Chapter Ninety-Four: Break the Cycle

Chela Arevalo did her best to ignore the screams of the wounded and dying as she helped carry a stretcher through the battlefield. The Wrathful Veteran carried the other end of the stretcher, and he was tactful enough to not remark upon Chela's discomfort.

Writhing upon the stretcher was a dissenter whose leg had been shredded by a nearby artillery blast. The Veteran offered encouragement to the agonized fighter, but could do nothing for his fighter's pain, and for that he apologized. "Hang in there," said the Veteran to his wounded fighter as he and Chela navigated the stretcher around an artillery crater. "You're almost there."

The Wrathful Veteran's surviving fighters, assisted by the White Shadow's complement of Prospitian marines, picked through the carnage strewn across the blood-soaked road, bringing stretchers to their wounded comrades. Many had been rescued, but not all.

As Chela helped the Veteran carry their wounded dissenter towards one of the White Shadow's nearby dropships, she heard someone shout, "We got a live one!" followed immediately by a loud gunshot which cracked through the air. Looking in the direction of the gunshot, Chela saw a handful of vengeful dissenter survivors combing through the carnage in search of any wounded commandos who still lived.

"Got another one here!" one of the dissenter survivors exclaimed, nudging a wounded commando with the toe of her boot, eliciting an agonized groan from the commando as his wounds were agitated. The dissenter aimed her rifle and shot the wounded commando through the forehead, painting the cobblestones with blood and brain matter.

Chela looked away, focusing entirely on carrying the stretcher to the nearest dropship.

"Watch your step," cautioned the Wrathful Veteran as he walked backwards onto the dropship's boarding ramp.

Chela stepped onto the boarding ramp with no problem, following the Veteran into the dropship's troop bay, where many more occupied stretchers had been placed in preparation for transport to the White Shadow. Chela and the Veteran put down their stretcher, and a Prospitian corpsman gave the wounded dissenter a painkiller, which calmed her down a little.

"That's all for this trip," announced the pilot from the open cockpit, firing up the dropship's engine. "We're at capacity."

A Prospitian marine standing at the rear of the troop bay engaged the mechanism to retract the boarding ramp, sealing the dropship's entry hatch.

"How did things here get so out of hand?" Chela asked the Wrathful Veteran. "I thought we understood each other. A full scale battle was not what we discussed. Were it not for my timely arrival in the White Shadow, you and your entire movement would be dead right now."

"We tried to initiate our original plans for a more peaceful coup by broadcasting our message directly to the people of Derse," the Veteran explained, "but everything went horribly wrong. Gwen, the Witch of Light, she… There was no warning."

"Tell me what happened."

"She died during the broadcast, in front of the people of Derse," said the Veteran, steadying himself as the dropship rose into the sky. "I was mid-speech when she collapsed, and I stood there gaping like a fool. She died in the Prince's arms."

The Veteran's voice sounded far away to Chela, who grew very still. "We have failed, then," she murmured, blinking as her eyes stung with tears. She took a moment to gather herself before asking, "And what of Gino?"

"The Prince lost his mind." The Veteran shuddered at the image burned into his memory of Gino, mad with grief and fey darkness, staring at him with glowing sickly pale eyes. "He seemed possessed. His skin had turned gray, and shadows clung to him like a shroud. In his madness, the Prince blasted his way out of the Onyx to the surface, which exposed us to the Queen and forced our hand. Battle was unavoidable."

"How did Gwen die?" asked Chela.

"She spontaneously bled to death from every orifice. Even her eyes. We think it was poison, but we don't know how or when it was administered." The Veteran breathed in deeply, reminded of the numb shock which had rendered him mute and immobile while Gwen died in front of him. "She and the Prince grew very intimate. They scarcely left each other's company, they even shared food and water. It would have been impossible to poison the Witch without poisoning the Prince, and the Prince did not die."

"If the waking self dies, the dream self dies soon after, unless revival can occur." Chela could feel the dropship slowing down, which meant they were entering the White Shadow's hangar bay, where an impromptu triage had been set up. "Gwen's waking self was isolated, asleep, far from anyone who could revive her. Much easier prey. I've no doubt the Black Queen assassinated her."

"Perhaps shooting the Queen was an error on my part," admitted the Wrathful Veteran. "It was far too quick a death, and more than she deserved."

"Please!" cried the kneeling Dersite soldier, straining against the telekinetic grip holding him in place. "Please, I'm sorry! I don't want to—"

The executioner's axe cleaved through the back of the kneeling soldier's neck, much to the roaring approval of the crowd of gathered cobra warriors. As it rolled down the hillside, the soldier's severed head closed its mouth and opened it again. Was there still consciousness in that head?

I think I'm gonna be sick.

This was my first public mass execution, and my stomach was not on board for the experience. "Is this really necessary?" I asked Inuyyak, who regarded me with amusement.

"Firsst execution, no?" Inuyyak watched the executioner's helpers drag the headless Dersite soldier's corpse away from the chopping block, while the executioner motioned for the next prisoner. "Are there no executionss in the world you came from?"

The short line of traumatized Dersite survivors shuffled forward a couple paces as the next condemned soldier was brought to the chopping block.

"Not anymore," I replied, breathing in deeply and slowly through my nose in an effort to calm my horrified stomach. "There's no one left to be executed."

"And before everyone died?"

The next condemned Dersite let out a frightened wail which was cut off abruptly by the executioner's axe.

I closed my eyes for a few moments, fighting off the fresh wave of nausea. This didn't feel right. These Dersites were guilty of perpetuating the suffering and horrors imposed upon my consorts, but did that mean they needed to have their heads whacked off? Beheading unarmed prisoners left a bad taste in my soul.

These Dersites surrendered to me when I threatened them with a fiery death, no doubt hoping their lives would be spared, and I honestly hadn't considered at the time how unfeasible it would be to keep them alive. It's not like we would be able to feed a large number of prisoners for an extended period of time. What else could be done?

War is a harsh thing.

"Well sure, I mean, we had executions, but we didn't chop off heads." I frowned, knowing what I'd just said was inaccurate. "Well, some people still chopped off heads, in some parts of the world, but it wasn't a regular thing anymore. My country used to hang condemned people, then we tried putting people in chairs to fry them with electricity, and then we decided it would be nicer to murder murderers with poison drugs. Who knows? Fifty years from now, if everyone hadn't died, we might've started executing people with country music."

Another Dersite was dragged to the chopping block, urine trickling down his leg as he approached his death.

"Country mussic?" Inuyyak, of course, had no idea what country music was, and I saw no reason to rip him out of Eden by explaining it to him.

"Yeah, country music." I winced as the Dersite who'd pissed himself was relieved of his head. "Enough of it will kill you." Thankfully, the executions were taking place upwind, so I could not smell the pee. Or the slaughter. "But not before it takes your sanity, one twang at a time."

"What doess country mussic ssound like?" asked Inuyyak.

"Just imagine what a steaming pile of shit would sound like if it could make noise." I noticed a shift in the taste of my saliva as the executioner prepared for the next condemned prisoner, and my stomach entered an entirely new stage of its escalating rebellion. "That's country music."

The next Dersite kneeling at the chopping block screamed horribly as the executioner's axe lodged in the condemned soldier's spine, failing to make a clean cut. The soldier's agonized shrieking intensified as the executioner tried to yank the blade out, succeeding only after the second attempt.

That's that.

I clutched my stomach and staggered away from Inuyyak, desperately pushing my way through the throng of cheering warriors, and by the time I emerged from the crowd, the muscles around my stomach were already contracting.

A couple of hours ago, I lit up the whole fucking sky with my own self-generated inferno, and now I was throwing up on the grass like some idiot who drank too much at a house party. As I puked, I could hear the executioner finishing off the suffering Dersite, mercifully ending the screaming.

This was so fucked up.

There wasn't even anything in my stomach. It was all bile, and when I ran out of bile, I dry heaved.

"Little Knight." Inuyyak emerged from the crowd of revelers, coming to my side, silent laughter in his eyes. "It is good that your Vis iss sstronger than your sstomach."

Inuyyak couldn't see me rolling my eyes. "Thanks." I wiped my mouth with one of the bottom corners of my Knight's cape, making a mental note to clean it later. Because I would totally clean it later. It'll be the first thing on my mind. I won't be thinking about mass executions, I'll be thinking about cleaning this cape.

The crowd's cheering swelled as another Dersite head tumbled down the hill, joining the growing mound of confiscated Dersite heads.

"Come, they have given the executioner a newly sharpened axe," invited Inuyyak, motioning for me to rejoin the crowd. "If the mood remainss mirthful, we may even give bladess to the final few prissonerss and force them to fight each other."

"Inuyyak!" hollered the not-too-distant voice of Glimmering Scales. "Knight!"

I looked up from the bile-infused grass and saw Scales hurrying towards us from the cobra warriors' camp, which had been moved to the base of Hyperion's Wall. "You here for some fun, too?" I managed to yell back before descending once again into dry heaving.

"Are you ssick?" Scales asked as he approached. He glanced at Inuyyak. "Iss he ssick?"

"Of coursse he iss sick," grunted Inuyyak. "The evidence iss all over the grass."

"I'm not sick, I'm just not in the mood for a mass execution." I spat the last of the bile from my mouth and stood back up, tenderly rubbing my stomach. "Why do we need to chop off heads? Why can't we just shoot them or something? This is so fucking messy."

Inuyyak flared his neck hoods in a shrug. "The prissonerss need only endure a moment of pain. Their deathss bring a feeling of unity and mirth to our warriorss when, mere hours ago, we were exchanging blowss."

"No more talk, we have been ssummoned to the Great Council Fire," said Scales, gesturing for us to follow him. "The clan leaderss and the elderss will not begin the Trial until we are all there."

"Do we really need another execution?" I asked, falling into step with Scales and Inuyyak as we left behind the executions and made our way back into camp. "Why even bother with a trial? We all know the council will call for blood."

"Iss that a problem?" Scales asked pointedly. "Do you fear your sstomach will not cooperate?"

"Don't be an asshole, Scales, sanctioned public murder will never be easy to stomach."

"Sylph…" whispered the dying dissenter as Cass Galavis helped hurry his stretcher from the newly-arrived dropship into the triage center, which had been set up within the White Shadow's hangar bay. "I was with you."

"You're going to be okay." Cass did her best to sound reassuring while keeping herself from looking at the dissenter's exposed innards. "See where we are? You've made it."

"Haven't left Derse since I first came here, after my Birth Campaign," mused the dying Dersite. "Didn't think I'd ever leave again. No more ships, I told myself."

One of the White Shadow's corpsmen came over to assess the severity of the dissenter's wounds, and one quick look at the dissenter's exposed guts was all he needed. Before moving on, the corpsman grimly wrote with a white marker the letter X on the dying dissenter's forehead.

Although the Prospitians were not using the same mass casualty triage tags Cass was familiar with from her old life, it was not difficult to figure out what the X meant. The dying dissenter was expected to keep on dying, and the medical staff would know to ignore him while focusing on saving those who could be saved.

"How many can say they were with the Sylph when the sky fell?" asked the dying Dersite. "When the Black Queen fell?"

"Sylph!" called out the Wrathful Veteran from nearby. "I need your help!"

"Go on." The dying Dersite smiled wanly up at Cass. "We made it."

Cass didn't want to leave the dying dissenter alone. She glanced over at the Veteran and saw him kneeling over another stricken Dersite, who was convulsing while bleeding heavily from a serious looking chest wound. The Veteran struggled to hold a bandage in place to slow the bleeding, but the wounded dissenter's convulsions were making it very difficult.

"I'm sorry," Cass said, returning her attention to the dissenter she'd helped carry in, only to realize the Dersite's eyes were unfocused and his breathing had stopped.

Cass stared at the unseeing eyes. She'd only looked away for a moment. Death was uncompromising.

"Sylph!"

"Coming." Cass made herself stand up and leave the corpse without looking back, hurrying over to the Wrathful Veteran's aid. "What do you need?"

"Shoulders." As the wounded Dersite continued to thrash, the bandage being pressed over the chest wound by the Veteran slipped, forcing the Veteran to readjust. "Hold down her shoulders with all your weight. We need to put her under." He then looked away and shouted, "Corpsman!"

Cass pressed down on the convulsing dissenter's shoulders and held her as still as possible while a Prospitian corpsman hurried over, holding a syringe filled with a sedative. After successfully administering the sedative, the corpsman wrote an exclamation point, !, on the Dersite's forehead, which Cass assumed would give her a top priority in sickbay. "Take her above," the corpsman ordered before moving to assist with another wounded fighter.

Tranquilized by the gradual effects of the sedative, the thrashing dissenter began to calm down, allowing Cass and the Veteran to pick up her stretcher once again. They carried her from the hangar bay into the nearest lift, which whisked them several decks above to the corridor outside sickbay.

By the time Cass and the Veteran passed through sickbay's open doors, the Dersite they were carrying had embraced the sedative and lost consciousness.

Chela Arevalo stood by one of the operating tables, sponging up excess blood from the horrifically mangled leg of an unconscious dissenter. Next to Chela stood the White Shadow's chief medical officer, who was hunched over the dissenter's shredded leg, wielding a small surgical instrument shaped like a little tuning fork.

The tuning fork-shaped instrument resonated with a pleasantly mollifying high-pitched hum, and it emitted a gentle blue-white luminescence. When the Prospitian surgeon held the musically resonating tines of the little glowing tuning fork close to the wounds on the dissenter's leg, Cass was surprised to see the healing of fractured bone, accompanied by the regeneration of devastated muscle tissue.

All the while, Abigail hovered from table to table, keen to remain out of everyone's way while snapping pictures with her phone. When she got to Chela's table, she switched to video and recorded footage of the lifesaving work. She focused on the Prospitian surgeon, zooming in on the determined expression on the surgeon's face, then zooming back out again to include the wounded Dersite in the shot.

"Over here!" called out another Prospitian surgeon at a different table, who'd just finished working on her most-recent patient and was now ready for the next. "Bring her here!"

Cass and the Wrathful Veteran carried their stretcher to the surgeon, who helped them transfer the wounded dissenter from the stretcher onto the operating table.

The surgeon frowned at the chest wound. "This is not from an energy rifle," she observed, noting the lack of burns or cauterization around the bleeding wound. "Probably debris. We'll need to remove it."

"We?" Cass's heart sank.

"Lend a hand here," the Veteran told Cass. "I need to get back to the surface. Meet me in Greenflame Plaza when you are no longer needed."

"Abby," Chela called over to Abigail, who was recording a wounded dissenter in the process of being removed from sickbay after a successful surgery. "Go with the Veteran and help him set up his equipment."

"You got it." Abigail pocketed her phone and followed the Wrathful Veteran out of sickbay.

"Scrub up," ordered the surgeon, gesturing to the sinks on the far side of sickbay, built into the bulkhead. "I need both hands for this, and you'll need to clear away the blood so I can see what I am doing."

Cass nervously made her way across sickbay to the sinks, rolling up the sleeves of her Sylph robe, wetting her hands and arms, and lathering up with soap. After vigorously scrubbing her arms, Cass rinsed and dried off, donning a surgical apron and a pair of surgical gloves. When she made it back to the operating table, the Prospitian surgeon was vacuuming away excess blood from the chest wound with a thin suction tube. "Hold this." The surgeon handed the suction tube to Cass. "Keep it steady while I work."

While Cass held the suction tube, the surgeon peered closely into the chest wound, gingerly inserting her forceps. Cass looked away for a moment when her stomach threatened to upend itself, but she could not block out the nauseating sounds of the forceps probing the deep tissues inside the chest wound.

"I said keep it steady," the surgeon tersely rebuked Cass, who breathed deeply and looked back at her hands, keeping them still while trying to ignore all the blood in her peripheral vision. After several excruciating seconds of readjustment, the surgeon gently extricated a sharp fragment of stone masonry from deep within the wounded dissenter's chest, depositing it onto a nearby tray with an audible clink. Then the surgeon went in again and extracted a second shard of stone, slightly smaller than the first.

The Prospitian surgeon took a moment to breathe before entering the wound a third time.

"How much more is there?" asked Cass, trying to ignore the desire to move her hands.

The Prospitian surgeon clicked her tongue quietly to herself while she worked, ignoring Cass. Within half a minute, she delicately pulled from the chest wound a third piece of masonry, larger than either of the first two. Cass found the whole experience nauseating, and somehow strangely cathartic. "Give me that." The surgeon took the suction tube back from Cass. "Pass me the regenerator."

Cass reached over to the table where the surgical tools had been placed, selecting the small instrument shaped like a tuning fork and passing it to the surgeon.

"Thank you." The surgeon grabbed the regenerator and waved Cass away. "I don't need you anymore, go and help someone else."

Cass couldn't help but feel a stab of resentment at being used and discarded so dismissively, but it vanished the instant Cass imagined being the surgeon.

"Cassandra," Chela called over from the other side of sickbay, stripping off her rubber gloves and surgical apron, disposing of them in the incinerator. "We're heading back to the surface. The Veteran is going to make one final broadcast to Derse from Greenflame Plaza, and it would be good for you to appear with him."

"Broadcast?" Cass tossed her own gloves and apron into the incinerator as she followed Chela out of sickbay. "We have a TV station in our back pocket?"

Two dissenters emerged from the nearest lift, and lying on the stretcher they carried was a mercifully unconscious fighter who'd been shot through the stomach. They rushed past Chela and Cass, making a beeline for sickbay.

"The Veteran's organization hijacked a news station and stole some of the equipment, which will be used for the Greenflame Plaza broadcast." Chela stepped into the lift, holding the doors for Cass. "I'm afraid I have some very bad news. Best you hear it before you go on camera."

Cass entered the lift, and the doors hissed shut behind her. "Oh?"

"Gwen Twymann is dead."

The lift rocked gently as it plunged down towards the hangar bay.

For a few moments, Cass did not react. What was there to say? "I barely knew her," Cass murmured, no stranger to the fragility of life in a body. "She was one of the last people left alive, and I barely knew her."

The leaders and elders of every clan in the three tribes sat silently around the Great Council Fire, which had been erected outdoors in the middle of the cobra warriors' camp.

I noticed some different faces who had not been present at yesterday's War Council. Several of the old clan leaders had died in the battle, and it was the newly chosen replacements of those deceased clan leaders who joined us around the fire today.

Clustered behind the elders and clan leaders, further away from the council fire, were the hundreds of warriors from all three tribes who'd opted to witness the Trial instead of the public executions. The air was tense. Xolotl was popular, and I wasn't sure how well the Sand Dweller warriors would react to a death sentence passed by a majority of the council.

"Honored Elderss," began Burning Dusk, who stood by the billowing fire, at the center of the council circle. "Victoriouss Clan Leaderss, welcome."

Most of the gathered elders and clan leaders murmured their acknowledgment, although several of the Sand Dweller clan leaders remained silent, which did not bode well.

"By our victory today, we have taken a vasst sstep toward ssecuring our future as a free and ssovereign people," Burning Dusk continued. "But only a sstep. The journey iss not over. Until we kill the Enemy'ss King and Queen, we will never be ssafe. If we do nothing, the Enemy will invade uss from the sskiess, as they did centuriess ago, and thiss time they will not sstop until every lasst one of uss iss dead."

"Are you trying to sscare uss into ssubsservience, Treefolk?" scoffed one of the more obstinate Sand Dweller clan leaders. "Why bother with the sspeech? We all know why we are here, and if you think I will sstand idly by while you call for the death of our Firsst Warrior, I tell you now, Clan Oaxaca will not have it."

"Nor Clan Tlaxata!" interjected another Sand Dweller clan leader.

"Nor Clan Xocono!" added a third.

"Without the Knight, we would not have claimed victory today." Burning Dusk was quick to speak before the four remaining Sand Dweller clan leaders could join the cascade. "If we are going to ssurvive the battless to come, we need the Knight by our sside. By acting to murder the Knight, the Firsst Warrior of Aztlán gravely endangered the future of our people and brought uss to the brink of civil war. He will ansswer thiss charge, and he will face whatever jusstice iss deemed ssuitable by thiss council. Bring forth the accused."

The Oaxaca clan leader begrudgingly took her seat, looking none too pleased as Xolotl arrived.

My skin crawled as I looked at Xolotl and felt his knife entering my chest. Tenderly I caressed the spot where I'd been stabbed. Even though the body I currently inhabited had never received such a wound, my chest still twinged with the memory of Xolotl's betrayal.

Was it betrayal? Is it betrayal if it is justified?

Flanked by Glimmering Scales and Inuyyak, Xolotl moved silently and wearily through the outer circle of elders, past the inner circle of clan leaders, and took his place by the fire, across from Burning Dusk. Many of the warriors who'd gathered outside the circle of elders to witness Xolotl's trial shifted uneasily, murmuring and whispering amongst themselves.

"Declare yoursself before thiss Great Council," commanded Burning Dusk.

"I am Xolotl," said Xolotl in a hollow monotone. His spirit sounded broken, and I felt a strange sorrow. Xolotl's demeanor reminded me of how listless he was after the death of his family. "I killed the Knight." He glanced at me, and I couldn't help but tense up, as if I expected him to try again. "Or sso I thought."

Burning Dusk's next question was beautifully direct: "Why?"

"It doess not matter now," replied Xolotl. "It iss finished, and sso am I. Your mindss are made up."

"Regardless of what happened between you and the Knight, your actionss nearly ssent uss sspiralling into civil war," accused Aumanil, leader of Clan Unagwe. "After all the work we have put forth towardss unity, you placed a perssonal grudge on a greater pedesstal of importance than the future of our people. Death iss the appropriate ansswer to your actionss."

The leader of Clan Oaxaca rose sharply from her seat, fangs bared. "Hubriss, iss it not, Aumanil of Unagwe, to pressume to sspeak with one voice for all voicess? If indeed our Firsst Warrior committed ssuch an act, there are many wayss in which the matter may be addressed. Immediately ressorting to execution iss a ssupreme failing of our imagination."

I thought of the Dersites being summarily executed outside of camp, but said nothing.

"I know not what you mean by 'if indeed', Eztli of Oaxaca," Aumanil fired right back at the Oaxaca clan leader, "for we have jusst received a confession sstraight from the mouth of the accused himsself."

"Yess, a confession of murder, and yet," Eztli pointed with the tip of her tail right at me, "here I ssee the Knight alive and well."

"Shall we fetch you the Knight'ss corpsse from the top of the mountain as evidence?" asked Aumanil, incredulous. "We are here to deliver jusstice for a murder, not debate whether or not the murder took place."

"It will be the firsst sso-called murder any of uss have ever sseen in which no one truly died," Eztli countered.

"We all heard your Firsst Warrior, he ssaid, I killed the Knight," Aumanil maintained. "What more iss there to debate? Unless your only goal here iss to obsstruct jusstice from being rendered where it iss due?"

Eztli of Clan Oaxaca refused to budge. "Xolotl attacked the Knight, of that I have no doubt, but clearly the Knight iss not dead, therefore it iss invalid to accuse Xolotl of murder, and equally invalid to impose a punishment for murder."

"Enough," commanded Burning Dusk, and much to my surprise, the squabbling Council fell silent. Dusk had a very powerful, almost regal presence which helped him in this moment. "Knight," he said, turning his attention to me. "Thiss council will benefit greatly from hearing your account of what happened."

"Well, uh, he stabbed me," I said to Burning Dusk.

"SSpeak to the entire Council, pleasse," Dusk quietly encouraged me.

I cleared my throat and spoke louder: "Yeah, uh, I got stabbed." I stood up as I spoke, stopping myself from giving an awkward wave to the gathered crowd of clan leaders, elders, and warriors, who were all now laser focused on me. Here we go. I tapped the center of my chest. "I was stabbed right here in the sternal region, and let me tell you, it hurt like a motherfucker."

"Pleasse be a bit clearer, Knight," suggested Burning Dusk. "Would you sstate for the council the identity of the one who sstabbed you?"

"Seriously? We've established this already, Xolotl stabbed me."

"We heard it from the Firsst Warrior, but not from you," Dusk reminded me. "It iss besst to be thorough. Did you die from the wound Xolotl inflicted upon you?"

"Yeah," I answered. "I died."

"Then would you explain to thiss Great Council how you now sstand before us, very much alive?"

"Last time I stood before you, there were two of me, remember?" I walked slowly around the crackling fire, making eye contact with various clan leaders and elders. "And a lot of you were being total jerks about it, but we stood up for each other, and, well, I guess we didn't exactly win all of you over, but we did whip up some sweet rhetoric. After Xolotl killed us, we made the choice… I made the choice…" I frowned, tripped up by the two unique sets of memories which now intermingled within my mind. "My sprite made the choice to save my life."

"Your life wass ssaved?" Eztli of Clan Oaxaca pounced, sensing her opening. "You can't have it both wayss, Knight. You can't have died and alsso have had your life ssaved. How can thiss Great Council possibly rely upon ssuch a contradictory account as evidence?"

"We did die," I reiterated. "I mean, I died, and then I—then my sprite took me to the altar on the summit of Hyperion's Peak, and I resurrected. Okay? I died and came back to life in my sprite's body, which got transformed via weird game magic into this normal-ish body. Are you still not getting this? I don't know how I can make it any clearer."

I was greeted by a deafeningly silent chorus of blank stares. God damn it.

"Look, when a consciousness exists, it can never unexist, and it is entitled to the same universal rights as any other consciousness," I explained to the Great Council. "Both versions of me had an equal right to live and exist as themselves. One of me sacrificed his individuality to save the other me, which certainly demonstrated some beautiful growth on his part, but he should never have had to make that choice. Xolotl should not have—Xolotl," I changed tack and addressed Xolotl directly, who avoided my gaze, "you shouldn't have killed me. That was real shitty of you. That said, I understand why you did it, and I forgive you. I won't ask you to forgive me, but there's something else I can ask. Will you work with me to secure the future of your people?"

Many of the Northerner and Treefolk clan leaders and elders murmured amongst themselves, irritated by my hijacking of council procedure, but the throng of uneasy warriors had fallen completely silent, enraptured. Burning Dusk gave me a faint, almost imperceptible smile. He knew how much power a moment like this could yield.

Xolotl looked me in the eye. "Why are you offering me new life after I took one of yourss?"

"You didn't take both," I answered.

"Not for lack of trying," Xolotl reminded me. He glanced over at Glimmering Scales with admiration. "You were quick, Glimmering SScaless of Nathair. Too quick for my knife. And you, Inuyyak of Unagwe," he turned to Inuyyak, "were too quick for me. You fought well."

"They fought together, and you fought alone," I emphasized. "No more of that, Xolotl. With your help, your people are likelier to survive. Do you want the opportunity to be of service to something greater than yourself?"

One of the burning logs at the bottom of the billowing council fire cracked loudly. The embers glowed brightly, flaring in the wind.

"I will help." Xolotl finally said after what felt like several minutes of silence, which in reality were no more than a couple seconds. "But I do not believe it iss up to you."

"The hell it isn't." I turned my attention outwards to the gathered clan leaders and elders. "Xolotl owes me nothing, the karma here has been balanced in record time, and there is no longer any need for this Trial. Does anyone disagree? I'll be more than happy to argue with you myself."

The seconds ticked on by, and no one protested. Eztli of Clan Oaxaca looked like a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and she looked at me with more curiosity than hostility, as did her fellow Sand Dweller clan leaders. Aumanil of Clan Unagwe didn't look very pleased, but his hostility had nevertheless diminished.

Lightning split the sky above, and thunder quickly followed. The rain probably intensified, but none of us could feel it. Everyone participating in this event was contributing a small portion of their psychic strength towards maintaining a dome-shaped Force shield in the sky to redirect the rain and keep the council fire dry.

When no one voiced their dissent, Burning Dusk was quick to seize his opportunity: "I move we adjourn thiss Great Council and—"

"The Enemy approachess!" A Sand Dweller warrior burst noisily into the Gathering, breathless from sprinting, interrupting Burning Dusk. "From the sskiess, in a flying metal ship, the Enemy approachess!"

"Council iss adjourned!" Burning Dusk bellowed in the moment before chaos consumed the Great Council and everyone began to scatter.

The alarm was raised throughout the rest of the camp, and as the cobra warriors rallied to face the new threat, I remained with Burning Dusk, Scales, Xolotl, and Inuyyak. Together we watched a Dersite shuttlecraft slowly descend from the storm clouds directly above camp.

"This should be good," I muttered.

After landing in Greenflame Plaza, the dropship unsealed its access ramp, allowing Cass and Chela to disembark.

Miraculously spared from the DRN artillery and the Red Miles, Greenflame Plaza's massive central obsidian obelisk towered defiantly into the sky. From the metal bowl at the obelisk's apex blazed the eponymous green fire.

The plaza was teeming with activity. Dersite civilians combed through the wreckage, assisted by many of the Wrathful Veteran's surviving fighters, pulling out people who'd been trapped by falling debris during the fury of the Red Miles. Some dissenter fighters did their best to distribute medical supplies to those in need, while others provided comfort and company to those who were on the brink of death.

Not far from the obelisk awaited an ad hoc broadcasting station. A dissenter technician screwed antennae into their respective places on the clunky old broadcasting rig he was nearly finished setting up. Leaning against the rig was a boom-mounted microphone. Abigail was hunched over a news camera, which had been mounted on a tripod, and as she fine-tuned the focus and white balance, the Wrathful Veteran stood in front of the camera and prepared to broadcast live.

"Sylph," the Veteran greeted Cass as she approached. "Thank you for-"

"Is there anything else you'd like to tell me?" Cass interrupted. "Anything about Gwen dying horrifically on live television? Did that slip your mind?"

The Wrathful Veteran traded a quick glance with Chela before answering, "It did not. I do not know when you expected me to break the news. While the Dignitary was strangling you? Or perhaps while you were dying with a knife in your chest?"

Cass joined the Veteran in front of the camera. "Fair enough."

"Everyone has been hurt by the Black Queen," said the Veteran. "You played a vital role in bringing her to justice."

"I still think you should have let me kill her."

"The wounded could not wait." The Veteran motioned for two of his fighters to bring the corpse of the Black Queen over to the broadcasting location, pointing to a spot in the immediate background of the camera shot. "And the Queen was not yours to kill."

"She had me tortured."

"Only once," remarked the Wrathful Veteran. "I've lived under her rule for ten thousand years."

"Did she ever have you hanged by the neck until dead?"

"Clearly not." The Veteran silently reminded himself that Cass wasn't even a thousand years old. He gave a nod to the two dissenters who'd brought over the Black Queen's corpse, and one of the dissenters picked up the Queen's sword.

Cass was silent, paralyzed as the dissenter cut off the head of the Black Queen's corpse, jarred into remembering the gallows which had claimed her own life, the smothering black hood, the noose tightening around her neck.

"Sylph?" The Veteran noticed Cass's breathing had intensified, and that she was beginning to sweat. Recognizing a panic attack in its nascent stages, the Wrathful Veteran quickly changed tack. "I am sorry," he said. "I often forget that you are new to this. I've had millennia to numb myself, and I've never fully succeeded."

"You have a soul, that's all." Cass breathed deeply and slowly to help calm herself down. "If we were meant to be numb, we wouldn't have nerves."

"Cassandra?" hollered Chela from behind the camera, where she was working with Abigail to get the broadcast up and running. "Are you okay? You look sick."

"I'm not sick, I'm fine," Cass replied. "What's the holdup?"

"This may very well be one of the most important messages the people of Derse will hear in their lifetimes," said the Wrathful Veteran. "There is no need to rush."

"One sec," said Abigail, making her final adjustments to the news camera while Chela took a seat on the lip of a nearby fountain. The two nearby dissenter fighters impaled the Black Queen's severed head on a pole, mounting it in the immediate background behind Cass and the Veteran. Abigail accounted for this with one last adjustment to the camera's angle, and then she glanced over at the technician preparing the broadcasting rig. "C'mon, get me wired up."

The Dersite technician uncoiled a specialized cable and connected the news camera to the broadcasting rig. He then put on his headphones and picked up the boom mic, giving Abigail a thumbs-up as he moved the mic into position, dangling it over Cass and the Veteran's heads, just out of camera frame.

"Alright, I'm connected," announced Abigail. "Are you ready?"

Cass gave a single nod.

"Do it." The Veteran took a moment to compose himself, stretching and shaking out his arms. "Give me a three second countdown."

Abigail held up three fingers, peering closely at the camera screen to make sure the Greenflame Obelisk and the Queen's mounted head were both clearly visible in the background before putting down her first finger. Abigail took a deep breath and put down a second finger. After one final second, instead of putting down her last finger, Abigail pointed it at the Veteran and mouthed, "Go."

"People of Derse," the Wrathful Veteran spoke to the camera with authority, knowing every person on Derse and the Obsidian Moon near a television or radio was now here with him, sharing in this moment he never expected to experience. "We have won."

"Alright, folks, just keep calm!" I exclaimed. "No one shoot!"

Hundreds of cobra warriors, many armed with scavenged energy rifles, encircled the Dersite shuttlecraft, which had only just moments ago landed outside the war camp. Once the alarm spread through the camp, my consorts mobilized with a speed that was quite literally inhuman, and they were now ready to viciously greet anyone unlucky enough to be inside that shuttlecraft.

"Do you know anything about thiss?" Glimmering Scales asked me.

"No, but I do know those shuttles have cannons," I replied. "Why even come in for a landing? Could've just strafed us from the sky, and there isn't much we could've done about it. Doesn't make any sense."

The Dersite shuttle's access hatch unsealed with a hiss, and a boarding ramp was extended to the ground, but no one emerged. "I'm stepping out!" hollered a gruff voice from within, "I'm not a bloody Dersite, so don't fucking shoot, you hear?"

Who the fuck was that? Didn't sound like a Dersite.

A strange looking figure stepped out of the shuttle, and much to my surprise, it actually was a Dersite—

Gunshots cracked through the air as several rifle-wielding warriors lost their cool and opened fire. Most of the energy bolts missed, striking the outer hull of the shuttlecraft, but the final shot hit its target.

Blood sprayed from the Dersite's neck and his head lolled forward, but he did not fall to the ground because he was being held up by someone else, and only then did I fully process what was standing behind the Dersite: a giant walking turtle pirate. I shit you not. I'll say it again: a giant walking turtle pirate.

I'm not exaggerating. I guess I've gotten used to telekinetic and pyrokinetic cobra people, so maybe this shouldn't be as weird as it is, but to be fair, I was looking at a fucking giant walking turtle pirate.

Just when you think you've seen it all.

"Stop shooting!" I shouted, hurrying out from safety into the firing lines between the trigger-happy consorts. "Fucking stop it! STOP SHOOTING!"

This turtle creature was slightly taller than me, it stood on two legs, it had weathered and leathery skin, and its back was protected by a sturdy shell. It wore a bandanna around its head, and an oiled coat designed to ward off the dampness of constant sea spray. In order to fit around the shell, the coat did not have much of a back. From the turtle's septum and ears dangled golden rings of varying size, and I could see a sword and pistol secured to its belt.

The turtle pirate had been holding in front of itself what turned out to be a squat little Dersite, used as a meat shield against the energy bolts fired by the trigger-happy cobra warriors. When the cobra warriors ceased fire, the turtle pirate dropped the dead Dersite and raised both of its hands into the air. "I'm not here to fight!" he exclaimed. "Didn't I say don't fucking shoot?! You fucking pricks! Any of you know where I might find a human?"

"Do you know thiss creature, Knight?" asked Burning Dusk as he fell into step beside me.

"Nope, this is weirding me out as much as you," I said. "Is there anything in your mythology about giant walking turtle pirates?"

"Certainly not," Dusk replied.

"Oi!" the turtle consort exclaimed when he noticed me. "You look human. One of the Heroes, are you? You're just what I was looking for."

"You are tresspassing in our home, creature," Burning Dusk said to the giant turtle as we approached. "Tread carefully if you wish to keep your life. What do you want with the Knight of Force?"

"Creature?" The turtle-consort wrinkled his nose in irritation. "That's what we call fish, back home. Are you callin' me a fish?"

"Have you a more appropriate name?" asked Burning Dusk.

"My name is Brygos," declared the turtle consort. "I've come from the Land of Shores and Prisms, and I need to borrow your Knight."

"The Black Queen is dead," announced the Wrathful Veteran from every television and radio on Derse and the Obsidian Moon. He kept his gaze focused on Abigail's news camera, imagining the people of Derse had all gathered in Greenflame Plaza for a rally. "Last you heard from me, I made you a promise that the Queen's head would be mounted on a pike in Greenflame Plaza, and today I have kept that promise."

Cass was thankful the Queen's mounted head was behind her where she couldn't see, removing her from the dangers of staring at it for too long and succumbing to nausea. That would be embarrassing on live television, although by no means would it be as horrible as Gwen's televised death. Was that even a silver lining?

"We stand now at a crossroads," continued the Wrathful Veteran. "It will not be long before the Black King learns of our liberation, and he may well send the remaining strength of the royal navy to bring us back under his control. But he will fail. As of now, the Obsidian Moon is leaving the incipisphere and moving into the Furthest Ring. Those who choose to live on the Obsidian Moon will have much rebuilding to do, but never again will you be found or troubled by the Black King and his wars."

Cass took another deep breath, keeping herself composed while on camera, which wasn't the easiest undertaking when considering the possibility of spending the rest of her life on a moon drifting through an endless void.

"All who opt to remain on Derse may enjoy the comforts of living in a familiar part of existence," said the Wrathful Veteran, "and in so doing will also accept the risks of falling victim to the Black King's vengeance. All public transportalizers linking Derse and the Obsidian Moon will remain open for three days, during which time each of us must decide what we want to do. Your lives are now in your own hands. If you are frightened, take heart, because you are not alone. You are awake, and there is no going back to sleep."