pulling into herself as if to become smaller, Taline, with the most pitiful whisper Catra had ever heard from her, said, "Sometimes I wonder if Salas was wrong. If I really am an Abomination even though I still feel like me, because that's the kind of person—the kind of thing—I am deep down."

Everything in Catra's head screamed at her to say something, to reassure, to alleviate the pain Taline radiated. Even Pip, floating between them and casting frantic looks between them, told her to "say something to her already, please!"

But all the pieces had finally slotted together, all at once. Taline hadn't lost those hundreds of worlds she'd read about. No, Taline had done what she could to save who she could, and turned the weapons of a Galactic Empire on those she couldn't. All in the name of fighting the Beast, of self-preservation.

Taline pulled herself together, elongating herself vertebra by vertebra until she stood tall with an imperious look all on her own. Now it was no longer a question for Catra, how many times Taline had slotted her mask in place over the truth. Now, she knew the answer was too many times to count.

"We lasted for two years," Taline said. "I bought us two years, won through endless battles, endless destruction, endless suffering. So many dead. But the Beast still grew stronger despite my efforts, and eventually it was clear we would lose Archanas, too." She shook her head. "That realization felt like some kind of invisible, inaudible clarion call. Corynth's Daiamid reappeared with Evelynn and her team in tow. And…and—"

She sucked in a strangled breath and a single tear broke free to trace a line down her face. It was the only indication she felt anything at all because all Catra could glean from her otherwise was stone.

"—and I stayed. For once, I stayed, and I ordered everyone I could to stay, even when the Emperor ordered retreat. I stayed and commanded every gun I had to fire at a single spot on the planet." She spread her arms to gesture at the control room at their back and said, "This spot. So their small fleet could get through and end things. And years later…years after this planet turned my heart to glass, I can't help but think"—she swallowed, another crack in the stone—"if I hadn't run away the first time…if I'd stayed behind when the Beast was much weaker and when I'd first fought it off, then—"

Catra finally reached out and grabbed one of Taline's hands gripping the windowsill. She squeezed and squeezed until Taline let go of the windowsill to turn her palm and squeeze back, finally revealing how badly in need of an anchor she was despite the mask.

Everyone else seemed too preoccupied with their jobs to have noticed, but Catra kept a surreptitious eye on them anyway. Keren, Trayn, and the others were guarding the analysts, the Vestamid techs were either working or helping instruct the analysts, and even Diallo was still hogging all of Larian and his priest's attention at the front.

"There's no way he's alive still," Taline said after a moment, her voice ragged and tinged with fear. "I don't want to believe it, I don't. If you'd seen what this planet had turned into that day, you'd understand. Sealing the Beast away turned the hundreds of other Shapers there with him to ash. I saw their outlines with my own eyes, after the battle was done and we touched down.

"Whatever is walking around in Corynth's skin is no longer him. And if that's the case, then he's been like that for years. It's no longer just some mindless creature looking to infect as many people as possible, it's been masquerading as him, concocting some plan no one is even aware of. It even subsumed another Abomination it crossed paths with. That sort of thing, the merging of two centralized infection points like some sort of reverse mitosis…that hasn't happened since the last war, Catra.

"Larian said he hasn't seen him, but I'm certain Corynth's Abomination is still influencing this sect, somehow. The thing is a hive mind, and if it's become powerful enough to hide, then it's become powerful enough to exert its will through the dead parts of itself here on this very planet."

"They did say they'd started hearing it directly," Catra said. "The Beast. No more goddess."

Taline nodded, and was shaking visibly, now. She squeezed her eyes shut and fresh tears flowed down her cheeks. Pip had moved to float by her shoulder now instead of Catra's, and was hugging her despite her not being able to feel it.

"I don't want to fight him," Taline said, her voice breaking. "I wasn't angry the first time we came to blows like that statue might have had you believe. I was terrified. I threw everything I had at him trying to get him to stop, trying to get him to let Evie go, but none of it even phased him. He spoke to me the whole time trying to get me to join them and never once sounded so much as winded.

"Him as a true Abomination? After all these years? I've grown more into my powers after so much time, but…even if I can do more now, I don't know if I could beat him. And if I could…"

She cut off in a way that piqued Catra's interest. There was more there she'd stopped herself from saying. "And if you could…?"

Taline looked away and, in another quiet voice close to a whisper, said, "I'm afraid I wouldn't want to once I saw his face again."

Catra breathed out long and slow, another piece of another puzzle slotting to completion. Taline had pushed such naked, vehement hatred for Corynth every time Catra had brought him up not just because of what he'd done, but because, after all this time, she wasn't entirely sure she really did hate him. Catra herself once had a complete meltdown trying to keep her position in the Horde after Adora had left. Deleting entire world populations to fight an interdimensional enemy and then losing two very important people after years of struggling was almost unfathomable.

She squeezed Taline's hand again, rubbing soothing circles over her knuckles until her shoulders stopped shaking.

"You won't have to fight him alone," Catra said, turning back to Taline. "We'll finish here and get off this stupid planet, then we'll figure out what to do about Corynth and Adora. I'll be there with you."

There was disbelief in her eyes when Taline looked at her again, but it was far more preferable than stone and steel. Catra couldn't find it in herself to label Taline a bad person, deep down. As horrible as the acts she'd confessed to, someone in this much pain from having committed them couldn't be evil in Catra's eyes. In fact, she saw her as brave and strong for putting on such a brave face. She didn't think even Adora could do that for more than a few minutes, let alone over a decade.

"I see your new Sentinel is just as loyal as the old ones," came a voice.

They both spun around to see Larian standing before them. Catra had no idea when he'd left Diallo or how he'd snuck up on them.

"I'd heard about what happened to Narre and Miri," Larian said. "Loyal help is hard to find, so you have my belated condolences. I hope the same fate doesn't befall you." This last he said with a bow to Catra.

Taline turned away and hid her face, and Catra decided that was her cue to handle whatever bullshit he'd come to them with and spare her. "What do you want?" she asked.

"Your team has everything they need to conduct a full analysis of our systems," he said. "But it will take time for them to comb through everything. Since the Seraph expressed such interest in how we power our orbital canon, I'd thought it prudent to offer a tour of our newest addition to the facility."

Catra glanced to Taline who only gave a small nod of assent as she rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palms.

"Excellent," Larian said, turning on his heel and gesturing for them and the priests to follow him again. "This way, please."

Catra gently pulled Taline away from the window and guided her to follow Larian's wake, then gestured for Trayn and Keren to come as well, and that was when she glimpsed six shadowed figures, swaying idly nearby.

They weren't at the corners of her vision like the first one was, and they didn't disappear when she looked directly at them, either. They were a clear fixture of the control room, standing feet away. Each had unblinking eyes of white set into their featureless faces. Catra couldn't shake the feeling they were all looking right at her. Her apeiron tied to its lanyard was warm to the touch, pressing against her breastbone.

One look at Pip confirmed she could see it too. Taline had warned her this place would play on her mind. The shadows turned to watch as she walked past, and Catra ignored them, heart pounding in her chest. She tried not to think of them at all as she followed Taline and the others to wherever Larian was taking them.