"Day forty, addendum. I just had a nice chat with Hilda.

"She says it's about 1800, so I think we're at the same longitude. She's pretty far north, though.

"She took the Niemoller mansion down for planetfall. You head me right: the mansion. Apparently chunks of the Patrick Henry's continental shells can self-seal and launch free of the main ship.

"She's got refugees as well. Wealthy crypto-Americanists, religious refugees, anti-Marxians, you name it. My in-laws were hiding some non-persons as well. Hilda says she landed in an alpine mountain range--well, I'll record the details later. More important things are going on.

"She's seeing streaks of fire in the sky during the day. The ceilarchs are launching the Lifeships and following us down.

"I don't know what to do about that. And I don't know how to tell my in-laws what happened to their son. Or that I'm their daughter-in-law."

--Recording recovered from Site Resh, reconstructed 1887 CE (restricted access)

----

17 Rising Withering, 1886 CE

Relay-Space

A starburst of neural impulses, both nearby and far away, almost burned away Oralie's mind, but the light of blinding understanding vanished as quickly as it had come upon her.

She saw a constellation of stars, a throne of light in the darkness. It was formed of the connected thoughts of thousands of Magi across Tellus. Gossamer threads connected their stars even to the terrible minds of the Chimeras of Tellus, and to distant silver stars on the horizon of the galaxy, though those lines were dim and threatening.

She had seen the same thrones in the undercroft of the Nameless City, where the High sat. She had seen the same form in Senrii's fever dreams when Thiyyatt had tried to claim the throne of the Amber City for her own. Now, thanks to Tvorh, the seat was empty, and it called it her.

A melody, multitonal and beautiful, arose in Oralie's star-ears as she seated herself on her throne of light. The melody became a harmony of conversations from across Tellus.

"I see now. I am."

Dozens of Nethress Magi had joined Synaptically to her, seeking to save her mind. She was emotionally close only to a few of them. Of those who were mere acquaintances, she could catch only glimpses of their conscious concerns in the moment before she raised her hand and summoned a mental gale to cast them back into their bodies. "Thank you, my dear family. Now, back to your bodies. We have work to do."

There was Ductrix Lenaa imagining the situation room in Acerbia. In her mind's eye she hovered over a map showing fleets approaching from four angles, with only Vallus, on the other side of the mountains, being free of the various Gentes that Nxtlu had gathered for its attack.

Lenaa's concerns echoed through Oralie's mind as the Ductrix's consciousness fled from the void.

-The Nxtlu dogs made the announcement barely two days ago-

-How did their ships get here so quickly?-

-But they haven't had time to gather a full armada from their allies-

-There are visible signatures of four ships from Odell, of Gens Corrie, sixty miles away-

-Six skywhales of Gens Poramir, probably from Treltest, since it's the only city close enough-

-Gens Utulo...Gens Labrinth...-

-Yes, most of the eighty ships are Nxtlu-

-Outskirts and allied cities report twice as many ships still on their way, one week arrival maximum-

-Preemptive strike?-

-I wish Dorsin could advise me-

In the same instant that Lenaa vanished, Oralie caught a glimpse into the mind of Dux Volund, who had made his name as a fighter boat pilot and was now Acerbia's Aerial Superiority Commander. He was in the room with Lenaa, but daydreamed of standing in an empty hangar bay, staring at a comically-sized whorlcopter. Tactical manuals whirled through his mind; operational questions nipped at his heels.

The part of his brain that received data from his tongue, on the other hand, tasted iron fear.

The returning wind that Oralie had summoned tore Dux Volund away from her as well, but even that instant glimpse into his thoughts told Oralie precisely who the man was. Courageous yet aging, afraid as much for his legacy as for his Gens, and terrified for the young men under his command who might soon take to the air to fight and die.

Oralie's understanding of those who were closer to her was even stronger.

She felt Senrii's desperate love for a red-blooded, Stigmatized Tutela as her daughter snapped back into the heavenwhale in space--

Space. Oralie saw everything that Senrii had suffered to get so far. She understood implicitly, without words, these past weeks of Senrii's life, and she ached to go to her daughter to comfort and assist her.

As for young Erus Tvorh, Oralie learned his torments as if she and he were one even as he vanished from the void. Frightened that his sisters would be thrown away by his new family, tempted by a poisonous serpent of ice and lavender, with the dim but steady gleam of slowly-budding love causing his spirit to glow, the boy was a fighter through and through, yet somehow uncallused despite his years beneath Acerbia.

He might be a great ruler one day.

And in the last moment of her Apotheosis, as the minds of Dorsin and Rosabella fled, the guilt of Oralie's two great loves washed through her spirit, and as she rose into her body, she knew utter heartbreak.

#

"Oralie," Dorsin said as his wife's eyes fluttered open in the afternoon light. He had to fight the urge to raise his voice, to reach out and shake her, to laugh and shout with glee. Instead he simply reached around and pulled her tight against him. "Oralie, you're back."

She murmured something unintelligible.

Dorsin let her go. "Of course. Of course you're weak. You've been out for days." He pushed back from her, and a fabric sliding sound came from the sheets of the bed as he lay beside her and gazed at her. "But now you're--what's wrong?"

She stared at him as if she'd never seen him before in her life. Disbelief and confusion reigned in her eyes. Then they flickered up and past him, toward Rosabella. Oralie drew a shuddering breath.

She knew.

"How could you? Rosabella..." Oralie tensed and she shut her eyes tightly. If this was her nightmare, then why did Dorsin feel as though he was stuck in place, unable to speak? "Three times." Three times, what?

How could a warrior win this battle? What tactic to use? He touched a knuckle to her cheek. "My darling, you're exhausted. You--"

Oralie flinched back. "Don't touch me." The words bit Dorsin like a charge-wasp's electric stinger. "Oh, please, Dorsin, don't touch me."

The cold chill of terror froze Dorsin's spine, and it took him a second to thaw it. He half-rolled over and looked up at Rosabella. A horrified look marred the beauty's face, and her breath rose and fell in short bursts. She made a quick gesture toward herself. Get up. Leave her be.

Dorsin tried to touch Oralie's cheek again. She flinched back again, curling on herself. "Don't," she pleaded. "Don't..."

Helpless, Dorsin rose. Where should he stand? Beside Rosabella? That wouldn't help his case, as if he had one at all. But he couldn't leave Oralie, either.

"How could you, Rosabella?" Oralie's voice was weak, empty, hopeless. "You betrayed me three times."

Three times, again. What did she mean?

"I didn't blame you before," Oralie said, her face half-buried in the sheets. "You couldn't have known that bringing me to the High would end the way it did." She blinked away a glowing blue tear that trickled down her cheek to the sheet, whose threads swallowed it. Then she looked at Dorsin. "But my husband," she whispered. "My husband Dorsin..."

Rosabella cringed as if struck.

"And before any of that, Rosabella--my life. My family's lives."

Rosabella gulped. What was Oralie on about?

"My hair."

Rosabella stumbled backward. She put out a hand to catch herself on one of the room's oaken buttresses but knocked a painting of some Adonist figure off the wall before managing to catch herself. Her face was pale and waxy, and her breaths were shallow. Dorsin had never before seen Rosabella hyperventilate, never seen her panic. "I didn't know," Rosabella said.

"You helped them try to take my family, Rosabella." Oralie's eyes tightened as only those of someone begging for an answer could. "I could forgive you for harming me, but it wasn't just me. It was my sons. My daughter."

"Oralie, I am so sorry." Rosabella's eyes flickered toward Dorsin. "For all of it." She clasped her hands at her breast and shook them, a pleading gesture. "I didn't know. I thought it was a harmless request...For your sake, I wanted to ingratiate myself with Nxtlu--"

Oralie's breath caught. "My daughter." She sat bolt upright, startling Dorsin into a step back. Worry and focus shouldered aside the confusion and despair on her face. "Senrii."

"What about Senrii?" Dorsin asked, keeping his words quick, his voice low. Anything to distract Oralie from her recriminations. He needed to get her alone before suffering through those. He couldn't handle it with Rosabella nearby. It would break him.

"She's above the world. She's in danger."

Above the world?

Oralie drew a deep breath, and Dorsin feared it might hitch with tears, but it was steady and even. It pressed her chest up and out, her neck and head back, and she closed her eyes. Sunlight through the window drenched her, making her look divine.

"Oralie?" Dorsin said, stunned by the sudden change in her demeanor. "What are you doing?"

"Helping our daughter, Dorsin." At the height of her breath, some vital spark went out of Oralie; she fell unnaturally still.

She vanished from within herself, leaving behind only the physical shell.

Rosabella's clawing hand found Dorsin's and clenched it white. Dorsin waited, his heart pounding, his fears pumping adrenaline into his blood, as the empty body of his wife sat upright on the bed. They stood like statues, hardly daring to breathe, waiting.

When the vitality rushed back into Oralie, Rosabella jumped, releasing Dorsin. Oralie drew a deep, steady breath, and opened glittering eyes.

"Goddess," Rosabella cursed quietly.

"No." Oralie rose. "Apotheosis."

Dorsin had fought in a hundred battles, but never before had he wanted so badly to flee in the face of fear as at this moment, as his betrayed wife came toward him. Though he had more than a head of height on her and weighed twice what she did, he couldn't get rid of the image in his mind of a Dorsin-headed bug being squished beneath the boot of a giant Oralie.

She raised her face, and he forced himself to meet her gaze. He was a man, and he would suffer the costs of his betrayal as one. She looked at him through steady eyes that only gave away her pain when she wiped a knuckle across them, which left a streak of glowing blue fluid on her hand.

Then she stepped past him and put her hand on the doorknob. "Come, Dorsin. Tellus needs our help." She paused, then added quietly, "As does your family."

#

The Patrick Henry

Thiyyatt gazed pain and fear across the room at Tvorh as branches and thorns tightened around her arms, breaking the skin and increasing the lavender scent. Blood dripped to the floor. Hers, and Tvorh's.

That hadn't been how she'd wanted their blood to mix, that was for sure.

Tvorh wrestled against the vines, but he couldn't break free. Even if he could, did he want to? The look on Thiyyatt's face--the agony, the betrayal, the terror--

Terror toward him, as if he was the monster and she merely an innocent girl whom he'd made his victim--

--that look made him want to fling himself into space. Nobody had ever gazed on him with such horror, such tears, such sobs wracking her.

The vines tightened around her body and quivered in delight as they squeezed the pheromones from her.

Tvorh had broken her. He prayed to the fathers that Adon and Yesh weren't real, because if they were, they'd damn him for the way he'd raped her mind.

Thiyyatt whimpered but gave no resistance as the vines tenderly caressed her neck like a lover. If that lover's fingernails were short, sharp knives, like the thorns that carved out lines of blood from her flesh.

She deserved it, he told himself. She did worse.

That didn't make him feel better.

"Thiyyatt," he gagged. Between the air and the squeezing vines trying to crush the life from him, he could barely speak.

"Let me go." Thiyyatt sobbed, will-broken. The sound and the scent of lavender mixed in his mind, and his arousal increased at the knowledge of how he'd utterly dominated her.

It wasn't real. He fought down the bestial impulse to rend her with one limb and ravish her with another. He was not that man, no matter what lies his instincts told. "Fight it," Tvorh managed to say. Just a little bit farther with the tips of his fingers and he'd reach his knife...

"Let me go." Thiyyatt shrieked, a mournful sound, and twitched as the vines pushed between the strands of her hair-clothes. She wasn't talking to the vines. She was talking to him.

The Tool wanted to absorb her, not merely because she was an ancient Key to its operations, but because it had once been a human man. It still had the human impulse for connection.

For contact.

For copulation.

And the lavender had awoken it and driven it mad with desire.

"Please." Thiyyatt's head hung low in despair. Her arms stretched wide. Her hairlike dress gave way for the vines. "Please."

Tvorh had never wanted it to end like this. Not for him, not for her. "I forgive you, Thiyyatt," he said. "For everything."

He head moved a fraction.

"I hope you'll forgive me, too."

That was the only comfort Tvorh could give her, because--

Kaboom!

Noise and heat and fire and shards of living metal tore through the room from behind Tvorh, battering him about. The vines retreated in pain, dripping blood and ichor, leaving him curled on the floor and coughing.

He tasted blood. He smelled nothing but smoke. But as the ringing of his ears dimmed, he heard the figure slip through the jagged hole in the wall.

A hole that hadn't been there just a moment before.

"This thing's almost made the whole stupid trip worth it," Aoife said, looking with pride at a strange multibarreled weapon in her hands. Her rifle was slung over her back. She clucked her tongue and got a hand beneath Tvorh's arm. "The brave hero isn't supposed to be napping on the job. Upsy-daisy."

Adon and Yesh might not forgive Tvorh, but maybe they really did exist. He felt around half-blindly, running his hands over Aoife's neck, her cheeks.

"We should probably wait for that until mmmmmff!" Aoife sputtered as Tvorh grabbed her head and planted a firm kiss on her lips, not letting her go for two or three seconds. Maybe he'd hit his head in the blast? Whatever. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

"Well." Aoife swallowed and put a hand to her breast. "Hello to you, too."

"Fathers, am I glad to see you," Tvorh slurred.

"You're not seeing me. Or anything." Aoife smiled. "But that's okay. I'll do the seeing for both of us." She took his hand. "Come on. We have to get out of here."

His head hurt. He was forgetting something, wasn't he? It took him a moment to piece it together. "Wait. Thiyyatt."

Halfway through the hole she'd blasted in the wall, Aoife paused and looked back at him. Then past him, to where Thiyyatt lay shuddering on the ground as the vines crawled over her, slowly undressing her.

Aoife's face firmed in a mask of hatred. She slipped back into the chamber. "All right." She unslung her new weapon. "Out of the way. I'll take care of her."

"No!" Still dazed from the blast, Tvorh hadn't expected the force of his own voice. He staggered and put a hand out on the wall to steady himself. "No. Don't hurt her."

Thiyyatt sobbed, the sound of a woman helpless before a predator. Tvorh couldn't bear to watch what was happening, what was about to start happening, what the vines were going to do to her.

"She deserves it."

"I know," Tvorh said. "But we need her." Aoife's nose curled in distaste. Tvorh wasn't even sure if it was true, that they did need her. He'd seen her mind, and he could remember a lot of it. He might be able to recreate the anti-genophage Stigmata without her help. Fathers of his fathers, with what he'd seen in the Symbiont's genome, he might even be able to work with Oralie to negate the genophage's handles on human genetics outright.

But it didn't matter if they needed Thiyyatt. She needed them in ways she'd never realized until those final fateful moments among the frozen stars.

"Aoife," Tvorh said, "I kind of love her."

"Love?" Aoife laughed in disbelief. "You love her?"

Oops. "No, I don't--"

"I can't believe--"

Thiyyatt screamed in unbelievable despair as the tendrils ripped away her hair-dress, baring her to the world. Aoife's eyes flared. Tvorh could read the meaning behind the motion plain as day.

She was wondering what it would be like to be left behind to the ministrations of this mad, corrupt, isolation-addled monster.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Aoife muttered. She raised the grenade launcher toward the biggest mass of Tool above Thiyyatt. "Get down. This could get messy."

"No," Tvorh said quickly, drawing his knife. "It's tied in with the heavenwhale's systems. We can't kill it."

They'd have to cut Thiyyatt free the old fashioned way.