“Vashante,” Cartaxa urged her to focus.

The Eidolon turned in her saddle, astride a six-legged beast of war. Her dozen eyes fixed upon his, and her posture turned tense. They rode side by side through the ruins of Cruiros, which had fallen further into disorder with each passing day, leading a small band of loyal armsmen.

“You need rest,” he said.

The star metal armoured Cartaxa held her gaze with his shimmering compound eyes. He then tipped his head to indicate the streets ahead of them. The silent warrior refocused, stirring from her tormented memories. Looking up to the skyline, the Eidolon regarded billowing black smoke filling the bone sky. It shrouded the distant colossi who bore the weight of the world and, closer, brought a haze over the flashing electric lights and the bioluminescence of the still-living City.

Fear and realisation.

Turning the reigns in her hand and kicking her feet, the Eidolon galloped ahead atop her mount. The enthralled beast snarled as it bounded down the streets, across a junction, and through a plaza, and the Eidolon’s cloak bellowed in their wake. Together beast and rider surged up onto ramparts and across the plateau, between the shrines built out of dedication to faith and to order over centuries, until they reached the columnal structure that gave shelter to the Goddess’ temple.

It was ablaze.

Swirling fire rose into tight vortexes as it spilt from the structure, caught in the whorling updraughts of the City interior, fed by the many air pumps of the bioscape’s depths. The stench of burning skin and hair choked the surroundings, but the Eidolon was heedless. She dismounted from her panicked mount, which reared and bayed as she let cry her jawless, voiceless scream against the inferno, shaking with a lifetime of rage against the sadistic nature of this place.

The score of soldiery that arrived shortly after was taken aback by the blaze that had overtaken the ancient holy site. Together, they quickly organised and gathered water to douse the flames, fighting the fire as far as they could be contained until the metals that turned super hot through induction in the City’s powerlines burned themselves into dying cinders.

Afterwards, the Eidolon stared down at the dying sparks at the husk of what had once been the Immortal’s effigy, now molten scrap. Its electronics had been the original source of the fire, spread throughout the structure by piled detritus and flammable oils. This was a deliberate act of arson.

That night, when the biolights dimmed, the Eidolon and Cartaxa sat apart from the soldiers to discuss their next steps. Twenty-five warriors set to camp in the shadow of the burned-out husk, fortifying the columnar stone with artillery and barricades.

“There was no body,” Cartaxa said, scrubbing his metal blade and applying a fresh coat of oil. “Do you trust this Vat-Born? She could easily have started the fire and fled.”

The Eidolon leaned forward upon the rubble claimed as a seat, her elbows on her knees as she stared at the ground.

“Vashante.”

She lifted her head and glared at him.

“How many barrows must be sealed? We can’t keep chasing every false hope. If not the Lord of Bones, if not the Pilgrim, this mutant?”

The Eidolon stared into his faceted eyes, working her hands tightly together. Her prehensile teeth clicked together in nervous habit.

“And if, by all the roads to Paradise, she is still alive but she proves to be just as wicked, what then?”

The silent Eidolon stood in response, leaning forward with a hand on the hilt of her sheathed blade as if to challenge the war leader. His antenna twitched as he fastidiously treated his blade, refusing to indulge her hubris. Ignored, the fallen Dame turned away with a sweep of her tattered cloak and strode out of their rising encampment. A few soldiers on watch turned to witness the ordained warrior’s departure, whispering amongst each other and speculating about what was to come.

“You need rest!” Cartaxa shouted after the Eidolon. Then, glancing over, seeing her resolute in her passage, he turned his head down and muttered.

“Then I shall pray that you find what you seek, Vashante.”