LOST, ALONE, AND in pain, Daggeira ran through dim spirals.
Her determination to reach the Hara first, to be seen as the best of them all by both the Unity and Devil’s forces alike, drove her deeper into the maze. At each branch and intersection, it was impossible to know the right choice. In the huge vaulted corridor, it had made sense to follow where it led. But in these smaller, tighter spirals, she saw no clear path to the center. Just constant turning and turning. The dreamlike familiarity of the bastion alloyed with her confusion, so that she hurried forward in a solitary, bitter daze.
Since the battle with the abominations and the apostate had separated her from Zika and Spear, she had no choice but to go her own way. Which was exactly what she wanted. Without the attendant’s caution or the warseer’s dominion, nothing held her back. Except she had relied on Zika’s biological sense of direction to lead them through these endlessly twisting, identical tunnels.
Every step sent a jab of agony through her leg. After the battle, more hurts gnawed at body and mind. Chunks of her armor had been smashed or blasted away, exposing the bruises and burns underneath to the relentless cold. The air itself was like a knife, icy and sharp, slipping through the cracks in her armor to stab with ruthless precision.
The Gods see me, she repeated to herself. The repetition became a prayer. An anchor to steady her through the tumult of physical and emotional shocks.
This Trickster’s maze was no worse than being hunted on the target planet. And unlike that vermin-infested world, here she could at least breathe the air. And it was certainly no worse than the pyramid battleship disintegrating around her. Or flying helplessly through the middle of a losing space battle. The Gods had seen her through those calamities, They would see her through this. She tried to remember the visions she beheld in the Sanctum of Life. To remember Her presence. That Drohdil Mother of Life looked down from Heaven and chose her, Daggeira and no one else, to be the Hand of the Goddess
But she had passed beyond the Shattered Gates, and she found neither Gods nor Heaven.
Don’t let the Trickster’s seed take root in your heart the way it did Sabira—no, not Sabira. The apostate. She lost her name. Lost her faith.
I won’t lose mine.
Flashes of the battle against the abominations played through her mind. Gods, it had been so easy to fight side by side with the apostate again. Their time together on the Pyramid Ihvik-Ri felt like a different life. All the shifts they’d spent as a crew, disciplined to move and attack as one, had become engrained primal instincts within them both. Instincts reawakened by a shared enemy. Instincts that had tricked Daggeira into warning the apostate of the coming attack. That had tricked her into not taking down the apostate when she had the chance.
Memories of combat transformed into flashes of intimacy. The passion and intensity of their drilling, fueled by rivalry, lust, and desperate connection. The feel of Sabira’s taut, powerful legs gliding around her hips. The bliss of lips on sweat-slicked flesh . . .
No! Daggeira pushed the memories from her mind, refusing to give in to nostalgia. Memories of passion gave way to disgust and memories of the mass carnage on the Zol-Ori. The woman she had known had turned from Divine Will—not just an apostate, but a traitor, a mass murderer of her own people. The thought of the apostate ever touching her was nauseating, not something to daydream about when she was hurt and alone. And her disgust gave birth to shame, black and thick, corroding her insides. Shame clung to the back of her throat. The pit of her stomach. She punched her own injured leg. Gritting her teeth in pain, she punched again.
She should have killed her when she had the chance.
Yet Daggeira had paused when confronted with the apostate. It wasn’t until Zika had taken dominion that she raised her stick and pulled the trigger. What did that mean? Daggeira had always thought of herself as a constant, as herself. Now, that consistency was in doubt. Was she one self? Were there many selves within her, each vying for control? Perhaps through Zika’s dominion, now the warseer was part of her selfhood, too. How else could she move Daggeira’s hands, speak or silence her voice, if she wasn’t part of her?
Daggeira didn’t like where that introspection led. Such thoughts drained her energy as much as her injuries did.
At the next intersection, she stopped and rested against dark smooth walls, taking some of the weight off her aching right leg, and tried to clear her mind of pointless questions. She forced herself to focus on what mattered. She would win this old fool’s game and take his weapon. She would capture the apostate.
And she would make her pay.
Burn this shame away the only way she knew how. With violence. With victory.
A tingle ran up the back of her neck. Closing her eyes, she felt her vaidu again. One still lived and instinctively sought her out. The same one that had sidled up to her like a pet. It was deep far, but homed in on her, creeping ever closer in the vast bastion.
The biomech might be a part of her, too. Its senses were intertwined with her own. Did that make Daggeira part beast? Part machine? Perhaps she had become the true abomination.
A new sound broke her concentration. It echoed up from the intersecting corridor, making her skin crawl.
Vvrrllmm.
As long as Daggeira lived, she’d never forget the cursed hum of the stealth field jammers. She checked her veil, verifying it was still deactivated. The sound echoed through the corridor again, followed by a splash of emerald light reflecting off crystalline walls.
After the flash, Daggeira tried activating her stealth veils. It worked! Their jammers must only drill the emitters if they were active during the flash. She took a moment to center herself, then braced her palukai against her shoulder, and stalked invisibly toward the source of light and sound. Mentally, she pulled her last vaidu toward the same destination.
Daggeira had somehow circled back to the huge spiral arm where she had run into the apostate. Standing at the archway where the smaller passage opened into the much wider vault, she spied the Black Devil and the khvazol pillow boy. One of the abominations walked with them. Talked to them. If she had any doubt the Black Devil was one of Trickster’s minions, it was gone now.
But where was the apostate?
From what Daggeira heard of their chatter, they didn’t know where she was either.
The tell-tale vvrrllmm echoed through the corridor. Daggeira ducked behind the archway, deactivated stealth, and waited. The sound repeated twice more before the green light strobed. Once it was safe to reactivate her veil, she crept back to the archway but stopped before entering the giant spiral. While the abomination and the pillow continued on, the Black Devil headed back the way they came. Returning for the apostate, most likely.
As the Devil neared, Daggeira spied that no energy shield shimmered around him. Just in case he had some other way of drilling her stealth veils, she kept hidden around the corner, and took aim at his broad chest.
Abrupt dizziness crashed over her. Her vision tilted and blurred. She steadied herself with a hand against the cold wall to keep from falling. Something was different. Missing. After taking a deep breath, she reached out with her strange new sense again, and yes, the vaidu was still alive. But something had definitely changed, leaving an obscure emptiness in the back of her mind.
Once the dizziness receded, she raised her palukai and scanned for the Devil. He had moved past her, but she still had a clear shot at his back. Hers for the taking. Duty demanded that she slay this agent of the Trickster now, before he caused any more chaos and damage. Yet she paused. After rushing into action once already this day, and the price she paid for it with her throbbing leg, cracked armor, and dead vaidu, thinking things through first was in order. She remembered what Spear had tried to teach her. She needed to plan several moves ahead. Prepare for every outcome. Soon as she fired on the Black Devil, the abomination would know and come hunting. She could evade it for a time, but with her injured leg and their stealth jammers, that time would run out.
Killing him now would be deep satisfying, yes, but she had another idea.
She could follow him. She could wait until he reunited with the apostate. Then she could vaporize his head from his shoulders, just to see the look on her face. See the moment when all the apostate’s prattling about freedom and choice burned to ashes in her throat.
Grinding her teeth, Daggeira lowered her weapon. If she stalked the Devil, she would head farther from the Hara. And someone else would win. She couldn’t let the khvazol pillow take the superweapon while she indulged crueler impulses. So she turned from the Devil, and keeping a wide, careful distance, followed the mechanical abomination and the traitorous khvazol.
Somewhere in the spiral arms of Loshan Bastion, her last vaidu crawled ever closer.