Chapter 77: The Glassfields

"I can't accompany you any farther."

Ikharos kept his mouth shut. He doubted he could manage anything approaching polite where Uren was concerned. Something had... snapped. Gone was the relief, and comfort, the assurance of another Guardian - another free Risen. All that was left was anger and mistrust, dismay and disregard. Uren - making a plan as he had, like the lives of everyone who'd died were currency. They were humans, not Cabal! They were supposed to care for their own!

The Cabal, ironically, were equally caught off-guard by the announcement. Invoctol leaned forward, hands bracing against the edge of the war-room's massive holotable, and trained a cold, intense one-eyed stare on the errant Hunter. "You seem to be under the impression that you have a choice."

"Don't I?" Uren snarked, then shook his head. "I can't. I've pushed too much to get you this way - and having you involved with Samil was a stretch too far."

"Samil is dead," Formora coldly stated.

"I am aware. Do you understand how much attention that's going to draw?"

"How many others are there?" Lord Bellaen sharply asked. His arms were folded and pale eyes narrowed. The man moved with all the precise, methodical purpose of a stalking house-spider. "How many... gods?"

Uren shrugged. "A few. Nezarec's their prince, and the others... There's Ezyrax, his mate, and Dervales, his personal artisan. Samil was a follower of Dervales - a... a mere patron of the arts where the other was a master sculptor. Tirahn can tell you more; he's more intimately familiar with their command structure."

"Yeah, you said. A Harmony," Ikharos mused. He shifted, contemplating throwing his legs up onto the table and deciding against it - besides annoying the Cabal, it would probably jostle his cast-confined arm. "You want us to talk with a Harmony."

Uren frowned. "I've already told you - Tirahn and his people don't like Nezarec any more than we do. They're willing to help. They already have helped."

"Helped you."

"Yes."

"Yeah, see, that's where I'm a little less sure it's in our interest."

Uren scowled. "Tirahn knows how to break into Kallond. You need him."

"What's Kallond?" Zhonoch gruffly inquired.

"The Harmonic nation, colony, territories, domain, et cetera. You're just about to tread the Glassfields now - the borders of Ezyrax's queendom."

Shu'av grunted, unimpressed. "You know this place."

"I do."

"And you want to abandon us? Take your experience with you? Seems to me like you don't want this venture to succeed."

"Do you have a map?" Däthedr neutrally asked, glancing between all parties present - elves, Cabal, a pair of Eliksni (Javek and Beraskes) and then to Ikharos and Kida. "None present bar yourself know these lands."

Uren hesitated. "I haven't been this way in millennia," he cautiously explained. "I can... I can give you some pointers, though I don't doubt some things have changed."

"Enemy strongholds?" Ikharos questioned. "That's what we're aiming for. That's what the Hive will be aiming for."

"How do the Hive detect their prey?"

"Magic," Ikharos said with the barest of shrugs.

Uren pursed his lips. "Then they'll probably be heading to Albazad first."

"Ezyrax's holdfast."

"Her stronghold and church. Albazad is..." Uren trailed off and grimaced. "To the Strife, Albazad is their Catholic Rome, their Muslim Makkah al-Mukarramah, their Martian neo-imperial Freehold. It's the beating heart of their worship, their sacred altar. I've never actually seen it myself, but... I've felt it. The Mourning Grove was borne from a seedling stolen from their grand cathedral. That was the seed - and Albazad is the mother-forest."

Ikharos lifted his chin, eyes narrowing. "It's Dark, then?"

"Darker than anywhere you've been before."

"I doubt that." Ikharos shook his head. "I've been to some gloomy places."

Uren tightened his jaw. He drew in a strained breath and moved on. "Tirahn's people reside in the Aerie, the Steeples, the Roost, the Three-Spear Peaks."

"As in multiple-"

"All the one location," Uren elaborated. "It's just outside the jurisdiction of Oracen Station, and both are to the west of the northward path to Albazad."

"So the Hive marched past," one of the Uluru officers surmised. "Then we must do the same."

"You'll crush your demons between yourselves and Albazad," Uren pointed out, "but the Exominds and Frames of Oracen will do the same to you. The bulk of compromised ExSec troubleshooters are garrisoned there."

"And what about the ExSec we picked up?" Ikharos finally asked. "Any advice on what to do with them?"

Uren hesitated. "You'll have to refresh most at Oracen," he admitted. "It's the only place with the facilities and stored synth-components to repair an Exomind subject. The others... will need something else. Their minds are fractured. Perhaps beyond saving."

Däthedr cleared his throat. "I and mine will see to them, dauthnéya, and mend their minds if we can."

Ikharos spared the elf a hesitant nod of thanks. "Be careful," he murmured. "We don't know if there's anything hiding in their thoughts."

"We will work with the utmost caution."

"Take a Psion." Ikharos glanced at Invoctol. "Spare an Optus for an anchor-point?"

Invoctol straightened up. "Will this yield valuable information?"

"They're some of the last non-possessed soldiers who once upon a time fought against the forces of Nezarec. What do you think? Yes, it'll yield something."

Invoctol narrowed his eye. "So be it. I will send a Flayer."

Ikharos pursed his lips. Shit. "Okay. But nothing sneaky, now; this isn't a good time to go stabbing each other in the backs."

"I wasn't considering it," Invoctol curtly replied.

The meeting was soon adjourned. The Cabal had themselves a couple more hissy-fits, but in the end, he imagined, they realized they didn't really have a choice. Or, at least, they presumed they didn't. They presumed that Ikharos was going to take Uren's side and ensure he left their custody without a scratch - whereas he just plain didn't give a crap. He wasn't usually in a mood to side with extraterrestrial walrus-people even on a semi-regular basis, but neither had Uren done anything to earn his goodwill. Xiān probably would have told him to suck it up and play nice if they had been on talking terms, but he wasn't keen on hearing her advice in the first place, so...

So Uren packed up his things and Ikharos didn't stick around to give the errant Hunter a farewell. He made his way to the top of the Amarz Amalz, where Psion sharpshooters and Uluru Legionaries patrolled and kept an eye out for encroaching dragons, and walked to the very edge of the Land Tank. Just to watch the snowy tundra creep by and the mountains behind disappear. Just to get a taste for the power in the air.

Lo and behold, he didn't even have to strain himself to catch a whiff of Dark. Nothing he wasn't expecting, but it was there. A sliver of anti-Light. Oppressive. Poisonous. Vile. It brushed against him, as rough as the scales of a viper, and collected around him as a cloud of patiently waiting viral particles - hoping to see him fall in the foreseeable future, to feed on whatever was left of his Light. It fought with the metaconcert hanging around him too, the sea of unified psionic awareness, trying to find some give and needle itself inside but ultimately coming up short.

At least the view was nice.

The tundra that spread out for miles and miles and miles in almost every direction was a hazardous thing for the Amarz Amalz to traverse. A couple of sonar-scans had revealed that the snow-packed plains were not, in fact, so flat or promising. It was pockmarked with potholes the size of lakes, frozen over but in no way fit to take the weight of the Imperial Land Tank. It left them trundling in a zig-zag fashion, stealing away all attempts at haste and leaving them trailing behind the Hive that had surely come through before them. Beyond that - the place was spectacular. The snows were pristine and often crystalized into fields of soft icy flakes. A cold wind blew in from the west, probably so frigid it was painful, but the enchanted clothes gifted to him by the elves (to make do with while he and Javek were still poring over how to either repair his armour with their limited Glimmer stockpiles or forge a new set entirely) ensured it fell on him as a cool summer breeze.

Magic was amazing. Magic was wonderful. Magic was terrifying. For all its potential for quality-of-life improvements, it was still the most dangerous weapon Ikharos had ever come across - bar none. It left him feeling uneasy, because not only was it falling into the hands of Eliksni and Cabal (for which he anticipated mixed results at best), but the Hive stood to learn its secrets as well. According to Formora, Melkris's own killer had used the Harmony words as it set itself upon the two of them.

If knowledge of the ancient language got offworld, reached the Sisters or the Worm Gods, then...

No. He didn't want to think about it. That was something better left un-thought.

A hand pressed against the base of his back. Ikharos was jolted out of his reverie, then relaxed when Formora's mind brushed against the borders of his own - radiating camaraderie and unity and so much more. "What are you thinking about?"

"Is he gone yet?" Ikharos inquired right back, pretending to not have heard.

Formora gave him a knowing sidelong look - but she let it slide. "No. Not yet. He's... what's the word, uploading? Uploading information for Invoctol. Javek's acting as the intermediary; they're using Eliksni technology to store the data."

"Keeping it away from the Land Tank's mainframe," Ikharos noted. "Probably wise."

"In case he isn't what we think he is?"

"Exactly."

"I believe him, though."

"You don't like him," Ikharos pointed out.

"Yes. That's because I believe him. He'll be with us some minutes more, then he'll leave," Formora quietly explained. She paused. "So what do you think we should do next?"

Ikharos thought it over. "Uren's right about one thing: we can't leave Harmony garrisons behind us. Not if we really want to hit Albazad. Oracen has to go, one way or another."

"What if there are others?"

"Then we hit them too. Oracen might help us there - could have the coordinates of other strongholds logged in its databases. I could head there right now, hide myself with Void and Promethean Code, and hope to the Traveler above there aren't any Shades around to sniff me out while I plant charges."

"I'm sensing you're leading on towards an alternative," Formora drily remarked.

Ikharos smiled despite himself. "Maybe I am. Oracen's an Exo garrison, right? That's Golden Age tech - an Exodus-programme installation. There's got to be tech there, weapons, the works. Golden Age stuff. Hell, they could have maltech-grade military equipment. Most ExSec forces had 'em, back in the day. That's the best kind of hardware. So, yeah - if we don't burn Oracen down, we could link it back up to Scipio's own mainframe. Or even keep it for ourselves."

"But that would take work," Formora observed. "More work than simply razing the place."

"Yeah. So the question we really need to ask ourselves is - do we have enough to break Albazad right now? Enough soldiers, weapons, power?"

"No."

"Well, okay, now look, you didn't even take a moment to think-"

"Ikharos," Formora said warningly. "You know it as well as I do."

Ikharos's smile died. He nodded with grave understanding. "Samil was one Ascendant - powerful, but alone. Ezyrax is bound to be an even bigger headache to deal with, and if she has friends..."

"Would your maltech help with that?"

"Maltech's corporeal weaponry. Mortally-effective, immortally-mundane. Meh, I don't know. I mean, I could try it." Ikharos hesitated. "It'd be more useful for dealing with the rest of the Strife-forces - someone could buy some time long enough for me to catch their gods alone."

"Or I," Formora added.

"I'd wholly rather you didn't, but... I mean, you did fantastic work with Samil, so look, I suppose we'll play it by ear." He exhaled slowly and went back to watching the horizon. There wasn't much to see - the sun was hidden behind a thick veneer of low clouds and distant mists, with only the occasional dim ray of light seeping through to bounce off the snow below.

"Sometimes..." Formora sighed. "Sometimes, I try to imagine a world where none of this was... this."

"Harmony?"

"And the Dark. And... everything beyond our world."

"'Beyond your world' stuff made you."

"I imagined it, I said. Leave me my fantasies."

"Ah." Ikharos nodded. "And?"

"I imagined us."

"Me and you?"

"Yes. Us, with all our secret knowledge, with all our present skills, reshaping it into a better place."

"Where is this going, 'Mora?"

"Our fight is nowhere near over. There are hurdles ahead of us, big ones, but... when it's over, this world will be broken to its core. We'll need to be there. Be ready to fix it."

"I've been giving that some thought too," Ikharos said after a moment's hesitation.

"Oh?"

"We can't let any of this get out."

Formora looked at him. "What do you mean?"

Ikharos briefly closed his eyes. "This ancient language, the Harmonic tongue, the magic... it's too strong. It's too malleable. We - you and I - can effectively manipulate reality based solely on how strong we physically are. But that... doesn't matter to interstellar empires built on hard science. To hordes of shrieking, incalculable gods. If this magic gets out, even a little - then the enemy, no, the Enemy, will learn about it. Will learn its workings, its limits - and realize it has none. Then we'll have lost and everything will die. I can't let that happen."

"How will you ensure that?" Formora warily inquired.

Ikharos met her guarded gaze. "I think we'll have to strike a bargain with Scipio. When all this is over, anyways."

"You'll keep us under siege?"

"I don't think we have a choice. I want to go home. I..." Ikharos looked away, grimacing. "I miss home. I miss... I miss my people. I miss those I used to care about. I want to say goodbye, at least, to apologize for all I've done. I want to make amends. I want to help them, give them a better solar system than the one I left them with. But I don't think I'll get that chance. But I'm not going to get that option. 'Mora, there are things out there, in the cosmos, that I... look, I don't even want to know about them. I can't give them the keys to the entire universe. I just... can't let that happen."

"... I wanted to see the stars," Formora said softly. "A part of me wanted to leave this all behind, see other worlds. Understand the trace-origins of my own existence."

"Oh, I know. And you deserve to. Hell, I'd say you more than deserve to see Earth. But I can't bring you there. I can't let anyone here do that."

"Why us?"

"Because we know the ancient-"

"I mean... this." Formora gestured first out to the white open tundra, then to the Imperial Land Tank, and then to the two of them. "Why have we been pressed into this venture? Why are we duty-bound to this? Why... why us? Why us in particular. I never... wanted or sought any of this."

Ikharos swallowed thickly. "My situation's a little more clear-cut - I'm a sacrifice, a pawn, so... yeah, I was always meant to get mixed up in all this. I guess you were just unlucky."

"You're not a pawn."

"But you definitely are unlucky."

Formora pursed her lips. "I suppose I am."

"... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said-"

"Do you ever consider the life that came before yours? The first you?"

Ikharos felt a gulf of... something open up within him. "I do now," he said softly. "When I let my guard down."

"Why is that?"

"Because one of the, um... Ahamkara that hit us yesterday got hold of a Psion. Used it as a conduit to pull some hallucinogenic shenanigans. Felt real, too." Ikharos exhaled slowly. "Either that dragon was a quick study, or they pulled something from my 'spectral-hereditary subconsciousness'."

"Your what?"

"I'm just making up words - whatever remnants of Ikharos I's psyche didn't degrade along with... you know, the rest of his body. I was bones when Xiān found me. Not much left to recycle, right? But the dragon sold me a dream, and I'm not yet sure if it was a con or not."

"And... what did it show you?"

"A woman. A child. Classic, that. Best way to strike at the heart - invoke a familial scene. Good guess, too. Really making me doubt myself - my worth, anyways. People who've never existed and I've already fallen for them," Ikharos admitted. "That or the drake had a little peek inside and just rolled with the real thing, which I'm trying not to consider because it's quite frankly way too unnerving. Those bodies I saw next to me on wake-up... well, that's not the only card I keep close to my chest. Don't like the idea of a dragon learning my every little secret, dead or no."

"We all have our terrible secrets," Formora said warily. She was watching him - he could see it out of the corner of his eye. Cautious. Unreadable.

"Meh, I have some pretty bad ones. I've buried people. Some of them died on me. Others... others I helped along. The grave's a one-way trip for most, and when I was young I was more than willing to speed those journeys up if people wouldn't leave me alone. A part of me's afraid of that - of being exposed. Murderer, I hear. Murderer. Murderer. But then there's the others - the demons, real-life ones, who left shadows of themselves to stalk between my every waking and occasional dreaming thoughts. Oryx haunts me. Dûl Incaru is my curse. The Witch played me like a puppet on long, long strings to crack open a hole and let the Taken through. And now - Nezarec's little worker bees throw open the door to terrible truths, show me what I am at my core. A walking mass grave. Power built on death. On murder. Built on the act of killing another living, breathing, thinking entity. To cut its life short - to end it. And I have the fucking audacity to kill some more."

Ikharos sighed. "It's hard to be alive. This universe of ours doesn't make it easy."

"No, it doesn't." Formora exhaled and leaned against him - her head resting on his shoulder. "I'm sorry you died."

"Hm?"

"I'm sorry you were killed. That you had a maybe-family and lost it. I am sorry."

"Is this the part where you tell me to 'perk up, you are loved, you are not evil, now go kill some bad guys'?"

"More or less."

Ikharos kissed the crown of her head. "Alright. I'll go get this armour and hand situation sorted. Coming?"

Formora said nothing.

"Is that a no?"

"I think we're being watched."

"Mites?"

"No. I spun a ward around the Amarz Amalz. Something is... studying it. "

Ikharos nodded slowly. "Okay... Bad guy, then?"

"I'm not sure." Formora looked around. Stopped. Stared ahead. "Now I am."

Ikharos followed her line of sight. Nothing much. Just more ice and snow. And then more snow. And a little more ice after that. A couple of dark rocks peeking up from below. A tiny distant shape that could have been a rock, but if so it had a twin-pronged peak that looked remarkably like the backswept horns of a Harmony.

"Ah," Ikharos said. He thought it to be the height of profound insight to ever be vocalized in such a succinct and direct manner.

Formora, unfortunately, was not amused and summarily ignored the comment. The dull sense of pressure at the base of Ikharos's skull - the one that had been there since first boarding the Land Tank - fluctuated. She was speaking with the Psions' metaconcert. He didn't dare try to listen in; a dragon having gotten into his mind was bad enough, but Cabal? They lacked the subtlety necessary to leave him alive afterwards. They didn't play with their food before devouring it. Not like Ahamkara were wont to.

"I'll go fetch my sword," Ikharos said. "Left with Javek, pretty sure." He watched the distant Harmony - but it fired no spear nor, as far as he could tell, wove any spell. Just stood there. Watching them.

Strange.

"Grab my rifle for me," Formora said, distracted. Her hand was on the pommel of her sabre - tightening on the gemstone forged into it.

"Will do."

000

She strode out, armed and flanked by Cabal shieldbearers. Valus Shu'av led the march through the snowbanks, trodding with near single-minded intent. His great quaking steps left hollows in the powdery white, which Formora made great efforts to slip around lest she trip in. The snows were high, and the Cabal were heavy - and she was well adapted, with a pair of specialized spells, towards flitting over the surface of the difficult terrain as easily as a winter fox.

Her helmet and armour kept out the most of the cold, but little elements of it - snaking little drafting currents - pulled at the edges of her plating and tried to find a way inside her biosuit. The winds were brutal, though largely blocked by the towering forms of Uluru on either side, but that didn't absolve her of all its ceaseless punishments. The gales swept in from north, dry but kicking up flakes of frost from the ground ahead. It tugged at her shouldercape, at her rifle, at the belt strapping her sword to her hip - and it refused to abate for even a single precious moment.

This was not a place of life. Beautiful it may have been, Ikharos had the right of that with his little grumbling complaints, that it was still as inhospitable - if not moreso - than the Hadarac Desert so far to the south. It was an easy thing to understand simply why no elf, man or dwarf had ever marched north to navigate the uncharted territories beyond the scope of Du Weldenvarden, as there were few ways for them to even survive the trip. Only the magic of particularly well-instructed elves or human Riders would have prevailed against the summer blizzards, and even then, Formora doubted they would have made it much farther. Not without the insulative and self-heating garb designed by their forgotten ancestors, the unlucky colonists of the ill-fated Exodus Prime. Or the assistance of Cabal and Eliksni - who took to the savage conditions in stride. Even Ikharos seemed a little more at ease with the elements than she'd anticipated. When she'd prompted him about it some hours earlier he'd cited something about having "lived some years in Old Russia." A dead nation of his birth-world, she'd learned soon after.

Not for the first time, Formora wondered about his home, the mythic world he called Earth - the cradle of humanity, the unexpected birthplace of her people's entire ancestry.

Humans, she mused. Her ancestors were humans.

A strange thing to contemplate. Very strange.

And who did she have to thank, or at least consider for the changes that enlightened and addled her elven forebears in equal parts? That was easier to believe, despite being harder to stomach - for one of those very architects waited ahead of them, watching.

Watching.

Watching.

It stood ankle-deep in the snow - a testament to its own size, for even the massive Shu'av was sinking down to his knees in the lulls between the gently rising waves of flowing snowdrifts. It hefted no spear, bore no wings. It looked as she expected it to look - unaltered, a simple Harmony at its core. Its single crystalline eye glittered in the pale light of the sun above, without sclera or pupil or iris - a maw to eat light and to feed on the gradients of spectral colours.

The winds, surprisingly, finally let up as they closed in. Formora felt the change - and detected the magic at work almost as quickly, lifting a bubble around them all to shelter them from the worst of the elements. The Harmony, little more than a half-mile away, lifted its metal arm almost as if to greet them.

The Cabal came to a halt and raised their weapons. Even Beraskes, padding along unseen by Formora's side, paused and pulled her swords free with a muffled shriek of metal on metal.

"Wait," Formora said. The Psion accompanying them, a mere Optus, heard her and trilled through his metaconcert. The Cabal held their fire.

Nothing happened. The Harmony dropped its hand. No magic had been cast. No words had been uttered. Unspoken spells were certainly a possibility, but Formora didn't believe the silver giant had done so. She stepped forward, briefly touching the back of Shu'av's wrist to alert him to what she was doing, and strode ahead - out of the protection of the shield-contingent. When still nothing occurred, she wandered ever further, emboldened by the Harmony's inaction.

The giant watched her approach. It could have been male, it could have been female, it could have been neither; as she understood it they lacked not only apparent sexual dimorphism, but sexual organs and reproductory systems entirely - or so Ikharos had reported after his dissection of Midha. Some of the giants evidently took engendered personas, given how she'd heard them and others refer to individual Harmony, but whether they had true genders or only adopted it as another layer of projected identity was unknown to her.

The Harmony, slowly, raised out its arms as if to embrace her - but it stayed where it was. Formora stopped, keeping a fair distance from the giant, and tightened her hold on her wire rifle.

"Helgr systa," the Harmony said, softly and yet clear for all. "Eka astorí ono." (Hallowed sister. I welcome you.)

"Don't you dare," Formora muttered. She knew it could hear her. "You have no right."

"Maerr älfa-kona-" (Noble she-elf-)

"Take up your spear and fight," she all but demanded. Her rifle raised up - scope aligning with the giant's crystal eye.

The Harmony slowly dropped its hands back to its sides. "No," it said, softly. "I will not strike against you."

"Do you really believe that will prevent me from killing you?"

"I do not know, but I hope so." The Harmony glanced around. "Vae nàta néiat standa hérna wiol lang. Thornessa ília er néiat heill wiol ono." (We cannot stay out here for long. It is not safe for you.)

Formora adjusted her aim and pulled the trigger. The Arc bolt splashed over the Harmony's shoulder. The shrill scream of the shot echoed far and wide across the howling tundra.

A warning shot, she told herself.

But the giant didn't retaliate.

Simply asked, "Hvaët er onr nam?" (What is your name?)

Formora didn't reply.

She wanted it to fight.

She wanted to have justification.

All she needed was a single excuse.

And the Harmony, the smug alien, refused to give her one.

"Eka eddyr Oirech, sönr abr Tirahn. Sönr abr Midha. Bródir abr älfya," the Harmony said. "Eka eddyr ilia eom maeta ono. Eka iluma malabra ono né haina, maerr älfa-kona." (I am Oirech, son of Tirahn. Son of Midha. Brother of elves. It is my utmost pleasure to make your acquaintance. I truly mean you no harm, o noble she-elf.)

It had a name. It had a gender. Informative, both.

And it had a parent she'd seen killed, alongside at least one sibling, for the crime of serving Nezarec - and killing those who'd never once bothered them for the pleasure of it.

That was almost excuse enough.

Almost.

Oirech seemed to understand just that - watching her grip on the rifle tighten, tremble, wanting to open fire and forcing herself to stay her hand. At least until she had a good reason.

"I surrender," the Harmony whispered. "I surrender to you."

Formora lowered her wire rifle. Stepped back. Said to Shu'av, "Do what you will."

The Colossus slowly looked from her to Oirech. "Can we bind it?" he grunted. "Can we cage its magic?"

"I don't know. I don't."

There was a significant pause.

"Someone call the Primus," Shu'av gruffly ordered.

Oirech was cuffed and bound in a bubble of psionic energy. Formora didn't know how else to describe it; it was a field of crackling power manifesting as an electrified sphere around the silver giant. Three Psions, Flayers by her understanding, floated around it, keeping it up - until the rest of the Amarz Amalz rolled their way and stopped for the night. Uluru began lugging out portable barricades and shield generators, while lesser Psions swept the snow from the ground with their very thoughts. Some of her own people, curious and agitated from being inside so long, offered to help - and help they did, until there was ample room for a camp to be set up.

Invoctol didn't want the Harmony inside the Land Tank.

Formora understood his reasoning completely. She sat aside, leaning by a dark rock jutting out of the ground, and watched the proceedings with idle interest. She had her rifle drawn across her lap, ready to be raised in case Oirech lashed out - and she was all but certain he would.

"Hey."

Formora barely glanced up. She muttered another spell, swatting aside the snow on the ground beside her, and Ikharos all but collapsed down next to her. He passed her a metal flask. She rotated the lid until it slid off, took a whiff of the steam rising out and sighed happily. It was tea - brewed from the leaves of home.

"I'm used to teabags," Ikharos whispered. "Ästrith had to help me. I'm pretty sure Arahynn was laughing at me the whole time."

"I'd laugh at you too."

"Ouch."

"You're over three hundred years old. You should know how to make tea."

"Oh, I make tea. But your elven stuff is weird."

Formora hid her tired smile behind a sip. The warmth of it suffused her exhausted muscles with a revitalized strength - but her listlessness came from the mind, not the body, and refused to be banished. "I thought you were preoccupied with-"

"My hand's gone," Ikharos mused. "I'm still trying to come to terms with that. I've just... I've been crippled. For good. I've lost my hand."

"You don't sound bothered."

"I've been dismembered in the past. My usual gut-reaction to injury is to forget about it. It happens - got to move on. But I'm trying to move here, mentally, and I can't. Because... yeah."

"Did you discuss it with the Eliksni?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah. Prosthetic's in the works. Javek and Piriikse had themselves a look at me - just to make sure they could work with what was left. Human and Eliksni nerve-endings and the like aren't that different, but the minutia's still important. Doesn't matter what I get in the end, I need my dexterity."

"Are your people accustomed to prosthetics?" Formora asked warily.

Ikharos shrugged, arm brushing her shoulder. "When your entire conceptual existence is 'fight, die, live again', the loss of body parts usually isn't expected to stick. Couple of City folk had them, though. The Tower's primary ship-wright included, with her own metal leg. And Eliksni aren't new to it either; old Variks of Judgement had himself a couple of mechanical arms. After Skolas had ripped his primary limbs off."

"That's... what we fought in Ceunon," Formora said. "The memory of Kiphoris' old Kell."

"That's the one."

Formora nodded to herself. "When will it be ready?"

"Soon, I expect. You know Javek, and Eliksni at large. These types of projects don't take them long."

"They're an intuitive kind."

"Yep." Ikharos's voice fell. "The same could be said about... that thing over there."

Formora didn't need to look to know Ikharos was staring at where the Cabal had penned Oirech in a makeshift cell of raw energy and sharpened thoughts. "It surrendered."

"Yeah, I heard. It's throwing me for a loop."

"I want to kill it. But..." Formora hesitated. "It's easy, when they're trying to kill us. Kill others. Serve their god. They leave us little choice then."

"But...?"

"When I do get the choice, I become a coward."

"What do you mean?"

"I should have killed it," Formora muttered. "I should have. I have every right to. But it surrendered."

Ikharos said nothing.

"I didn't kill it."

"Was it guilt?"

"No, it..." Formora exhaled and closed her eyes, leaning her head back. "I don't know."

Ikharos started quietly humming a tune she didn't know. She leaned against him, glad for the company, and listened to it. A short time passed, filled with a companionable silence.

"We're killers," Ikharos said suddenly.

Formora grimaced. "We've had this talk before."

"No, that's-... Yeah, I mean. But... we have scruples, don't we?"

There was the faintest hint of a quiver in his tone. Formora wondered if she was only imagining it, or if it was actually there.

"I hope so," she said quietly. Then, "I think so."

"There are lines we don't cross."

"I've killed those who'd surrendered before," Formora pointed out.

Ikharos paused. "So have I," he admitted. "I've killed unprovoked more times than I could count."

"But I didn't kill... that."

"You could be feeling guilty."

"Is that what you think?"

Ikharos shrugged again. "Maybe. I'll go out on a limb - ha - and point out that your colourful past was a touch less 'self-determined' than mine."

"You can say it."

"What?"

"That I was a slave," Formora said matter-of-factly.

Ikharos shifted uncomfortably. She dragged an arm around his shoulders to keep him still. "Right. Yeah. But you... Look, you still blame yourself for a lot of it. Completely understandable, even if I don't agree."

"You don't?"

"Wasn't your choice."

"But still my doing. Some of the blame lies with me." Formora grimaced. "I wonder if Islanzadí was right. If I really am a dangerous influence."

"'Mora, this planet is sick. There's genuine monsters here. A dangerous influence seems, oh I don't know, the perfectly reasonable response. Stop beating yourself up."

"Have you made amends with Xiān yet?"

Ikharos let out a heavy breath. "Really?"

"What?"

"You don't like where this conversation is going, clearly, but to swing it back to me? That's cruel."

"I need to know."

"What's your interest?"

"I care about you - both of you. Is that not reason enough?"

Nothing happened for a while. Nothing was said. They sat there, shielded from the cold only by virtue of biosuits and weak wards. The snows above fell onto the layer of the atmospheric shielding the Cabal had set up - an even larger bubble to protect their little interrogation camp from the worst of the elements. The winds just kept howling through, though, and with them the sharp nip of winterly chill.

Then a small ball of warmth manifested in Formora's hand. Heated fins pressed against her gloves, her fingers folding over the snug feeling on instinct alone. She pulled Xiān closer, between herself and Ikharos, and held her out far enough for him to notice.

The two of them just looked at each other. Xiān's gaze was guarded, apologetic - and Ikharos's was hard, displeased.

"I'm sorry," Xiān said.

Ikharos didn't deign to offer her a reply. He rose up, rolled his shoulders to banish the cold, and said to Formora, "I'm going to check up on the Harmony's restraints, then see if Javek has an update for me. Hope you enjoy the tea."

He left. She watched him go, disappointed but not surprised. Kept holding Xiān until the Ghost lost her nerve and decompiled - retreating, wounded and abandoned.

Formora was starting to fear it was a bridge she could not mend.

000

His arms hurt. His legs too, along with his shoulders, stomach and chest. Even his skull felt... compressed. The chitin sloughed off of him slowly, cracking and flaking at an unhurried pace as the hours rolled by. Kiphoris was bedridden for the extent of it, having stripped off his armour and biosuit to let his body get it over with. The ache was familiar, but heightened. He couldn't recall the growing-pains of the past ever being so... awful. Not even his second molt.

A blanket had been cast over him, along with a heater. A rebreather had been affixed to his face, feeding him cold, cold ether. It was a luxury he'd once thought beyond his station - but now that station had moved up.

His mouth felt dry.

He was so thirsty.

So... so hungry.

He felt too hot. The blanket was smothering.

He felt too cold. Every waft of recycled air made him shiver.

The sudden molt left him in a state of hazy delirium - left only to sense and think, barely capable of moving to alleviate the discomfort in his arms and legs. He wallowed in the feverish fugue of it, reflecting and thinking and remembering things he'd half-forgotten about.

Through it all, he tried to mourn Sundrass, but it was not her face that he beheld in his mind's eye. It was not her loss alone he grieved for. He missed the feeling of the small hand on his back as he struggled beneath the yoke of pressure sickness, adapted to alien gravities and air. He missed how it would rub circles softly in tandem with the whispers of, "You're doing alright. You're doing fine, Kiph. Just fine."

Kiphoris nursed an injury in the bathroom. He'd been out with distant kin, cutting up Reef Wars wreckages in salvage. Some of the lesser Awoken habitats needed repairs in the form of reinforced bunker walls. A stray shard of glass had been kicked up by the plasma-cutter, hit him below the secondary arm and into his stomach. The good news was that the glass clogged up the tear left in its wake.

The bad news was that it had hurt like a psesiskar. Bled lots, too, when he'd pulled the glass out at home. The pain hit him then, when the warm filtered air of the habitat-apartment hit where his flesh had been numbed by the cold of space. It hurt a LOT.

She found him trying to staunch the bleeding with recyclable soft-paper and cotton towels.

"You idiot," Lima scolded.

Kiphoris didn't have the energy to retort. Oh, he loved to play the bickering game with her (in his mind, he always won), but notw this time. Not when he was growing worried something major had been cut.

She broke out the medkit and started dabbing around the wound with wipes soaked in cleansing alcohols. It stung fiercely. Kiphoris bit down hard, almost catching his tongue in the process, and leaned against the tiled walls as she cleaned the wound out.

"This really wasn't what I needed," Lima huffed. "Ten-hour prison shift, and I come home to this. You're going to give me a heart attack one of these days."

Kiphoris frowned. What did she mean, that her own heart would attack her? How did that work?

When she finished, Lima sighed, leaned forward and rested her forehead against his shoulder. "You idiot," she said again, muffled. "You ever scare me like that again and I'll... I'll..."

"Eia?" he asked with only a little difficulty - hoping the trembling hitch had been hidden to her behind the click of his mandibles.

"Shut up."

He missed her.

And he had no one to blame for her absence but himself.

At least with Sundrass he had a target - locked away in self-imposed isolation, slated to starve. A vengeance stolen.

"Be well, Kiphoris-Mrelliks," Inelziks whispered. "Be well."

Her hand was on his back, rubbing circles.

"Be well."

AN: Huge thanks to Nomad Blue for editing!

Feels weird to try and get back into the swing of things.