THREE REALITIES EXISTED as one. Daggeira’s mind within Godsfall’s mind, flowing purple crystal overrun with golden, squirming coils. Daggeira’s flesh body hanging suspended in the heart cavity, awash in glares of light that were fields of condensed inertia and mind vincula. Daggeira’s body as Godsfall’s body, a colossus of smart-matter crystal engulfed in flaming auroras as it raced through cold, black space, her dominion extending out to the snared battleships trailing dutifully behind.
All three existed together, overlaid and interpenetrated. All three, her reality.
And Sabira—angry, prideful, traitorous Sabira—wanted to take all three from her with a flash of the blade.
As if Daggeira was that small. That inconsequential.
If Sabira wanted to end it, then Daggeira would be the one to end it. But first, Sabira would see. Truly see that Daggeira—and not her—was the one who should have been seen by Servants and Warseers and Divine Masters all along. The one truly seen by the Gods. That she alone was the Hand of the Goddess. Sabira’s sinful eyes would see her in all her heavenly glory first. Then, and only then, would Daggeira end her.
Daggeira, no, not like this . . . Old man Subaru’s voice was a pitiful whisper in the storm of her being.
She focused on the reality of flesh. Halos of fire encircled her. Vast wings of burning auroras unfurled, blazing through the heart cavity, throwing the geometry and withered husks of the Old Nahg in stark relief. In the realm of Godsfall’s mind, eddies of liquid crystal and golden coils swept into a maelstrom about her presence.
Daggeira, please . . .
But Subaru had no power over her. No place in her pure divine wrath.
Neither did Sabira. In both the realities of the heart cavity and the mind realm, Sabira fell at Daggeira’s feet. Writhing. Shaking. Dying so slowly and agonizingly, she couldn’t even scream.
“See me now, betrayer!” Daggeira’s voice rumbled the body of Godsfall, sent shockwaves through the fabric of space, and rippled the liquid crystal of the interface. “See who I really am. You thought you could kill me? You could never stop me before. And you never, ever will.”
But Sabira couldn’t see her. Not while she spasmed so pitifully. Once Sabira died and found herself rejected before the Gates of Heaven, frozen and alone in the void for eternity, then she’ll remember. She’ll know who sent her.
Daggeira lifted her hand to smite her rival, her lover, her enemy. But someone held her wrist. How? In the mind realm, a hundred Orions stood beside her, grasping her in a hundred grips. Countless more Subarus stood at her left. All of them swarmed with gold-shimmer tendrils. Beyond them, tangled in the coils, stood more Orions, more Subarus, and the hot furnace wills of the Final Masters. And beyond them, more and more and more.
“Stop! No!” Daggeira cried. “Don’t do this.”
“I’m sorry,” said the Subarus, an infinite chorus of voices echoing as one. “This is the only way.”
The gold coils wrapped around her, flowing in and through her, in and through Sabira—entwining and spinning and connecting the two of them.
Connecting. Connecting.
Connecting to Subaru Hanada, the one inside her, and the prime iteration corrupted by the Final Masters. She felt what he had felt. Lived what he had lived.
The glory of solving the riddle of the Old Portal. The horrific agony of miscalculation. Of cosmic tidal forces tearing apart his ship, his body, his countless minds. The long grasp of the Final Masters plucking him from the precipice of death. Years of torture and binding, breaking and rebuilding. Consumed in pain, dissolved by loss. Separated from home. Isolated from family. Everyone he’d ever known or loved, half a galaxy away. Trapped within a ravaged body, teetering on the edge of death as years ticked by. Bent to their dominion. So many alien arms with so many alien fingers burrowing into his brain. Reshaping his memory and will to serve as merely another component of a greater mind, of a unified will. Subjugating his soul to be another weapon in service of their ancient vendetta against the Gods.
Connecting to Orion.
Growing up in the shadow of the legendary father he’d never known. Looking to the pagoda-covered slopes of Mount Muyama, rising over his village. Determined and striving to be a greater Adept than the ghost of the man who had gone before. Training his mind to expand and expand and expand until no secret of the universe could stay locked and mysterious before him.
Connecting to the Old Nahg.
Watching helplessly while their great cities cracked and fell. Fleeing their dying soil as red skies devoured their world. Building and plotting and thirsting for vengeance. Retribution. Cosmic justice. To be the final bane of those who would be Gods. Shattering to ruin even as the Gates shattered. Waiting. Waiting. Holding back death century after century, until they could finally be made whole again. Until they could burn down Heaven with their hate.
Connecting to Sabira.
Awakening frightened and confused. Surrounded by strangers who said they wanted to free her even as they bound her. Hearing the dusk song of the Vleez and finding beauty, not repulsion. The putrid stench of the eon. Uncovering the darkness hidden within herself, illuminated by the sacrament. Shining an unflinching light on the death and killing, on the shame and sorrow. All those dead souls reaching for her in the dark. Nameless humans and innocent vleez. All of it for lies. Lies about Humanity. Lies about Gods. An entire universe of lies, all to make her kill and kill again in the name of distant Masters.
That’s what happened to you? That’s why you were so different, Stargazer, when I finally woke from my coma?
Connecting to herself.
Her blood-brother, lying in cug shit, motionless, throat crushed. Dead, nameless humans bleeding out in the fighting pits. The pulpy mess of her other brother’s face, as his blood dripped, dripped, dripped from her fingers. Killing those vleez children side-by-side with Sabira. Their gargled, melting screams. Rejecting Sabira when she offered her hand in the dying pyramid, when she offered a chance for love and freedom and truth. Rejecting it all so Daggeira could prove she was the worthy one. She was the winner. So she could cause even more pain and bloodshed and loss. So she could take from Sabira the family she loved. All so that Daggeira could be . . .
What? What am I?
Whatever she was, she focused her attention into the fleshy vessel suspended in the heart cavity of Godsfall. She stepped forward onto the platform and knelt. Sabira lay curled into herself, trembling, drenched with sweat and coated in splatters of congealing blood.
Sabira had been right, back in the disintegrating hangar on the Zol-Ori. It had all been lies. All of it had been for nothing. For nothing at all.
Gently, she stroked the victory glyphs tattooed down Sabira’s temple. Sabira opened her blue eyes, ragged, bloodshot, stunning, and stared silently back at her.
“Alright, Stargazer,” Daggeira said. “You win.”