Star Wars - Infernal Echoes: An Alternate History of the Old Republic

Volume II: The Blackline

Part 8: Ravaged

Chapter ? – Blinded to See, Deafened to Hear, Shattered to be Whole Again

Atris

The songs…I can’t hear the songs…

How will they listen to me…if…if I can’t hear their songs? They won’t know they should talk to her…

She needs… she needs me…

I… where is she… where… where am…

She wasn’t in the caves. They… they weren’t in the caves?

No… she was alone. Atris was alone. She had to be. Wasn’t she?

The cold…

Where was the cold? The caves were always so perfectly cool, even in Dantooine’s hottest summers.

This? This was warm. This was… this was wrong. She was lying down. She’d never lain down in the caves before. Had she asked Meetra to lie down with her? On the cave floor?

She’d wanted to sometimes. She’d be able to hold her closer that way. Maybe that would make the crystals notice. She’d tried everything and nothing had worked. Clutching one in her hand, warming it in her palm as she touched her forehead to Meetra’s, clasped their hands together, crystal between them, trying to get them to feel what she felt. That the girl standing with her was good. A friend. A hero, even. If only the crystals would let her hear them. If Atris could make them feel about Meetra what she felt…

What she wasn’t supposed to…

But it could work…

Wasn’t lying down and holding hands what people who felt that way did?

It could calm her down. Quiet her mind. Make her feel safe. It made sense.

It wasn’t supposed to, but it did…

Maybe the Masters would understand? Maybe there was something she missed in the Code? There had to be. It wasn’t right for Meetra to be so alone like this. If she could just convince herself to-

No! You can’t! You can’t get her in trouble! No!

But… But maybe it would help. Aren’t Jedi supposed to help?

The Split. She’d called it that. The two voices inside her. The little girl in the meadows, and the grown woman in the mirror, standing amidst the Council Seats. The fights they always had. At first. Before she realized it was just her growing up. She’d found the right side, though. The side that knew the Code. The side that listened when the Masters spoke. She’d listened. She’d stepped into the mirror. And she’d become that woman.

She was still that woman. It was Meetra who’d walked away from her mirror. From the woman she was supposed to be. From the women they were supposed to be. Together. All to fight a war as nothing but a stupid, angry little girl answering to an even angrier, even stupider little boy too eager to swing his fists and break his twisted toys and proclaim his savage blows to the galaxy righteous as he stood atop the burning bodies he’d stacked as a legacy.

So why was she pining for the caves? Why was she...

Floating?

That was it. Atris was floating. Moving. As if being carried by the sea. Each wave swelling under her back carried her some sort of forward. Forward to shore? Forward to the open depths? She couldn’t tell. And either way she was too tired to fight it.

Eyes open or closed, no matter how many times she tried to blink it away, her vision was pure, blinding white.

The songs weren’t coming back. There was a constant, undulating rush in her ears. It pulsed, louder, then quieter, louder again with the ebb and flow of the waves. But it was less the sound of cycling currents. It was more like rushing blood. Her blood. Why was she hearing her blood. Why…

Pain… why is there… pain…

The sound ushered sensation. It wasn’t just a pulse. It was a throb. A rippling ache that sliced its sharpest along the lines traced by arteries and veins, feeding the nerves screaming their futile entreaties that she move, that something be done to escape the source of her injury as she struggled against what felt like ground and splintered shards of ice shredding through her innards.

But she couldn’t move. Breath fought its way past dented and deviated airways. She couldn’t do much more than twitch the fingers of her deadened arms and loll her head with the tide as phantom talons dug into her right flank and the crossbars of some infernally shoddy raft rolled and shifted against the bruised muscles of her back, struggling to hold together as they carried her across the ocean.

Carried…

Was she being carried?

Why hadn’t the raft she’d just noticed come apart? Two shifting, rolling planks on some half-broken frame? How had she gotten even this far? Or even gotten here at all? Even reeling from cuts and breaks and bruises as Atris was now, that hardly registered as sensical.

She started slightly as she suddenly dropped, felt an impact radiate up from some hard surface that couldn’t possibly have been there. Only to find herself all the more confused by the fact she hadn’t gone underwater, and even more perplexed still when whatever was carrying her grunted as Atris hit the bottom of her fall. It released an exasperated breath, and then, as Atris floated back up, a shaky groan, just smooth enough not to be only a growl. It had voice. It cut through the rush of blood in her skull that muted every other sound.

A voice she knew.

Beautiful…

No…

No…

No…

Leave me…

Demon…

Demon… leave…

Would rather…

Would… ra… ther…

“Die…”

Atris couldn’t scream. Even her thoughts felt weak. And her first word since waking barely escaped as a breath.

The voice, the beautiful voice, the demonic, evil, hateful, stupid, worthless, beautiful voice scoffed.

“Still? After all that, that’s still all you have to say?”

It sounded sad. Resigned. Well and truly done.

But Atris had a stubborn wisp of a sense it didn’t want to be.

She tried to wave it away.

Atris wanted to touch the face that spoke that voice. Soothe the aches that strained it.

It didn’t deserve that. That sadness. It…she should be freed of it.

Atris wanted to choke the neck that housed that voice. Crush the throat that made it.

It deserved it. That sadness. She… it… the Galaxy should be freed of it.

Atris needed to be free of it. Of everything it made her want to do. There was no place for such thoughts in a Jedi’s mind. No place. It was a disgrace they lingered in hers.

She needed to see that face..

See her.

No… why? No…

I was… supposed to…

She didn’t finish the thought before the burning light in her eyes dimmed, before the sheet of ghostly white sparking nerves cast over her vision wore just enough to see through its threads. To catch the sharpening silhouette of the apostate she knew would end her. She was supposed to. She had to. Meetra had to end her. That was always who she’d been.

Not this sad, battered shell of a person sitting Atris down.

Inspecting her cuts.

Checking her pulse.

Sighing with relief as two of her profane disciples strode through the doorway to her sacred Council Chamber, defiling its floors with their heavy steps as they hauled their stolen ship’s stores of medical supplies inside and set her unconscious, bloodied servants and their similarly brutalized deserter half sister in the other seats and scurried about administering injections and dressing wounds.

No.

Meetra? Her Meetra? She was dead. She’d been dead since the wars.

In fact, it was likely she’d never existed.

This was someone else. It had to be.

This woman was just a fever dream. An imposter with the same name and kinder hands.

“Go…”

The Imitation raised an eyebrow. “Go? Go where?” it asked. Atris gritted her teeth. Summoned her contempt, leaned on her crumbling pride. Tried to let it go, replace the pride with calm, coax the ice back together into some semblance of a shell. She found only heat.

“Away…” she ground out. “Go… away… I. Don’t. Need. You.”

It blinked. “You’re dying.”

“Have…” Atris winced. “Have… kolto…”

“Sure,” it responded. “You have a tank in your sick bay. And if you’d like to fatally hemorrhage trying to crawl there, then I can leave. Otherwise…” It gently set Atris’s hand aside as she tried to swat the ministrations away. The compassion was affected. No more such lies would be welcomed here. This Imitation had told her enough. Atris felt an electric tingle as The Imitation lightly pressed along her nose, checking for breaks. When Atris recoiled, it looked apologetic.

It was unsettlingly convincing.

“Mical,” it beckoned. The naive Disciple finished applying a bandage to one of the five still faithful to her, looking to the other man, the Fool, as he tested the Betrayer’s joints for range of motion. The Fool nodded, and the Disciple joined the Imitation.

“Master,” he acknowledged.

Atris hadn’t the energy to dispute the title. Besides, the man was a sycophant when it came to this damnable woman.

“Can you help me set this?” she requested, pointing to Atris’s nose. Mical felt where she was pointing, his eyes assessing the damage his fingertips reported. “I don’t want the kolto fusing anything wrong when she’s in it. Last thing she needs is to have to re-break something.”

Mical's expression was clinical, bearing focused, unconcerned eyes that had seen such a break before. “Of course. It doesn’t appear to be too catastrophic a fracture.” The Disciple looked to Atris. “I’ll need you to stay quite still.” Atris tensed, trying in vain to lean forward and push him away.

The Imitation rolled her eyes. “I’ve got her,” she said, pinning her against the chair with one hand, and holding Atris’s head in place with a firm grip on her chin. “Go. Now.”

The Disciple looked to his teacher of all things wrong and nodded, returning his attention to Atris. He took a breath as it dawned on him exactly who he was treating. His doctorly visage gave way to that of a freshly graduated resident. He scrunched his lips and gave a sheepish tilt of his head as his fingers pinched the bridge of her nose. He was a fellow historian, and clearly knew who Atris was. Her significance to the Order. He looked stuck somewhere between starstruck, confused, and contrite, not quite able to believe what he was doing. “I’m sorry about this.”

The motion was quick, efficient, and precise. A jerk of the Disciple’s fingers that lasted a tenth of a second. The pain that followed was a lingering, lancing spike through Atris’s face. A scraping crunch echoed inside her skull as the cartilage slid back into place. Atris growled her scream through clenched teeth, the flames of her indignaton flickering, eager to reignite. The newly unobstructed breath she took in cooled them back down, if only by virtue of how surprising it was to be able to properly take in air again.

“Thanks, Mical.” the General replied.

General…? When had she become the General? The Imitation - not the General - smiled warmly at her Disciple, reaching into the kit and retrieving dermal plaster and bandages. She looked impressed with him. Atris’s face still twitched. Whether from pure affront at the crudely executed treatment or the phantom itch of having a piece of her innards so abruptly manipulated and struggling to adjust to its new placement, she couldn’t say. Maybe it was both, She preferred to believe it was only the former. They should have asked her to handle it herself.

Paralyzing aches along both her arms cast their flaring doubts she could have done it properly. Dead limbs had a way of hindering the application of medical knowledge, no matter how vast.

“I can handle the cast,” Meetra said. "Can you leave me some extra injectors? There’s some pretty bad burns and probably some internal bleeding I have to patch.”

The Disciple nodded as he counted out five syringes of kolto. “I might suggest reserving three for the lungs, heart, and kidneys. Even if the damage there is minimal it won’t go amiss to ensure they’re running properly after a battle like that.”

Meetra took the syringes gratefully, nodding towards the unconscious handmaidens. The Betrayer was beginning to stir. The Fool was watching her closely.

“Hey,” the Fool called. “I think she’s waking up.”

The Disciple - the “Tiny Jedi” as the Old Woman had called him; it was fitting for one so deferent to the blaspheming simulacrum playing doctor with Atris - closed up his pack of medical instruments, stood up and turned towards the Betrayer. The Last of her Handmaidens. The first Deserter. The first of her number to so bitterly disappoint Atris. Hopefully she’d be the Last Deserter as well. The Tiny Jedi began walking back towards the Betrayer. “Right,” he acknowledged, walking away to check on her and kneeling down by her seat.

Atris’s view was quickly obscured by Meetra’s - The General’s -

NO… Atris chastised herself.

The Imitation. The Imitation’s face. Her hands lifted a wet plaster cast and set it gingerly over Atris’s newly corrected nose. Even the light touch of it draping over the cracked cartilage and tightening as it set hurt her. It was a dull ache, at least. But the cold, damp cast made it worse, not better. It stood in maddening contrast to the warm palms on her cheeks holding her face still.

“Damn stone Council chairs,” she -

IT. IT IT IT.

IT muttered.

“Obviously these rock slabs don’t recline. So I need you to tilt your head back. It’ll help the cast stay in place,” she advised.

Atris just glared.

“Atris, please,” it insisted. “I really don’t want to keep doing this. I didn’t want to fight you, I don’t want to kill you, and I’d really rather not with - I don’t know, whatever you think you’re accomplishing here. I just, and I mean just as in maybe two hours ago at most, had a world-eating demigod force me to relive the absolute worst day of my godsdamned life and I came out of the memory just in time to watch my partner die. For the gods’ sake you were there! You helped me fight him!”

Partner…? The word was a broken, choked whimper stuck echoing in a locked recess of her mind begging to be opened. Atris could feel the righteous ire she meant to put behind it desperately trying to shove past her lips as a callous scoff. It came out as a stifled “Hmph.”

Meetra narrowed her eyes.

Not Meetra.

Meetra. Just say her damned name.

NO! She’s dead! She died when she left! She’s gone! This thing is just…

Meetra…

Atris swallowed.

“I would really rather not have heard you hand wave Visas’s life away like that." Meetra’s stare turned hard. Her lips thinned and her jaw tightened before she looked down and blinked. When she looked back up, there was molten iron in her eyes. “So I’m going to pretend that sound was you trying not to sneeze,” Meetra said. "We're all alive because of her. Hell, you might owe her even more than I do. You think Nihilus would've just left this place alone? He would've eaten you and your life's work alive in less than a minute. I just wish..." As quickly as the scorching fire had appeared, it vanished. “I…” Meetra sighed. “I’m tired, Atris. I don’t have the strength or the energy or the patience to keep fighting you. Please, for both our f-” She swallowed the curse, looked up at the ceiling, and took another breath. “If not for my sake then at least for yours, just tilt your head back and let me help.”

Atris didn’t miss how Meetra’s voice wavered on “help.” It was another chilling breeze. Another life-giving breath through mended airways that cooled the embers desperately scouring Atris’s soul for more fuel. More fight. Instead they continued to fade, batted around by winds that vexed and soothed as they floated through their futile explorations.

She leaned forward and tilted her head back. Meetra moved her head to the side, allowing Atris a view of the scene as her touch shifted to the back of Atris’s neck. As she looked back at her students, her Disciple and her Fool, Meetra’s fingertips seemed to move of their own accord, absently massaging out knots that formed as Atris spent more and more time craning her neck towards the ceiling and feeling the plaster dry.

The Fool spoke again.

“Looks like our brooding warrior princess here softened these other five up something fierce. But any chance they'll wake up for another thrashing? Only asking because I’d almost feel bad putting them back down.”

“Almost?” The Tiny Jedi questioned.

“Almost. And only ‘cause they’re her sisters. Kinda feels like she’s got exclusive rights to beat up on ‘em. Especially after the whole 'tried to kill her' thing. Would if I had to, though,” the Fool replied.

“I wouldn’t underestimate five enraged Echani. Even injured ones,” the Tiny Jedi admonished.

“Well. Feel free to underestimate me, I guess. All kinds of people way stronger than me made the same mistake back in the day.” The Fool nodded to the First and Last. “We gonna wake her all the way up or what?”

The Tiny Jedi was already preparing an injector. He stopped midway to the First and Last’s arm. “I think she has that well in hand,” he said, backing away as her eyes fluttered.

“It…” she winced and clutched her ribs, inhaling a sharp breath through gritted teeth before she spoke again. “It wouldn’t take more than… two of them.” The First and Last coughed, her face contorting with pain. “One for each of you. Ow…”

“Or one of you if the state of your half-siblings is anything to go by,” added the Tiny Jedi.

“No kidding,” the Fool chimed in. “Guess that makes you the First of the Handmaidens now, huh? Or whatever number you want, I guess. I’m thinking you get first pick of the numbers after this.” The Betrayer just shook her head, a begrudgingly amused breath of a laugh escaping her.

Meetra chimed in. Atris could hear the cheeky smirk in her voice. “You should pick seven. Just to confuse them.” She caught the corner of Meetra’s mouth in her vision, turned up in a warm smile.

When was the last time she made that face…? Atris wondered. Her scowl faltered as she realized how few memories of Meetra smiling at her she actually had.

Atris’s chin quivered. She fixed her face into a stony mask and closed her eyes, trying to drown the ensuing laughter out with the sound of her sharp inhales as she tried to induce a meditative trance. Their voices still came through. Atris found herself wishing for the muffling rush of her own blood inside her skull again.

“Ow,” the Betrayer winced again. “Don’t make me laugh… It hurts…”

Mical nodded. “Laughter is a wonderful thing. But it’s far from the best medicine if the patient’s ribs are bruised.”

The Betrayer narrowed her eyes, trying not to laugh again.

“Your name might be easiest,” Mical continued. “Possibly even the greatest affront if what I’ve studied of Echani handmaidens is true.” He smiled, “If, of course, you’re looking to make that kind of statement.”

The Betrayer furrowed her brow. She seemed startled into silence by the suggestion. Atris certainly was. Such a revelation would be a full and utterly final rebuke of more than just her sisters.

“I’ll… consider it.”

That alone was a colossal insult to the oath she’d sworn to her family. And more than that to Atris. She was dead to both now whether or not she decided to reveal it.

Atris kept trying to convince herself she was glad of it. She almost believed it.

Those who lost Atris’s favor did so because they would pollute her. There were too few true Jedi left as it was. She’d made her peace with the sacrifices required of her years ago.

The faint red glow from her meditation chamber pulsed in mockery of her conviction. In silent challenge to her purity.

She’d destroy every last one of the detestable artifacts when she was done here.

Perhaps you’ll let yourself enjoy it. That voice again… Let them wail in protest before you smash them to pieces.

Atris screwed her eyes shut.

QUIET!

The voice only got louder. That ancient specter at the edge of her memory, hovering just outside its grip.

Perhaps you’ll take special care to dismantle them just so. The constructs inside feel pain you know. They feel fear. They’d feel pieces of their vessels pulled away the same as you would if you’d pulled and chopped your fallen hero’s limbs from her body as you’d wished to. Failed to.

Flashes of Meetra’s limbless torso on the ground in front of Atris flashed across the backs of her eyelids. She was alive. Silently screaming. Arching her back as Atris watched with analytical detachment, documenting Meetra’s every expression of pain as the glow of Meetra’s old saber cast over her hand, fading as she withdrew the blade into its hilt and pressed a heel to The Exile’s neck. Rendered a sentence a decade overdue.

Atris’s eyes shot open, and she jolted, yelping in pain.

“Hey!” Meetra snapped. She loosened her already gentle grip on Atris’s arm, softening the press of her fingers against the back of Atris’s neck and holding them still. Arcs of tingling electricity built between the tips of Meetra’s fingers and the back of Atris’s neck, capacitors whose mounting charge made hair stand on end, anticipating their jump into eagerly waiting dendrites ready to carry them to the confused, seething brain struggling to see straight. “Easy - did I touch a bruise?”

Atris just shook her head, tilting it back down to look Meetra in the eyes. Meetra looked skeptical. Then her eyes flashed with concern, and she gently placed a hand under Atris’s chin, tilting her head back into position and inspecting the nose cast.

“Damn it. Sorry - I should kept holding you here. Cast could’ve slipped. It’s still not drying…”

The seconds before Meetra’s fingers resumed their work on the muscles of Atris’s neck felt far too long for Atris’s liking. She didn’t like that she had to wait and she didn’t like that she hated waiting. There was nothing of value to anticipate in Meetra’s touch and yet, like a fool, she wanted it.

Now she tends you like some wounded, whimpering runt, the voice chided. I’ve not any more use for you, nor the patience, nor the need to end your life. Whatever happens now is between me and the bitter disappointment of mine who sets your skin alight with the mere promise of innocuous touch. You are an approval-starved, hopelessly infatuated child, and like most forgotten children, you have no part to play. Save her, your old hero, none of my failures do. I will leave you now, and I will leave you with only this: You never needed my help to fall, Atris, and you never needed my help to fade. I simply harnessed the inevitable consequences of who you are: a crumbling relic as frozen in time as the icy mountain hovel she cowers inside.

It was as though memories Atris never knew she had all suddenly faded as soon as they resurfaced. In their vanishing wake, there was only shame and bleeding pride, paling as what few drops of life it had left leaked from the thousand cuts the speaker who once hovered just outside her thoughts erased her presence from Atris’s mind.

It left only its parting words, and its most potent taunt, a whisper that rang as a shout when she couldn’t hear the holocrons.

It is such a quiet thing, to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it.

Atris blinked. The spectre faded with each one, replaced by Meetra’s face getting closer, inspecting her work, gently, gingerly tapping her finger on the wet cast, frowning and scrunching her lips as she pulled her hand away and rubbed her thumb and forefinger together. Atris caught herself relaxing into the soothing movements of Meetra’s thumb working out the stiffness in her neck and jumped slightly. Meetra shot her a startled glance, scanning Atris up and down again.

“You sure I’m not hitting a nerve?” Meetra asked.

Atris very slowly shook her head, careful not to move enough to shift the cast in place.

“Ok…” Meetra acquiesced. Too skeptically for Atris’s liking.

Her hand never left Atris’s neck. Never stopped tending it. Warming it. Meetra glanced at the case again and hung her head with a sigh before she looked back at her three hopeless misfits.

“I don’t suppose one of you brought my hair kit, did you?” she asked.

The two men shook their heads and exchanged confused glances.

“Think you’re gonna need a full session in a refresher if you’re looking to do something about all that blood,” the Fool responded.

“I just want the dryer. For the cast,” Meetra corrected. “I think I used too much plaster. I need some hot air.”

The Fool shrugged. “Could always just blow on it.”

Atris’s eyes widened. So did Meetra’s. Tingles of anticipation and dread ran across Atris’s cheeks as she blushed. She was glad Meetra was looking the other way.

“Um…” Meetra stammered.

Mical’s eyes flitted between the two of them, his brows knitting together. “There’s a drying light in the medkit…”

“Oh thank the gods,” Meetra replied, heaving a full-body sigh of relief.

She doesn't want to…?

Atris swatted the needy little whine in her head back into the durasteel cage it belonged inside. It echoed its way back out, pathetically shaking the bars as the light hit Atris’s face and she realized she preferred the heat of Meetra’s hands.

If covering her ears and shouting would have helped drown out the keening echo of her younger, stupider self, Atris just might have tried it.

Meetra gave the cast one last tap. She looked satisfied. “Alright,” Meetra started, withdrawing her hand. “You can stop looking up now.”

Her eyes fixed on the hole her blaster had burnt into Atris’s shoulder and she frowned, picking up a kolto injector.

“Decent place to start, I suppose,” she muttered to herself. Atris felt the electric tingle of freshly reconnected nerves as the airy hiss of the injector faded. Axon were set alight with activity as their paths were restored to function. Her shoulder was cold now. Kolto often had the feel of an icy breeze on a wound when it was applied this way. She liked it. She liked the warm, almost burning touch of Meetra’s fingertips feeling around the edges of the wound as it sealed.

She’s always run a bit hot…

It was true. Aside from catching the occasional tripper, Atris hadn't held many people in her arms, let alone hugged them like she did Meetra in the caves. But Atris could always feel a heat radiating from the woman before she even touched her. It was an aura of warmth warmth, radiating so far out from her one could measure its depth with a ruler.

She’d never felt anything else like it.

Even now, being near her, Atris felt less of her frozen home’s biting cold. She usually missed the chill when it was gone. She didn’t care for how right its absence felt at the moment. Meetra wasn't supposed to feel right. Because she wasn't. She’d been wrong in mind and in spirit since the day she’d abandoned the Order.

And that abandonment had started the day she’d made that saber. Atris had been a fool not to realize it. Such was the price of ignoring the Code.

It was all just her cloying, invasive powers. The heat, the longing, the regression. All of it. It had to be. Meetra had always lacked discipline. It shouldn't have come as a surprise she’d be unable to control her soul’s bizarre need to touch and bond with everything it sensed. Atris’s guard was down. That was all.

Meetra crouched down and picked up the four remaining syringes, holding them out to Atris. “You’re a consular. You studied medicine a lot more than I did. You know where some of the most important stuff is, and I don’t really want to reach under your robes to poke it all myself. You heard Mical. Heart. Lungs. Kidneys. Can you handle it if I help you up?”

Atris said nothing. Meetra narrowed her eyes. Atris returned the look. Meetra hung her head again. When she looked back up, the dark circles under her eyes caught the light of the Council Chamber for just a moment. The lighting cast them as pitch dark shadows of existential fatigue. A bone-deep weariness that no rest could fix. For a moment, she saw Malachor in Meetra’s eyes.

The General held out her hands, inviting Atris to take them.

“I promise I will look away. I’m going to need to hold you up from the back until you can stand on your own, but I will look down and away. Ok? Just… please. Let’s just be done with this? Just get these shots done so you don’t die walking to your tank, and I’ll go. I want to leave as badly as you want me out, but I’m a sentimental idiot who can’t go until I know I’m not leaving you for dead. Help me be sure of that, and then you never have to see me again.”

Atris didn’t even try to roughly snatch the needles from Meetra’s hand. In her current state, she’d just make a fool of herself. Again. She clipped the needles to her belt and took Meetra’s hands. Her knees immediately buckled, and Meetra caught her under the arms.

“I’ve got you. Just stay still,” she reassured Atris. Atris closed her eyes and took a shaky breath, feeling Meetra shift around to her side and place a steadying hand on her back. Atris’s wobbling legs held, barely, as she allowed her weight to be supported by Meetra’s arms. “Ok,” Meetra said. Atris could hear her voice grow ever so slightly more distant as she turned her head. “You’re good to go. I won’t see anything.”

With a shaky hand, Atris parted the front of her tunic, just enough to expose the skin below her left breast. She could feel the effects of her heart throbbing as she felt for its beat. Full body pulsations wracked her as it struggled to pump blood through its injuries.

She lined the tip of the injector up with what she thought, if her memories of her anatomy lessons were still intact - and they were - was her right ventricle. The chamber would pump any excess kolto that didn’t absorb into her heart tissue to her lungs, speeding their healing along, too. Her arm shook when she tried to push the plunger.

“My hand…” she said. Meetra silently wrapped her hand around Atris’s and put her thumb over hers, holding it in place and slowly pushing it forward. She let go as soon as the contents had been emptied. She flexed the fingers of her left arm, the one Meetra had shot. They seemed to be working, if a bit stiff. She took a syringe in her left hand, exposed her right shoulder, and injected it, sighing with relief as her right arm stopped shaking with every movement. Draping the tunic back over herself was mercifully easy.

Atris shifted her robes to reach the outside of her right thigh with the next injector.

“What are you doing?”

“You said you weren't going to look,” Atris growled.

“Periphery,” Meetra replied. “Sorry. I need to at least watch your legs for signs you’re going to fall. Now what are you doing? Lungs and kidneys next, remember? Not legs.”

Atris activated the injector. “Legs,” she huffed. A soothing cascade of bracing cool ran down her nerves, and the muscles, though still bruised, stopped twitching uncontrollably, a little more able to support her weight. She lifted her chin defiantly, catching a glance of Meetra still looking down and away. “I’ve already taken care of my lungs.”

“She’s telling the truth,” Mical chimed in. “Intraventricular kolto injection. Clever, really. A slowly administered stream of kolto into the bottom right chamber of the heart simultaneously heals cardiac injuries and pumps the remaining medicine through the vessels of the pulmonary tract. Right to the lungs. It’s a fairly advanced technique. Especially done just by feel like that. It’s not easy to locate individual chambers by touch alone. The consulars always have been rather remarkable that way.”

Atris glared at him. She'd kept her other hand firmly in place to protect her modesty when she’d given herself the shot, but she still didn't like the idea of some apostatic mockery of her Order catching sight of even that. Mical shrank slightly at Atris’s gaze.

“Periphery,” he shrugged sheepishly. “My apologies.”

“Kidneys?” Meetra prodded.

Atris grumbled through a sigh. “How hard did you hit me in the lower back?”

“Pretty damn hard, probably. You took a bad hit against the walls, too. I don’t remember all of the fight. You got me in the head a few times. And the mind. Still scary as ever, Ladybug.”

If Meetra felt the frissons of tension running down Atris’s spine at the use of her old nickname, she didn’t give any indication. Her hands bracing Atris against her fall didn’t shift, her breath didn’t catch. Her fingers didn’t even twitch. Atris felt her jaw clench as she stubbornly injected her other leg, too busy grinding her teeth every time the word “scary” replayed itself in her mind to even notice the relief flowing through the battered flesh.

It took her a moment to register she was standing on her own now, albeit shakily. The absence of Meetra’s hands exerted a phantom pressure on her back she couldn't wish away.

“Kidneys?” was all Meetra said. Atris tightened her robes closed and locked eyes with Meetra. Meetra’s eyebrows raised as she crossed her arms and nodded towards Mical. Without a word, Atris turned around and fixed her face in a scowl as she reached an arm out, palm-up towards Mical and caught the Tiny Jedi in a frigid stare.

“Well? Do you need me to play navigator while you fumble for my hand or can you see where it is in your periphery?’” Atris prodded.

“I…um, yes, well,” Mical sputtered. “That is to say, yes. I have that for you right here.”

Mical placed the injector gingerly in Atris’s hand. She closed her fingers slowly around it as she narrowed her eyes at him in time with the movement. When he started to back away, she snatched it back towards her hip, yelping and doubling over in pain as she bent her arm to reach the injector around to her back.

Meetra caught her.

“I think… Maybe I should handle this one?”

Atris just glared at the ground, seething. Her body heaved with her heavy, stinging breaths. She didn’t like the cold. She wondered impatiently when she would get to enjoy it again.

“There’s… there’s a tear in the back of your robe. Right where you’d need the kolto.”

Atris’s head snapped up.

“Nothing big” Meetra preempted. Atris looked down and away. “It must have caught on something when I…” She heard Meetra swallow. “When you hit one of the walls. It’s big enough for the injector to slip through. I’ll have to hold it open. I’ll be quick.”

Atris started to shake again. She felt her teeth grinding.

“Please, Atris? I just want this over as much as you do.”

Atris turned her head just enough to see Meetra at the edge of her vision again, her brown hair sticking to her forehead, still damp from the fight. Atris raised her eyebrows and silently gestured for Meetra to continue, her mouth a tight line, as she fought to freeze her icy mask of composure back into one piece.

“Thank you,” Meetra sighed. Atris went as still as the frigid air as Meetra’s fingers brushed her back, parting the fabric aside. It was over in seconds. A warmth against the chill of her skin, the press of cylindrical plastic against sore muscles, a wince as the pressure intensified against the taut, bruised flesh, and then a muted pop and hiss as the medicine flowed into the injection site. The sting of the puncture barely registered. Kolto healed the wound left by its syringe on the way inside.

Atris didn’t feel terribly different - she doubted the wounds to the organs were that severe. But if this added little waste of time meant she was that much closer to being left alone, so much the better.

The air felt colder still when Meetra’s touch faded.

Every breath through Atris’s nose stung, like the chill of icy shards abrading her from the inside out, their collective scrapes turning to fire.

Her chin quivered.

“Hey, Mical!” Atris’s head snapped up, her eyes locking onto the source of the voice. A sharp pain ran down her neck, spreading in webs across her back. She grit her teeth behind closed lips.

It was The Fool.

“They, uh, supposed to be twitching like that?” he continued, gesturing to the unconscious sisters. Two of them were fluttering their fingers. Two more were screwing their eyes shut tighter, as if trying to block out the white fluorescence of the Council Chamber lights. The fifth was spasmodically tapping a foot, occasionally sliding her heel forward, like she was unconsciously attempting to stand up.

“It’s not something every patient does but it’s not unheard of,” the Tiny Jedi replied. “Residual Echani battle stims in their blood, most likely. They’ll be waking up soon.”

“We…ow…” The Last clutched her side and swayed in place, but managed to stay standing. “We should go,” she finished.

“Master?” Mical asked.

“Yeah,” Meetra replied. “You three clear out. I’ll catch up.”

“Wait,” the Last implored. “Take me…” she sucked in a sharp inhale through her teeth. “Take me to her.” She pointed a shaking finger at Atris. Atris’s eyes narrowed. The Last’s eyes settled not on Atris, but Meetra. “I’ll only be a moment.”

Meetra quirked an eyebrow.

“I can walk,” the Last insisted. “Just… may need help”

Meetra nodded. She looked to the Tiny Jedi and The Fool. “Do as she asks.” Her eyes narrowed at The Fool. “Be careful with her.”

“Have I ever been anything else?” he shot back. Meetra smirked.

“Frequently.”

The Fool rolled his eyes with a scoff. There was no real disdain behind it. It was…

Playful?

Atris hadn’t seen such a thing amongst her peers in some time. Then again, she was either here or, before she’d enacted the Telos contingency, anyway, poring over her tomes in the various Academy libraries. Perhaps she hadn’t been paying attention. It was just as well. She’d rather not have wasted time losing even more hope for the Order watching colleagues revert to their childhoods.

The two men gingerly draped one of the Last’s arms over their shoulders. The Tiny Jedi took the left, the Fool the right. They both waited expectantly, not taking their first steps forward until the Last nodded to each of them.

The shuffles of her feet scraped at Atris’s ears, drawing phantom blood by the time she’d closed the gap completely. She met the Last’s assessing eyes with faulty steel.

When finally the Last seemed to have found whatever she was searching for on Atris’s face, she spoke.

“Brianna,” she said. “I am Brianna. Daughter of Yusanis.” She locked eyes with Meetra. “Disciple of the last of the Jedi.” The Betrayer turned to Atris again. “And the one who will stand with her and her followers against all enemies who face us.”

And with that, the Betrayer took a calming breath, her renouncement of her oath to Atris now as total and as irrevocable as it could ever possibly be.

“Nice,” replied the Fool. “So is just Brianna cool, or do people who want to get your attention have to drop all those titles every time?”

“Just you,” Brianna replied, closing her eyes as the two men helped keep her steady.

The Fool chuckled. “Heh.”

Meetra shook her head with a fond smile, gently taking the Last’s hand and giving it a light, careful squeeze. She could see Meetra’s eyes glistening. Somehow she was managing to look genuinely touched. Atris shuddered and looked away. “I’m honored to meet you, Brianna," Meetra said. Atris didn’t bother to look up. She knew the Last would be smiling some misguided smile at betraying her vows as though the surrender of what little integrity she had left was an achievement. The way the motley misfits and failures that staffed that stolen ship thirsted for Meetra’s approval never failed to sicken her. “You fought well today.”

“Thank you…ow…” The Last chuckled. Then winced again. "Thank you, Master.”

Atris suppressed another scoff at the word. The Betrayer wasn’t worth the breath.

“And to you, Padawan. You’ll make it to the ship alright?” Meetra replied, Atris looked up in time to see the Betrayer nod. She wasn’t sure if this was a new smile on Meetra’s face or if the old one hadn’t faded. She was even less sure which was worse. “Good,” Meetra continued, taking an arm from The Fool, draping it over her shoulder and giving the Last a gentle hug. I’ll walk you to the door,” Meetra replied.

Atris watched their slow march to the exit. At the threshold, she handed The Betrayer back to the Fool, pointing at him as he rolled his eyes again with a grin.

“I promise, I’ve got her,” he said.

She could hear the smile in Meetra’s voice. “I know you do.”

The Fool glanced surreptitiously over Meetra’s shoulder. “You good?”

“Yeah. I’m good. I’ll be up in a minute,” Meetra assured. The doors shut behind her as she turned to Atris. Her steps echoed worse than the Last’s.

Atris tasted copper. It took a moment to find the split in her lip. She wiped it away, huffing with frustration as she looked for something other than her robe to clean her hand. Meetra nodded towards the still-open kit near Atris’s feet. Atris knelt down and fished a bandage out, wiping away the smear of crimson on her fingers.

Meetra just watched. Atris said nothing. Meetra crossed her arms.

At last, Atris relented. She gave Meetra a pointed look and a hurrying gesture.

Meetra shook her head and laughed under her breath before she spoke. “How are you feeling?” Again, Atris was silent.

Meetra pinched the bridge of her nose. “Ok…” she sighed. “I’ll just ask: Are you gonna die if I leave? Did I patch you ok? Can you make it to your tank?”

“I’ll be fine. Just take what you came back for and leave.”

“What I…? What?”

Atris barked a scalding, bitter laugh. “Just take your saber and go. Please, please stop pretending you care. You’re lying to both of us.”

“I can’t even begin to think of where to start with that but…” Meetra unclipped her double blade hilt from her belt and held it up for Atris to see. “If you’re worried I dropped something I have it right here.”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know perfectly well that’s not what I mean. Just take that damnable blade and get it out of my sight. Destroy it if you can find any scrap of real Jedi left in you. The thing was a mockery from the day it was made.”

Meetra gasped. A look of dawning realization crossed her face as she finally spotted the discarded weapon on the ground. “Oh…” was all she said. There was only silence as she walked this time. Perhaps the renewed ringing and the sound of rushing blood in Atris’s ears was back, mercifully drowning out the footfalls. Whatever it was, for the moment, as her temples throbbed, she couldn’t hear much of anything.

Senses returned to clarity when Meetra stepped back into view, holding the gleaming, silver handle. Her face was a mixture of reverence and bewilderment, as though she couldn’t believe what she was holding. “I can’t believe I forgot…” she whispered.

Forgot?!

She was lying. This was a warrior down to the marrow. Weapons were her stock, her trade, her life. War was her love. Blood was her passion. Nothing else. This weapon was everything. It had to be.

Meetra’s lips parted and she looked at Atris, tilting the weapon towards her, as though showing it off for the first time. “It’s been so long since I’ve held it.” Meetra laughed. “I didn’t notice the first time we saw each other again but… you really kept it up. Looks almost better than the day I made it… I…” Her laugh got louder. “Atris, did you polish this?! Why would you do that?! You hate me!”

It was the first such grin Atris had seen on Meetra’s face in years. Wide, toothy, almost childlike as she doubled over with laughter. And it came as a result of Meetra laughing at her.

Atris’s breaths turned to snarls. Meetra’s insipid cackles ceased when she heard it.

“Right. I’m sorry. Anyway…” Meetra swallowed. She pointed the emitter up, safely away from them both, and flicked the switch. Her smile returned as her skin was cast in a scarlet glow. The blade gave a gentle hum as she slowly tilted it from side to side, never more than a slight angle. Just enough to make the sound. The corners of Meetra’s lips danced, beckoning her smile to widen as she listened.

Atris resolved herself to ever more composure with each childish twitch of her former friend’s lips. The ice cracked a little more with each effort to set it harder.

“You never asked me why the blade is red, you know.”

Atris blinked. “What?”

“The blade. You never asked why I picked this color.”

“You synthesized a crystal instead of finding a natural one like you were supposed to. Like we’re all supposed to. Synthesis makes crystals red. You didn’t like a rule, you broke it, your saber’s color reflects that. What question is there left to ask?” Only the old weapon’s hum hung between them. Meetra turned towards her, saber still on. Atris’s skin felt hot as the blade’s red glow illuminated her face. She felt ghostly hands checking her cast. “Do it.”

“Kill you?”

“It’s why you stayed, isn’t it? Because you're a coward who can't show your students who you really are? They’re doomed. As long as you’re their teacher, they’re doomed. I hope you realize that much.”

“I spent an awful lot of time trying to keep you alive just now. Seems like a waste to cut you down after that.”

“It would suit you. To build someone back up. Just to gut them when you’re done? It’s you. Your whole life. You’d just be reaffirming what you already are. What you’ve always been.”

Meetra looked down. She closed her eyes and breathed a deep sigh. She looked from Atris to the blade and back again.

“You don’t care if you live or die, do you? As long as you’re right about me. That’s it. Isn’t it?”

“I already know I’m right,” Atris shot back. “I’ve always been right. I don’t need to prove anything. You’re the proof.”

“Would've been so simple for you if you’d won,” Meetra replied. “I die, you get to live thinking you righteously took me out in the name of all things Jedi in a world where I’m too dead to prove you wrong. But you lost. Put up one tough bitch of a fight, but you lost.”

Atris scoffed. Meetra blinked back tears. Atris could see them catch the light of the blade. “I really, really wanted you to ask me about the color… You know you can stain synth crystals right? They just start red. But you can have any color you want. Of course you do. You’re you. You know things. It’s what you do.” Meetra swallowed. Atris could still hear the tiniest catch in her throat as she spoke. “But… I guess you just assumed, didn’t you? Like you just told me you did. Probably like you always did. At least when we got older. At some point you stopped asking. And you just started assuming. Like you’re doing now. You’re still waiting for me to kill you. You need me to kill you. Because once I kill you, you’re right. About all of it.”

“Do it.”

Meetra just regarded the blade like an old friend. It was like Atris wasn’t even there.

“I really did love it, you know. This saber. It meant everything to me. When I saw it in your hands that first time you brought me here… I almost proved you right. Right then and there.” Meetra switched the blade off. The glow faded. The hum went quiet. She cradled the hilt in one hand, running the fingers of the other along its ridges and buttons. “But it isn’t me anymore.”

Atris cocked her head. Her scowl softened even as her confusion deepened. She couldn’t look away from Meetra’s eyes, even as she felt her hand start to tighten into a fist, her fingers wrap around something warm and contoured. She finally looked down when she realized Meetra was holding her hand. She was closing Atris’s fingers around the saber. Her saber.

She tried to loosen her grip on the wretched thing. She was met with resistance. But Meetra’s hand wasn’t closing any tighter. The other was clasping Atris’s hand now, too. But it wasn’t exerting any pressure to close Atris’s hand either. Atris’s fingers locked. She couldn’t even move her wrist.

Meetra was smiling again. It wasn’t playful this time. It wasn’t bitter or tight.

It was simply sad. But she was smiling.

The hilt felt strangely like a crystal in Atris’s palm, even though the shape was so very different. No sharp points or straight-edged facets. It was all swooping curves and smooth lines. Even the switch. Maybe it was the way Meetra was holding her hand. Atris had held Meetra’s that way in the caves once…

No!

Atris tried her best not to physically shake her head as she swatted the memory away. Meetra just waited until Atris’s thoughts finally settled. It was like she knew. How could she know?

Meetra’s sigh, too, was different from the others. It too, carried only sadness. But the smile stayed.

Meetra’s hand squeezed around Atris’s. Around the saber she now held. And at last, Meetra spoke.

"Keep it.”

Meetra was already walking away by the time Atris looked back up. She’d barely realized her eyes had snapped back to the saber.

She could feel her eyes widen. She couldn’t force a scowl. The best she could hope for was some sort of indignant stare. “Wait…” she muttered. “Wait!” she repeated. Meetra stopped. “No. Take it! What do you mean leaving this with me?! Get it out of my sight!”

Meetra turned back around, watching Atris with raised eyebrows.

“This is yours! Not mine! Yours - your mistake! Your affront to the Order! Not mine! Get it out of my academy!” Atris shouted. “Out of my home! Out of my hands!”

Meetra stood silent. Her eyes narrowed.

“Take it!” Atris yelled. The residual warmth of Meetra’s hands on the hilt felt scalding against the chill of the mountain air. She hadn’t turned the heaters on in hours.

“Goodbye, Atris,” was all Meetra said before she turned around. Atris’s fingers locked tighter.

“TAKE IT!” she screamed.

Meetra’s shoulders rose and fell. She didn’t turn around. Only looked over her shoulder as she extended her hand. “Alright. If you truly want me to have it so badly, throw it back.”

Atris’s hand trembled. Her knuckles went white. Her arm shook, fighting to lift the accursed thing and do just that. The kolto had done its work. Whatever bruises still throbbed, whatever cuts still bled, they weren’t enough to take her ability to throw it.

She didn’t.

“Well?” Meetra prodded.

“I…” Atris couldn't muster any more words than that. Her throat had tightened. Meetra’s hand was still extended. Waiting. Waiting to take the last piece of her left here. When it was gone, she would be gone. It would finally all be over.

She only had to throw it.

She didn’t.

“Better yet,” Meetra challenged, nodding to the bridge, “toss it over the side. Never to be seen again. Show me how much you still despise me. Take away the last good memory of my old life I have left. Hurt me like you’ve always wanted to. You can be rid of that last filthy little reminder of me you hate so much and you can make sure I know just how much you want me to suffer. So do it. Be done.”

Every righteous declaration Atris had hurled at Meetra came echoing back.

Are you finally willing to admit that we were right to cast you out?

Your execution has been too long delayed, Exile.

The Mandalorian Wars should have been your grave and Malachor V is where you should have died!

The only question that remains is how far you have fallen…

The voice shifted… It wasn’t Atris speaking anymore… But… she had said that, hadn’t she?

The only question that remains is how far you have fallen…

The only question that remains is how far you have fallen…

The only question that remains is how far you have fallen…

Again Atris’s arm shook. Her teeth ground with effort. She barely recognized her own breath. With each frantic heave of her lungs she heard a cornered, feral animal, battered to submission, beaten beyond any ability to fight, but unable to admit it was trapped.

Everything in her screamed to throw it.

She didn’t.

It is such a quiet thing, to fall.

Where had she heard that before…?

“Thought so.” Meetra’s voice dragged Atris back to the present. Her hand wasn’t extended anymore. She was walking away again. A pneumatic hiss as the doors out opened, then a second as they started to close, then a metallic thud as they sealed and locked together. Each sound echoed all the way down the chasm under the bridge to Atris’s meditation chamber. She turned to follow the sound, staring blankly at the heavy stone door, images of the Sith holocrons sealed inside flashing across her vision.

It is such a quiet thing, to fall.

Atris turned back around. The doors out were shut.

But far more terrible is to admit it.

She barely noticed her handmaidens starting to stand. Her legs were leaden. Her hands were tight. Her thoughts fixed on the hangar, the Ebon Hawk flying away. On wondering how far up and out Meetra had already risen. If she was already ascending the ramp. If she was already starting the launch sequence. If she was still, for just a few more seconds, here.

She looked back down at the hilt. The saber felt cold. An icicle numbing her hand. She still couldn’t let go.

The handmaidens were gathered around her now, inspecting their wound dressings, wondering if she had patched them, concluding she must have. Who else would have? The apostates? The Exile? The Last? That shameless Betrayer? Absurd.

Their voices were muffled by the one inside.

She didn’t know if it was hers or not. She didn’t know what it was trying to say.

It was just a whisper.

But when she finally looked down again, at the hilt she couldn’t drop like the unholy refuse it was, she heard its words. Her words, maybe. She couldn’t say. But she heard them. And they carried through her body. They cast the world into a starker clarity than perhaps she’d ever witnessed. The sights, the sounds, the cloying cold. All of it, clarified with just two words.

She’s gone.

It didn’t echo. It didn’t repeat. It just was. It hung in the chilly air, a fact colder than the blizzards that shrouded her mountain. It didn’t leave silence behind. It was the silence now.

“Mistress! Are you alright?! You’re bleeding!” One of the handmaidens had been fawning over her. Probably for a matter of minutes. She barely noticed, and she didn’t know which one it was. It didn’t matter. Nor was it supposed to. She didn’t even know their names, nor was she supposed to.

None of this mattered. None of it.

It wasn’t supposed to.

It shouldn’t have.

Something bubbling within her insisted that it did.

Something that revealed the unbreakable glacial shell of her perfect composure, her sacred calm, the continent of unbreakable ice that had been cracking all this time, the webs and fractures spreading with every attempt to put it all back in place, for the paralyzing prison it was.

It warmed.

It boiled.

It melted.

It burned.

And though it wasn’t supposed to, it stubbornly, in its scalding, raking, blistering way, mattered.

“Mistress! Please talk to us - we failed you once, please let us redeem ourselves if we can. We’ll help however we’re needed,” another handmaiden said. Or maybe it was the same one as before. They all sounded alike. They all looked alike. Moved alike. Acted alike. Thought alike. They were all the same. The way she preferred it. The way they’d been trained.

“If you’re concerned for our wounds - don’t be,” another said. One to her left this time instead of her right. Probably a different one. It didn’t matter. “They’re secondary to our obligations to you. We’ll search the infirmary for more supplies if you need them. May we escort you to your kolto tank?”

The ice popped and cracked with the stiff joints of her neck as she moved it. Something hot stung the edges of her eyes. She looked at the speaker. The girl took a step back when she caught Atris’s deadly glare.

“Mistress?”

“Get out,” Atris said. She wasn’t sure if the steam she saw carrying the words was real. They scorched the inside of her throat with every syllable.

“I… Are you certain? You’re -”

“Get. Out.”

The handmaiden swallowed, her cuts and bruises accentuating her wide-eyed confusion.“If… If that is your wish. May we get-”

In a flash the saber ignited. The loud buzzing hum of a wide swing stunned the five into silence. The crackling clash of contact elicited gasps. Atris couldn’t count how many. Everything was too loud. Too bright. Too close. Too hot.

Too much.

The sound settled to the idle tone of a blade at rest. The handmaidens stood, mouths agape, checking for injuries. Even Atris found herself wondering which had caught the blade. Which was about to collapse, dead and dismembered.

A loud, low thud answered their question. No person had been struck.

But the Sacred Stone now stood chopped in two. The top half lay cracked and defiled on the ground.

Just as Meetra had left the one on Corsucant.

After the trial.

Some sick, shameful part of Atris almost wished she’d killed a maiden instead.

The tranquil, frigid pool at her center, the meditative refuge she’d built in her mind, the one she’d retreated to, relied upon all her life to center herself, revealed itself for the caldera it was. And layer by layer, the last of her frozen shell began to melt. Then split. Then quake.

And finally, as Atris swung Meetra’s saber again, pointed it down, and impaled what remained of the stone, it shattered.

“GET OUUUUUT!” she screamed. Every one of her servants practically jumped back at the wave of pure psychic power emanating from the command. Her world was shrouded again. Hazy, like looking through clouds of searing vapor as it flayed her with its heat. She saw only her shaking, blanching hands doing their best to crush that damnable hilt in their grip.

By the time the clouds faded, she saw the fifth and final maiden in her periphery, standing in the doorway, devoted concern and sadness and abject bewilderment plain on her face. She started and ran before Atris could focus on her. The door shut again.

Atris was alone.

Her eyes were stinging. Her deadly glare was gone. She caught a glimpse of herself in the nearby glass. And she fell into the empty depths of her own eyes. An ice blue abyss of searing, violent hurt, ringing hollows carved from a shriveled heart that screamed for that which never was.

She was gone.

Atris’s panting turned to growling turned to choking as her grip began to fail, as she struggled in vain to fight her exhaustion. Her hands gave out and she slid down to her knees, pressing her head against the Sacred Stone.

She heard a tiny child.

Innocent. Pleading for a reason. Swallowing tears she wasn’t allowed to shed.

She heard a young girl.

Betrayed. Bewildered. Terrified. Clenching her fists to steady her trembling body, hide her fraying soul.

At last, she heard a woman.

The jagged wailing protests of loss. The wracking shakes of impotent rage. The gritted teeth of frustration and shame. The bargaining hands clawing at the Sacred Stone, begging for a way out. A way back. The inward collapse under the weight of failures as she fumbled for blame, as the pointing fingers she so eagerly extended all found their way back to her.

And at last, she felt the tears.

They burned. They corroded. They cut. They felt thick as freshly spilled blood. They drained her more than any bleeding wound ever could.

They carried away everything Atris wasn’t on their bitter, glittering tides as for the first time in twenty years, alone, battered, and broken, Atris cried.