BACK IN THE Holy Unity territorial space of the local cluster, Daggeira Godsfall set free the Pyramid Ihvik-Ri. Though part of her had once called that pyramid home, leaving it behind felt no different than tossing aside an old tunic, or a newly hatched beast discarding its cracked eggshell. It had held her, enveloped and protected her for a time, but that time was long since past. And that was Daggeira, and Daggeira alone, who had belonged there.
Daggeira Godsfall was someone else. Belonged somewhere else.
The pyramid transmitted a barrage of hails from warseers and servants alike. What next? Why did they leave the conquest? Why did they retreat from the battle they were winning? They didn’t demand answers—they were far too intimidated for that—but remained insistent, pleading. Wasn’t Godsfall sent by Heaven to secure the Holy Unity’s victory? Wasn’t this Divine Will?
But Daggeira Godsfall had questions of her own. Where were the Gods? In the throes of agony and transfiguration, she had beheld the Goddess. Yet, she had also been through and beyond multiple Shattered Gates and found neither Heaven nor Gods. Found no divine answers at all. Only mysteries.
“Go back to Nahgohn-Za,” she told them. “Tell the Divine Masters all that you saw and all you did not see. Warn them not to come looking for me. Or I will come looking for them.”
With that she let them go. The pyramid lingered for a few hours, desperate for more answers. When it became clear she had nothing else for them, the Ihvik-Ri finally wrapped itself in a shell of warped space and fled for home. Daggeira observed the quantum foam ripple the void in its wake, entranced by a cosmological beauty no human eyes could see.
Once again, Daggeira was alone.
But she could never be alone again.
For Daggeira Godsfall was as much a multitude as she was a singularity.
She turned her attention toward the Gates. Including this one, she had passed through three distinct structures. Were more out there, waiting quietly in shattered pieces for the traveler who knew their secret? Did one of those Gates lead to the Nine Gods? Perhaps They were sleeping in Their unknowable Heaven, waiting to be found. What she would do if she ever found Them remained to be decided. The part of her comprised of the Old Nahg still hungered for vengeance. Yet, whatever this colossal weapon-body had originally been designed for, she was capable of so much more.
With sight beyond sight, peering into every wavelength and quantum fluctuation, Daggeira Godsfall gazed upon the stars of the local cluster and the vast galaxy beyond. Hundreds of billions of lights in the dark, with billions more worlds in silent orbit.
All those stars, and all of them for her.