The first breath hurt, raw and jagged, like she'd had her head held underwater for a week.
The pain, sharp and real and beautiful, was so sweet as it sliced through her burning lungs, because at least that meant she could feel something. She'd feared as she'd faded that this time, she wouldn't come back. That dying while separate from her Ghost would mean she couldn't come back again.
But she was alive, blessedly alive and if everything had to burn in order to bring her back, she would relish it.
There'd been no Ghost interface before this resurrection. Just nothing and then everything. She'd had no warning before being thrust back into existence. Now, she began to take stock of the world around her, feeling the pressure on her hands and knees as she realized she was kneeling. Normally she resurrected on her feet. Had she fallen?
She was no longer in the arena, but back in the staging room. A streaky line of dark crimson blood indicated where they'd dragged her corpse back in here and dropped her back on the floor. There was motion around her but she tried to force it out of her mind, curling up into a protective ball around her hands.
As she opened her fist slowly, the most beautiful sight greeted her. Her Ghost bloomed into existence with a small flash, his mechanical eye as bright and lively as ever. She saw her hand shake as she held it out for him and realized she was silently sobbing in ragged relief.
"Ghost, Ghost, are you okay?" Her voice rasped over the words, barely audible, but he understood her. He always understood her, even when she had no words to give. "Is this real?"
"Guardian," he said quietly, the metallic sound softened, as he knew they weren't alone. "You need to be careful, I think they're going to try to take–"
A booted foot planted itself in Sylvanni's back, shoving her, and she instinctively closed her hand back around her Ghost, the signal for him to disappear, feeling the wisps of his transmat slip through her fingers. He was still with her, but safely incorporeal, waiting for her call to reappear. She wasn't going to let them steal him away again. This time she was awake and aware. They'd made a mistake, using the Ghost to bring her back. Now she wouldn't return him to their clutches for anything.
Unfortunately, without her armor, there was no comms signal for him to connect to and talk to her through when he was like this. He'd have to be physically present to talk, but a lack of communication wasn't too great a sacrifice. She'd rather have him out of their reach than be able to talk to him, much as she wanted to find out what had happened.
She was kicked again, this time hard enough to send her skidding across the floor. Though her wounds had been healed by the resurrection, her clothes had been restored to the point at which she'd died, which mean the tattered cloth was still sticky with her blood.
"Rise." A command. Erxaris' voice.
Sylvanni gritted her teeth, the lingering weakness of the odd return to life starting to dissipate, and she pushed herself up to stand. Exaris' insectile expression was indecipherable, but if Sylvanni had to guess, the Vandal was profoundly displeased. That put a defiant smile back on the Awoken's face.
The Guardian fell into a respectable parade rest, feet apart, shoulders squared, arms clasped behind her back, chin up. Despite her position of weakness a moment before, she wanted to face whatever was coming next with as much strength as she could muster.
Her eyes glanced about, noting the other guards in the room, just like before. They'd taken her knife away, predictably, but somehow thought that meant she was disarmed. A second mistake. Though she'd died and some of her Light had apparently ebbed away while dead without her Ghost, she could still feel the reservoir of it, brimming within her, her spoils of war from the fight.
Yes, the Light was still so distant down here, but she'd lived in the heat of battle again and spilled blood with her own two hands and she had been rewarded. The void thrummed powerfully within her, not a beast growling in hunger, but the demand of a cruel, unfeeling phenomenon that required destruction to satisfy its mathematical constants. Just a little more and she'd be able to engulf this entire room. She'd walked the void for centuries and she knew exactly where the threshold was to craft a perfect nova.
Even at a trickle, she only needed minutes to reach it.
"You said you wanted an entertaining show," Sylvanni said, unrepentant. "I gave you a show."
Erxaris' four eyes narrowed in a glare, then, strangely they crinkled as if she were smiling behind her mask. It was a discomfiting sight. "Quite. Baroness offers boon for impressive display."
"She isn't upset I killed all her combatants?"
"Sent to fight. Fought."
"And what is this supposed boon I am to receive, then?"
Erxaris chittered in amusement. "Received. Boon of life, Machine thief. New breath is reward. Now, return small machine."
Sylvanni had had a feeling this was coming. She kept her feet planted and stared the Vandal down. "You think I'd give my Ghost back to you?" She barked a laugh. "Go to hell. You can't have him."
Folding her upper arms, Erxaris shook her head in exaggerated disappointment. "Rudeness after Baroness' generosity? A mistake."
She made an off-handed gesture with one of her lower arms and three arc-charged spears rammed through Sylvanni's chest almost simultaneously. This time, however, the death was quick. Reconnected to her Ghost, her natural resurrection cycle took over again, sparing her the pain.
Her Ghost reappeared where she'd been struck down, floating. The guards who'd killed her yanked their spears free of her body, one kicking her corpse roughly to slide it off.
[I probably should have expected that,] Sylvanni admitted, speaking over her Ghost's internal communication system. Now that she was dead, her consciousness was housed with him and they could speak like this.
[Probably. One minute and thirty seconds until resurrection is available.]
Sylvanni felt a jolt of surprise. She'd never seen a resurrection take that long outside of truly extreme circumstances. [I was close to a nova. As soon as I'm back on my feet, I'll clear the room, Ghost, and then we'll get out of here, okay?]
[Guardian…] The tone felt worried. [I don't know that you'll make it that long…]
[What are you talking about? As long as I've got you, they can't keep me down anymore.]
Her Ghost didn't respond, presumably because Erxaris leaned forward, cocking her masked head one way, then the other as she inspected the activated Ghost. "Can still hear… yes?"
[She seems to know an awful lot about how Guardians work,] Sylvanni sent across the channel. [I'm starting to wonder if "The Other" has been more loose-lipped about Guardians than he implied.]
On the one hand, Uldren didn't seem like the type to easily break under torture, but on the other, would he really consider it worthwhile to suffer to keep Guardian secrets. He'd never say anything that might endanger the Reef, but what were Guardians to him? He'd made his disdain for her kind well known, and she'd seen firsthand that he knew much about Guardians' weaknesses and how to best disable them.
Why wouldn't he tell the House of Kings everything he knew of the Light and how to effectively attack those who wielded it? Was she captive now because of him and what he'd said?
She'd kill him herself if it was true. She might just kill him even if it wasn't.
"The thief thinks not," Erxaris scolded, shaking her head at the Ghost. "It does not realize it has only one choice. Soon, stolen machine will bring it back. Then, can submit and return Baroness' property."
The Judgment Vandal tapped the Ghost's corner to ensure Sylvanni knew what 'property' was being referred to. The Warlock's anger boiled within her to hear her Ghost spoken of in such a way, as though he could belong to anyone but herself.
[As though there's any way I would turn him back over to you,] she thought harshly. As soon as she was back alive, that nova would be right at her fingertips, ready to show them all the true mistake of thinking they could leash a Guardian.
"Baroness offered generous gift. If instead, rudeness from guest–" The Vandal chuckled, amused by her own joke in repeating Sylvanni's term. "–gift is no longer given."
Reaching her hand to the side, one of the guards gave her the stasis container that Sylvanni's Ghost had been trapped in before. Erxaris fiddled with some of the controls and the walls began to glow, activated. The Vandal held the open-topped cylinder forward, as though to scoop the Ghost inside now.
"See gift now? Can take back little machine without thief's permission, right now. Then, no boon for thief. No life. Understand?"
She did understand. It clicked into place with a terrible inevitability. She was a fool to think having her Ghost back made her immune. Her Ghost had realized it, but Sylvanni had been blinded by her potential revenge to realize. They didn't need her to give them the Ghost willingly, they could take him now, lock him away and disable him again, and leave her dead with no means of resurrection.
"Boon offered one more time," Erxaris warned. "Make smart choice."
Sylvanni seethed. [I can't do it, Ghost. I can't just hand you over to them. Not after I just got you back.]
[Guardian…] Though emotional tone was difficult to convey over the voiceless communication they shared during her revive process, she could sense his hesitation. [If you don't, they'll kill you and take me away again anyway.]
[So we just give up and let them separate us again? I can't be alone again, Ghost!]
[Sylvanni.]
The name hit her like a physical blow. Her Ghost almost never used her name. She was always just "Guardian" to him. It struck her in a way even the gravity of their situation hadn't.
[It's my job to keep you alive,] he said. [It's what I was made to do. Better to be alive and apart than let you die. We have to do what they say.]
Sylvanni wrestled with the choice before finally coming to a frustrated agreement. He was right. Of course he was. [Fine. But it won't matter anyway in a few moments. I'll give you up but then I'll get you back, okay? How long until resurrection?]
[34 seconds.]
Erxaris stared at the Ghost the whole time, her four-eyed gaze blinking in an odd pattern: outer pair, then inner pair. It was disconcerting to watch. Sylvanni spent the time silently planning her next moves, picturing exactly what she'd do.
This time, when she dropped back into life, she landed squarely on her feet, comfortable and in control. The guards leveled their spears at her again, ready for a signal to strike.
"Understood, yes?" Erxaris extended an arm, claws upward. A demand.
Sylvanni closed her eyes, hesitating as she reached within, feeling for her Light. Not quite enough.
So instead, she fixed the Fallen with a venomous glare and, with agonizing slowness, lifted her own hand and called her Ghost to it. He appeared in his customary little flash of transmat light and immediately swiveled to look at her, just like any other time she'd pulled him out to talk. There was a sadness in the angle of his corners, but he bobbed once, like a little nod, reassuring her that this was right.
Oh, don't look at me like that, she thought, nearly closing her hand around him and dismissing him back to safety right there. This is hard enough as it is.
A small, protective growl rose in the back of her throat as Erxaris' claws closed around his shell, plucking him from the air above her hand and depositing him back in the stasis container. As the seal closed with a click, Sylvanni could feel a small jolt inside her core; the snip of a connection being severed. That hurt more than anything they'd done to her yet.
Her Light remained, however, all that she'd gathered brimming within. Had she been armored her helmet would have displayed how much she currently had, but she didn't need that to know. So tantalizingly close to being able to unleash it all.
Erxaris handed the container to one of the guards, then fixed Sylvanni with a cruel look that might have an alien smile. "Now, return other theft."
Sylvanni kept her emotions in check, maintaining composure though the confusing demand annoyed her. "What theft? You took my Ghost. You took the knife." She spread her empty hands. "I have nothing else."
"Not in hand," Erxaris said with an amused chirr. "Within."
The hair on Sylvanni's neck bristled, an instinctive warning that something had approached from behind. She tensed and started to turn but caught only a glimpse of a smooth black hull and a shimmering purple. And then the Servitor whined, and she was consumed.
Power engulfed her, enveloping her body entirely, lifting her feet from the ground until she floated, completely paralyzed. It was another pulse, similar to the one the Servitor had hit her with before she'd been sent into the arena. However, that experience had been a moment of intensity that had ebbed away. This time it slammed into her and then intensified further, like a force of acceleration, a gravity increasing beyond her ability to withstand.
It pushed inward, power forcing its way beneath her skin, and she could feel it invading every inch of her body. Its tendrils wove between the strands of her muscles, saturated the marrow of her bones, skittered along the network of her nerves. A pain beyond anything she'd experienced burned through her and she longed to scream, but could not open her mouth or command her lungs to breathe while ensnared in the thrall.
Then, inconceivably, the power delved deeper, pushing beyond corporeality into the realm of the essential, the causal. Here, it found what it it sought and with a terrible efficiency, seized upon it and wrenched it from her. Task accomplished, the force retreated, taking some part of her with it. The Servitor dropped her to the floor and she hit hard, completely limp, but she barely felt the impact. Every nerve burned raw and ragged, a pain so overwhelming it was akin to numbness, as she could feel nothing outside of it.
She lay on the stone, too weak to move, feeling as though they'd ripped out her soul. Then she felt within and realized that in a way, they had.
Her Light was gone.
Not completely, though she initially feared that, the barest flicker deep down reassured her. They hadn't taken her Light from her permanently, but all that she'd gathered in the cell, in the arena, was gone, torn from her somehow and taken into that Servitor.
Her head lolled backward, bringing Erxaris into view just as the Judgment Vandal stepped back from the Servitor, saying something to the other guards, her armored limbs twitching oddly. Or, perhaps not twitching, but shuddering as if in delight. The Vandal removed her mask, four eyes closing as she breathed a sigh which could only be described as satisfied.
After the moment had passed, she walked over to the Warlock on the floor, one clawed hand wrapping beneath Sylvanni's chin and lifting her head and shoulders off the floor to whisper closely. A white mist, glowing faintly, leaked from her mouth as she spoke.
"Perfect tribute." Erxaris' words seemed more airy and sibilant than they'd been before. "First of many. That which is stolen returns to rightful owners. The Baroness will be most pleased."
With her mind muddled, it took Sylvanni a moment to register what that meant. The realization clicked into place just as Erxaris let her fall back to the floor. Unconsciousness swallowed her only a moment after the horror did.