Chapter Forty-Five: Sanar Klis' Redemption
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"Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy."
~F. Scott Fitzgerald
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No one but the Kavishka was supposed to touch the Sildar. Sanar had seen for herself the consequences—death. Horrifying, damning death. Even Kyp was affected by the Sildar's mindless demand for vengeance.
She didn't touch it.
Sanar Klis grabbed the Sildar with both hands, and swung it as hard as her strength would allow. She swung it until she felt her arms pop from their sockets; the Sildar swung around and bit her in the flesh of her back. Immediately she felt herself begin to…
(crumble. fall apart.
she felt her end.)
And there Sanar found something for which she had been searching a long time, something few people attain:
Sanar Klis found her redemption.
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(Lera only ever wanted to do the right thing.)
Lera inhaled and then—ohohohohohForce.
She tried to exhale, but that didn't work quite right, and then she stopped thinking.
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Sanar Klis held the Sildar for approximately thirty seconds, perhaps less than that. The Sildar does not discriminate between one second and one day, or between ally and enemy. All are exposed to the Sildar's wrath.
This is law, and truth.
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When the end came, Jaina found it almost anti-climatic. Words exchanged, and not even the energy to cry. Zekk looked exhausted. She had woken only hours after her resurrection, but she suspected that in that interval he had been similarly worn out. Fighting your own dark side could take a lot out of a person. It really sapped a fiancée's energy, too, she thought with a grimace. She felt positively old as she straightened herself out from the pretzel-like way she had fallen.
Fiancée, she thought suddenly. But was it ex-fiancée now? She had given back the ring, of course, but… Oh, Force, she was definitely too tired for that. Watching Onyx bleed through—and take over—Zekk had been more than enough for one night.
The cause of Jaina's emotional exhaustion approached her warily. "Are you…?" He looked helpless. Like Zekk, though. Jaina suspected that tonight had seen the last of Onyx's lure, once and for all. That was something.
"I could use a nice long nap," she told him. She couldn't smile for him, and that hurt. When he held his hand out, she took it. That much, at least…. Sighing, she let him pull her to her feet.
He did try for a smile, but it looked too grateful and too ashamed to not hurt even more than if he had admitted how very kriffed up they had become. "Jay, I—"
But then everything hurt so godsdamned much and there wasn't a single place she didn't feel it and she doubled over (or had she collapsed completely? She couldn't see think hear only feel pain) and screamed and
(the River oh the River and
it always called to her, every day and every moment, but
this was different
it screamed with her and pulled demanded dragged at her and its current caught her soul as
Death whispered her name her name her
oh and her soul cried so)
(and Sanar was gonegonegone forever)
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For Kyp Durron's successful transformation as the Kavishka, he had to be loved by Sanar Klis.
This is law, and truth.
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Devnos was there, and his pain—
Just like her own. Oh…
Lera wasn't aware of anything—not her friends' panic, or Shanya's desperation, or Nichyn's grim terror.
Lera only—
(shh quiet
no just—but shhh
surrender just
quiet
surrender)
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The night turned as the battle's tide did.
A storm had been brewing for hours, slowly gaining momentum. Isra might not have noticed it except she escaped the palace's confines late, and had watched it escalate through the passing windows. When she had stepped onto the outside battleground, the tempest had blown her veil free. A lighter, weaker woman would have been blown off her feet. (Isra saw no such women here.)
At midnight, Mujir returned to her children.
Lightening split the sky and opened it to the goddess' dawn. For one glorious moment, Mujir's Resistance and Pucijir's Order saw the Mother Goddess' triumph before the sky returned to darkness. Isra would not have wondered if all the Holy Brothers' hearts simply stopped in fear.
They fought on (and Isra with them), but everything had changed.
First the Holy Brothers began dying very quickly. Then they divided into those who run, and those who turned on themselves.
The emperor was dead.
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For Prophecy to succeed, Sanar Klis must remain alive—and in love with the Kavishka—until destiny has run its course. Should either of these statuses change, then the Sildar will reject Kyp Durron.
This is law, and truth.
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Krista shoulder wound was beginning to worsen. There could have been poison on the sword that cut her. Or maybe she was just tired. Everything was so much worse when she was tired.
Her knees wobbled—ten wobbles, at least, between each of Miko's breaths. (Unless she was imagining those.)
Krista felt so tired.
A Holy Brother tried to come through her battleground. They kept sneaking in, even with all the other places in this building. Krista kept killing them. The violence was almost becoming second nature; her hands no longer slipped on her blood-covered weapon grips. She was past that.
Long past that.
She dispatched of this Holy Brother quickly, completely detached from the buzz as her lightsaber slid through his stomach. He could die as slowly as he liked; she didn't much care anymore.
So tired.
Another one chased in—she couldn't tell if it had been a few minutes, or a few hours, since the other one. She could keep fighting. These Holy Brothers might be incredibly skilled, but when they came in all nice and single file like this, they really made things easier for a girl with a lightsaber. Especially when one didn't bother with Light-side-Dark-side quibbling. She cut this one at the knees. Since Kyp wasn't nearby to use the Sildar, she removed his head next.
Easy.
But then several men came through the prison entrance and there was just Krista and Miko. Usually Miko was all the backup Krista needed. At the moment, however— Krista fumbled with her thoughts.
Anyway, just her, because the surviving MR fighters left before Krista had even finished clearing the room that first time.
Krista pushed away her exhaustion as best she could, as well as the nagging sensation that she had forgotten…something. The battle might be closing down, but they weren't done with her quite yet.
She fought. Not how she usually did, because her head spun and she didn't feel much like making wisecracks, but she fought. She never stopped, even when one clever little boy knocked Miko's lightsaber out of her hands and into a puddle on the far side of the prison. The lightsaber sparked miserably. Three of the men were still alive, and bearing down on her.
But Krista fought.
Her shoulder started bleeding again, and she thought about that. Blood loss. Exactly how much blood had she lost? The room's spinning gradually increased in speed, just quickly enough to throw her off. Three Holy Brothers, and one Krista Harif. She could use an advantage or two.
(But there was something she had forgotten, wasn't there? Something besides blood loss and so much blood. She just couldn't focus her mind properly.)
She had accidentally re-opened her wound, but the Holy Brothers didn't help. Sensing weakness, they targeted her left side, pushing her to use her throbbing arm.
(Jerks, she reminded herself. They were just big jerks who didn't like her hair.)
Krista fought through the tiredness, the pain, even the slowly growing nausea. She fought although her muscles ached, and sweat dripped in her eyes. She blinked against the pinpricks of light in her vision. When she opened her eyes again, however, she had stumbled backwards and was staring at the ceiling. Okay. This isn't good. She tightened her grip on her daggers and tried to move past it.
She tried, but these men had a different plan. While she was still disoriented, her three buddies surrounded her properly—something she had really wanted to avoid. One lashed out at her shoulder, and the worlds spun again. She tripped out of their trap, and turned to face them despite her flickering vision.
She blinked. Hadn't there been just three of them? When had the others shown up? "Very rude," she muttered. "Un'nvited."
The Holy Brothers were getting desperate; even Krista could discern that much. They were…twitchy, for lack of better word. If they had had proper self-control, Krista would be long dead.
Of course, even the twitchy couldn't save Krista when her own body turned on her. While she was trying to keep up her defence, she backed right into the wall. She startled like an agent in her first week of training. The worlds were spinning around and…round and…round…
And then they purposely shoved her against the wall again. It was too much; Krista fell to the ground, her head hitting the stone with a sharp thunk.
Kind of like earlier, she thought fuzzily. When…when she fell, and her head…
For the second time that night, Krista couldn't find her feet. This time the cause was far more physical than emotional. Krista hadn't eaten much before the battle, but now it all came up. Over, and over, and over—the nausea refused to be ignored until a more convenient time. Her shoulder felt like it was on fire; she could barely keep her eyes open from the exhaustion; the galaxy spun inside her stomach. Krista couldn't fight anymore.
The boys didn't seem to care—the khalan niftyax was down, out for the count, and they were desperate. They left her behind as they scurried to the far corner. Huh. A…secret exit? A backdoor? the Intel agent wondered.
But then there wasn't a lot of thinking anymore.
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The Sildar cannot, will not, discriminate. Vengeance is as blind as Justice, but far more heedless. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, forever and ever, amen.
This is law.
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Sanar dropped the Sildar even before Rafintair's head hit the ground. The Holy of Holies fell silent even before Vengeance could start on the emperor's soul. The Holy Brothers stared at their master. The others stared at Sanar.
Kyp was vaguely aware of the Holy Brothers committing mass suicide, but he was far more concerned with getting to Sanar. His mind was too numb to deal with anything but the sprint to her side. Then he was there, and for all his speed Kyp couldn't do anything but stare.
Sanar wielded the Sildar.
Oh, touching it was bad enough—sometimes worse than being injured by it. But wielding it was—
Sanar killed Rafintair with the Sildar.
She was staring blankly at the Sildar where she had dropped it. No sign yet of Vengeance. That would change—it had with the Holy Brother from before. Kyp couldn't do anything to stop it. Any second now— "Sanar?"
She blinked at him, then glanced at the others. She looked confused. "Kyp." She cleared her throat, and looked down at her hands. They had been bloody for a while now—sword battles would do that—but Rafintair's execution had added a fresh coat. She wiped it off on her pants. "They're all dead. So it's…over?"
He frowned, thrown by her bizarre inclination to talk about things that really didn't matter right now. Any second now he expected her eyes to start bleeding. "No," he replied. "There'll be—trials, uprisings. The Sildar isn't— Sanar, what did you do?" His voice broke under the weight of his anguish.
Her eyes widened, and she grabbed his sword-free hand. "I don't feel anything," she said.
He closed his eyes. "That'll change."
"No." She shook her head. "I mean, I don't—I'm fine."
"Sometimes it…it takes a moment."
"No. That isn't it, Kyp." She met his eyes with unnerving calm. "I am fine. I—I thought that—but I am perfectly all right."
How many times in her life had she called him Kyp? he wondered. It was a stupid thought to have at that time, but he could only really take in so much—and she had called him Kyp twice in as many minutes. It had to be a record. Or maybe he was hallucinating this whole thing, and when he stopped she would be—
It took him a moment to work up the courage, but eventually he could drop his sword, and use it to take her other hand. When that one was real, too, he took a deep breath and pulled her close. She felt real—so real—and alive, and warm, and fine, so he tightened his arms around her and buried his face in her hair. Her hands went around to his back, and clung in deep.
Clung. Force, she had used the Sildar expecting—and—
There was still so much to do; Kyp held Sanar close until the inevitable happened.
(He tried, so very hard, not to make excuses, or to change "inevitable" to "probable." It didn't work. Kyp had always been a sucker for hope.)
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Arelyk called for an ambulance. It arrived ten minutes later. The paramedics took one look at Lera, and called ahead to the psych ward. They pulled Nichyn away from their patient. One straightened out and held her twisted limbs, while the other prepared the stretcher. Slowly, Lera began to calm.
Her eyes, though—
They lifted her, and then swiftly strapped her into the stretcher. They buckled down her wrists and ankles, just in case. Her head lolled to the side, seemingly oblivious to her tears. Shanya climbed into the back of the ambulance with Lera. Jolesp's parents drove Lera's friends to the hospital. Jolesp's mother called Hallis Verili en route.
Nichyn ignored them. All he could see was Lera.
Fifteen minutes. Whatever had happened (but he knew the answer to that, didn't he?), it hadn't lasted longer than fifteen minutes. But Lera's expression…
And her eyes. Wild, unseeing, gone, they had…
They had been bleeding.
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If it has to, the Sildar can control the application of Vengeance. Its timing can be delayed, just a little. The consequences of using the Sildar can be applied gradually, in steps.
This is truth.
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Zekk watched Jaina closely. Her reaction—and subsequently blackout—had him worried about Sanar, but Jaina's emotional state had priority. He had been putting her off for too long; tonight had been a hard reminder. "Then we'll go," he said. "To NLY. Hang the government—they can take it however they want. I'm not letting you go through this alone."
She looked away from him, as strange and distant as the first few days after her resurrection. Those nights, she had called out for a stranger, a bitter slave girl. Still caught in her dreams, she hadn't wanted him.
He wondered if she really wanted him now.
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Kyp pulled Sanar closer. After more than enough time for Vengeance to start its poison, he was beginning to hope. She had used the Sildar to kill Rafintair, after all. As the daughter of the first Kavishka, as someone who possessed many of the qualities required by the Sildar…perhaps Vengeance had forgiven her, made an exception, just this once.
"I feel fine," Sanar told him again. He tried to believe her.
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The fate of the Sildar has always been the same: damnation, forever and aye. But few people know Prophecy and Vengeance's workings as well as Devnos Klis did.
This is whatever you make it.
(Devnos Klis made it hope.)