A/N: Sorry again for hideously late update. It was never my intention to move back to monthly updates, but life has been running at full speed lately and there has been very little time for updates. I don't want to rush what I'm writing (still feeling the quality/tone is skew-whiff) but at the same time I don't want to keep followers waiting. The good news is there are only two more chapters to go! Thank you very much to koryandrs and OnnaMusha for your supportive reviews!

Chapter 18: The Face-Snaked Queen

Dead.

The word echoed in her ears, though no one had spoken it. It pounded against her forehead as she squeezed her eye shut. Then she opened it. She owed him that at least.

Beyond dead. Destroyed. And with Sotha Sil's destruction had come the destruction of the Clockwork City, which had become as fragile and broken as his limp, dismembered body.

Llovesi reached out suddenly over the damaged consoles, for the cables encircling his left wrist. She tugged softly, then desperately, but the bounds held firm as his body swayed from the motion. Llovesi wanted to remove the example he'd become. But the crude display was as fixed in place as a statue now. Who could have–no, that was a stupid, naïve question. She knew exactly who had done it.

As if accepting some inevitable outcome, Llovesi turned slowly from Sotha Sil until she faced the door again.

Almalexia was there, Hopesfire in hand.

She'd been watching. For how long? Did it matter?

"Why?" Llovesi asked, fighting to stop her voice from cracking. "Why attack your own city? Why kill him?"

She took a step forward, but Almalexia raised a hand, and suddenly Llovesi found herself fixed in place, every limb immobile as stone, her jaw clamped shut. Trueflame clattered to the ground, its flames winking out.

Almalexia's expression was unreadable, hidden as it was behind a green metal mask with tusks and a fearsome expression. Llovesi felt that the terrifying visage couldn't be far removed from what lay beneath.

"It is fitting that it should be here," Almalexia said finally, her hand still raised and her voice ringing clear from behind the battle mask. "You should have died in the city, died to the creations of pride and conceit. But you survived. And you found dear Sotha Sil.

"Turn around. Look at what he was."

Llovesi tried to move willingly but, before the unconscious thought could even enter her mind, Almalexia's spell was moving her, grinding her limbs and stretching her muscles into position. Llovesi tried to grit her teeth against the pain of involuntary movement. Where has she found this power?

"A shell of a god," Almalexia continued. "Hiding behind his machines from the world he helped create. Even in his final moments he refused to speak. No, even then he believed himself my superior–he mocked me with his silence! So I returned him to his true nature: a broken man. Look at me now."

Llovesi's entire body was snapped round like the flick of a wrist. Almalexia was pacing now, her bare feet padding softly on the metal floor. But there was no tension in her movement; it was not the Almalexia who hid storms of fire and rage behind calm, serene features. Every stride was filled with easy, dangerous, predatory grace. She wore this new stance like a glove–or unlike one, for it wasn't clothing at all. It was as if every layer of her being had been stripped back to its core, and now the real Almalexia paraded in front of Llovesi, a blade in hand that burnt with electric blue fire. The real Almalexia, or what she had become.

"Perhaps you think me as mad as he," she continued in a level voice. "I am not blind to your opinions. To your... transgressions. This is the only way. It's all I ever had, and it's all I will have to hold onto."

Llovesi wanted to scream, but the empty air hit a barrier in her throat. She wanted to tell Almalexia it didn't have to be the only way, but the words would never be allowed to leave her. She knew then that Almalexia would hold her still till she had spoken her fill, then she would kill her.

"My people." She sounded as if she were almost smiling over the word. "They have been mentioned a lot over these past few weeks. What is best for my people. But look how their recent devotion has restored me! What is a Goddess without her people? Ask yourself if the puppet king truly cares for their fate. I do. And it was all I ever cared for. I was to be their Mother of Mercy, and I was borne into my role through fire and passion. I need to be strong for them. In the end, you matter little to me, Nerevar. Nor you, Llovesi, though it is not to you that I speak now.

"I will tell of how I tried to bring you from your madness: your attempts to collaborate with your old friend, the Clockwork King. But it was too late to save you. Your death will end Azura's prophecy, and I will unite my people again, claw back what has been stolen from me!

"Releasing the fabricants upon Mournhold with the aid of the Mazed Band, creating the ash storms–these were but ways to show my people they still needed me. Now there will be no more need for violence or dissent, for all of Morrowind shall devote themselves to me, the one true God! The puppet king will fall, Vivec will fall, and I alone shall be my people's salvation."

She stopped pacing and turned to face Llovesi.

"But first: you. I could snap your neck where you stand, but I think I would prefer another end. I want to hear you scream."

Then Almalexia was sprinting like a flash of lightning towards Llovesi, her blade raised high, as the spell binding Llovesi vanished, dropping her to her knees as numb feeling returned. All this happened simultaneously, and it saved Llovesi's life. Had Almalexia been moving slower she might have been able to correct her charge to attack Llovesi as she crumpled to the ground, had Llovesi not been bound by the spell at all she might not have been able to dodge. But Llovesi was on the floor, and Almalexia was the other side of the room, curiously examining her bloodless sword.

Llovesi knew she had to be faster than she'd ever been before. She rolled, seized Trueflame, and raised it just it time to block Almalexia's returning strike. The flash of gold became the Goddess, and Hopesfire was pressing down on Trueflame, both blades sputtering and grinding one against the other. Hopesfire sparked not with flame, but deadly lightning. Almalexia pushed harder and harder, and Llovesi's arms trembled, the already weak muscles giving in.

"I can make it quick for you. Why resist?" Almalexia asked.

"Because I'm the only person standing between you and everything else!" Llovesi panted, and the reply gave her the strength to throw Almalexia back.

But Hopesfire slashed through the air again, and it bit deep into Llovesi's side. She dimly heard Almalexia laughing as electricity careered through her torso, squeezing her heart painfully. She kicked out, felt her boot connect with hard muscle.

Llovesi backed up, trying to knit the wound, and get to her feet again. Blurry vision returned, just in time to see Almalexia launch a spell at her. The fire seared through the air, and Llovesi barely managed to dodge before it exploded into a ball of heat that threw her back across the room into Sotha Sil's consoles. She cracked the one she hit, and the light in the dome faltered again, sending Sotha Sil's gaunt face above into garish relief.

Almalexia paused, and Llovesi used the brief power outage that followed to slash at the Goddess's unprotected torso.

The Goddess quickly proved why she didn't bother with armour: catching Trueflame with Hopesfire and using Llovesi's momentum against her, throwing her off balance.

But the brief moment of instability had shocked her, and Llovesi caught her glancing at the newly sparking light overhead before renewing her attacks. Llovesi dodged again as Hopesfire howled past her ear, and thrust with Trueflame. This time she caught Almalexia with a blow on one of her pauldrons, hard enough to dent the metal.

Almalexia paused to tear the armour off, revealing a golden shoulder bruised deep plum. Llovesi seized her chance. The Goddess didn't seem to know what she had set in motion by destroying Sotha Sil and his console room. If Llovesi couldn't wear her down, she knew one thing that could. The City.

She ran.

"Fool! Coward!" Almalexia shouted behind her. Llovesi didn't stop to check if she was being followed as she barrelled through the door and hurdled over the giant corpse of the Imperfect.

Almalexia cursed behind her, and Llovesi risked a glance backwards. The Goddess had tripped over the Imperfect's prone form, and was stumbling upright again. Her vicious grace had been shattered for a mere second.

Llovesi sprinted onwards, breath tearing a ragged hole in her throat, but her suspicion confirmed. Almalexia did not know what lay beyond the Dome of Sotha Sil. Maybe it was the only part of the city the Mazed Band had ever taken her to.

Llovesi reached the next door and pushed onwards. This was the large room with the mechanical bridge. And the lava. She couldn't forget the lava, not when the heat rose of stifling waves from below.

Almalexia was nearly at her heels.

"You think to run from me?" she shrieked, and Llovesi noted a breathlessness to her voice. "Nerevar, you disappoint me! Surely you noticed the way to the Outer City has collapsed? There is no escape!"

Llovesi threw herself across the metal bridge, feeling the heated metal through the soles of her boots. She heard a gasp of pain beside her as Almalexia's bare skin touched the scorching metal.

Llovesi had reached the lever. She pulled with all her strength, slipping over backwards as the lever finally clicked upwards. The bridge began to move.

Almalexia was still only halfway across. Suddenly, sections of metal behind her separated, became vertical, and receded into the walls on long mechanical arms. The Goddess looked back with an expression of horror, then down as the metal beneath her feet began to shift as well. Suddenly she was running and jumping, catching each part of the bridge as it soared backwards and propelling herself forwards to the next one. Her expression had changed to one of victory. Llovesi, who'd barely had a moment to catch her breath, turned and ran again.

What will you do, a small voice in her head asked, if there's nothing in the city that can beat her? What will you do if you reach the flooded halls and she's still as strong as this?

It was the hall with the fabricant-creating containers. The new fabricants were steadier on their feet now, and ready to attack. Llovesi dodged them as they loped towards her, and instead jumped up for the balcony above. She caught it firmly, and though her arms felt ready to give it, and her legs kicked uselessly beneath her, she pulled herself up.

Almalexia was among the fabricants, slicing this way and that with Trueflame. Electricity crackled, and the young fabricants went flying in pieces. But her hands and feet looked badly blistered.

"None may stop me, Nerevar!" she called. "When will you stop running and face me as the man you were?"

But Llovesi was already on her feet and running again, this time through the twisting hallways and silent workshops. She knew the path, when to hurdle the debris and duck under fallen pipes. Almalexia was growing more distant behind her, though her insults and oaths still echoed through the tunnels.

Llovesi knew what was next. The shifting maze. She ran through the automatic door and jumped, catching onto a wall section as it started to descend. Almalexia appeared above her, but already she was slipping from view.

"You think to hide in there, Nerevar? It will be a short game. Come out, end this now. I have a city to return to."

Llovesi ignored her. She knew this maze, knew when to–jump!–to avoid spike traps and pits. Almalexia did not have the same advantage. Feeling braver, and getting her breath back, she adjusted her grip on the wall section as it back to recede again, then braced her feet under her hands before leaping backwards to catch another sliding section before falling. She could hear Almalexia panting loudly somewhere to her left behind the sliding walls and floors.

A tunnel opened below, and Llovesi swung into it and rolled through before it could disappear. From the sound of it, Almalexia was somewhere beneath her now and still struggling. Llovesi caught hold of a wall, and drew Trueflame with her other hand. All the while the maze's mechanism clicked and, if she had guessed correctly, soon the floor would open up.

There she was. Almalexia was frantically looking from side to side as the floor she was standing on began to click back into the wall. They were still about twenty five feet from the ground. Almalexia hadn't seen her waiting above. Llovesi took a deep breath and jumped.

A split second before she fell, Trueflame swinging up in a graceful arc, Llovesi wondered if this was right. Sneaking around Almalexia, using this unfair advantage against her. Of course the Goddess would have done the same thing in her shoes. Did that make both of them wrong?

Then she was on her, and Trueflame bit down deep into Almalexia's now unprotected shoulder. It slid through to her neck with a terrifying slowness, and the world seemed to move in equal slow motion as they tumbled down together.

Then suddenly Llovesi was flying backwards down a corridor. Almalexia had thrown her off, and was advancing towards her, healing the wound in her neck with one hand and brandishing Hopesfire with another.

"You thought it would be that easy?" she spat, as Llovesi struggled to move to her feet before falling back.

"A blade unawares and you can wash your hands of me?"

Llovesi could hear a noise in the distance, and somehow through the fog of building panic she realised what it was. She grabbed Trueflame and began crawling backwards, stumbling through the door that separated the maze room from the one that preceded it.

"Even now you try to escape me. Whatever you fought for in your return Nerevar, it is over. Whatever mad game Azura hoped to play, it has ended."

Alamalexia was raising her sword high. With one last grunt of effort, Llovesi threw herself back in open space, where she lay on the open balcony as Almalexia made her final approach.

"Know this, as I release you," she said softly, eyes only on Llovesi as she stepped into the light of the room and the walls rumbled around them. "You have fai–"

Then the blade came. It moved inevitably and rapidly on its grinding motor of death.

And Almalexia was thrown midspeech, her final threat lost to the grinding of metal on metal and the sick thump of impact on soft flesh.

She screamed as she fell, and it was a long sound.

Llovesi rolled over the balcony to the ground.

Almalexia was lying there, neck twisted from the fall, hands fluttering weakly at the great tear in her stomach, the tear that had split her in two. Hopesfire lay in reach, but she didn't seem to care for the sword any more as she sent failing sparks into the wound.

Llovesi watched as her chest rose in quick bursts, as her fingers trembled above the wound. Her back buckling, but her legs staying still. Every little spark of magicka died as it left her fingertips. She hadn't stopped screaming.

Finally, she gave a great sucking gasp, every word a clenched struggle: "Oh... it... it hurts!"

Llovesi hesitated, then she limped over. Almalexia reached up with shaking fingers to remove her mask, revealing a face drench with sweat, pain, and fear.

"This is it, isn't it?" she asked no one in particular.

"It is." Llovesi felt obliged to reply.

"I was... I was just doing what I had to do... It was all I ever knew how to do. Because, if I did, maybe it would make everything we did okay. I... I'm not sorry for trying."

She gulped wildly, and pressed her fingers against her mangled lower half.

"Why can't I heal it? Where has my power gone?"

Her eyes rolled, and caught Llovesi in their fading yellow glow.

"Please," she begged. "I cannot die. Not like this. It isn't possible for me to die like this. Don't leave me. You have Trueflame. Please."

Llovesi hesitated, her eye straying to Hopesfire. As if some final understanding passed between them, Almalexia too glanced at the sword. Then she swatted it away with one last flick off her wrist. It skidded across the fabricant littered floor, the electric blue flaming dying out.

With what seemed her last ounce of strength, Almalexia turned her gaze back to Llovesi. This time the plea was silent.

Llovesi held Trueflame aloft, and placed the burning blade to Almalexia's throat. With sudden alacrity, Almalexia's hand shot up, but she grasped Llovesi's shoulder tenderly, with no malice, as tears clouded her eyes.

"In all that I did, Nerevar, it was born of love for you and our people... Maybe it was personal, in the end..."

She took a great shuddering breath, and spoke her final words.

"Make it quick."

Llovesi drew the blade back from Almalexia's throat, and plunged it swiftly through her chest and into her heart. The Goddess body arched backwards, then she fell down with a great sigh, her body still warm but her eyes forever still.

Llovesi turned to the side suddenly and threw up until she was empty. Her mind felt strangely empty too, as if she'd become a hollow shell, incapable of reason or emotion. And what emotion could there be in this? No joy, no sadness.

Numbly, she retrieved Hopesfire and sheathed Trueflame. Then she turned back to Almalexia's body, searching for her way home.

But she didn't trust herself to take the Mazed Band, not now. Instead, she held the corpse of the Goddess close, so that when she touched the ring they were both touching it, both touching each other, and that way Llovesi willed herself back to Mournhold with the burden of life and death in her arms.

No braziers were burning in the High Chapel and the Hands were silent, waiting.

Julan was waiting too, his head bowed so that his shaggy dark hair fell into his face, his hands shackled.

He could have run if he'd wanted to; no one was holding him. But he didn't want to. He had to know, either way. Either Almalexia would return or, hope against hope...

There was bright flash of white light, and Julan jerked his head up. But he found that he'd squeezed his eyes shut. He almost didn't want to know.

Then a voice spoke, and he wished he could have raised his hands to his ears as well, because she sounded so broken and defeated.

"Julan."

He forced himself to look then, at the mangled body of Almalexia and at his wife. She was drenched in blood and covered in dirt, her clothes and armour were ripped. But by far the most damaged thing seemed to be her expression. Any trace of her humour was gone, her mouth was a grim line and her expression were dark. For one awful second, Julan didn't recognise Llovesi at all. The woman he knew a few days ago had not come back from the Clockwork City. Then he shook himself, and ran forward, relief forcing out any other feeling.

"Llovesi!"

She offered him a smile that was so far from her eyes it might have never touched her lips at all. He stopped just shy of the dais as she turned to the Hands, who looked up as one.

"Your Goddess is dead," Llovesi said, and laid the body gently at their feet.

The Hands raised their arms, and Julan ran forward again, knowing he was weaponless but also knowing they would not lay one finger on Llovesi, not now. Not while he still breathed.

But they didn't touch her. Instead, they turned their hands to their own hearts, and bright bursts of magicka jumped from fingers to chests. They crumpled as one, coming to the ground by the Goddess they could no longer serve. They had killed themselves.

Julan jumped back, his eyes wide but Llovesi's expression didn't change. What had she seen, what had she done? She looked as if she'd aged a hundred years.

"Llovesi?" Julan asked, his voice uncharacteristically soft and hesitant.

She turned towards him.

"We should leave," she said finally. "To be found here would be the final worst thing in a very bad day. And this isn't over yet. I have some words for the King."

She stepped forward and snapped the chain holding Julan's shackles together with her bare hands. Julan was to busy wondering at her face to even notice how casually she did it.

"Llovesi... what happened?"

She was silent as they began to walk from the High Chapel.

"One day... No, actually Julan, I will tell you just as soon as we leave this place for good. You will understand. But... I need to understand first. Only then."

Her stiff posture shook a little, and Julan began to think she might be okay. But he could hear footsteps approaching. Surely Drin and Hler could no longer ignore what was happening in the heart of their Temple.

"We should run," he said, tugging slightly at Llovesi's arm.

"No. No more running."

No cries came to hold them back and so they left the Temple hand in hand, not seeing the stares of early morning worshippers, nor seeing how the sky was blue again. Llovesi had eyes only for the Palace, and Julan, every glance turned sideways, only eyes for her.