By now, I'm out of the ward and I've healed up nicely by means of my own unsuppressed abilities; Nym's dialysis worked wonders, but I still feel sick and weak for lack of coagulant.

More than that, I feel weird. 

Nym and I haven't seen much of each other since yesterday, not out of deliberate avoidance, but even the times he checked up on me were awkward and held a tension they hadn't previously.

You know, before we started putting our mouths all over each other. Yhana hasn't heard either, unless he found the nerve to bring it up before I could. I actually don't know if I'm on “let's talk about boys" terms with Yhana, but Nym certainly must be; he's gotten just as close with her, and for much longer than I've been around. So that's two angles I'll need to prepare to broach the topic from.

Actually, he might not even need that conversation himself. His youthful appearance, preserved around the same age I had been too, if I had to guess, does a good job of making me forget just how much older he really is. I would think that should put me off, but give it another four decades and I'll be an example of the same, eerily youthful on the outside, but on the inside, insisting to myself that half a lifetime has not exhausted me.

What was it Suraokh had said about an attraction to older men? The half-recollection makes me cringe a little at having validated him.

But I've made an assumption about the permanence of my form too, I still don't really know how stagnant my form is anymore. Over just the past couple of days it's been changing faster than I can really cope with. For a good five years there, even cell division was something I'd simply adapted out of, and now my prosthetics self-repair just as well— or poorly, depending on how I look at it —as my flesh. For all I know, I'm aging again.

I wonder if I'll get to age that far along.

I could probably have ruminated for a while, but for the sudden return of a familiar face, newly rejuvenated with fine fabrics, appearing at an offshoot of the corridor. “I think I owe you an apology."

“Aaah shit!–" I yelp, stepping to the side on instinct, but my initial fear and irritation at Suraokh sublimate all at once when I process what he said. “...Wait, what?"

He enters the corridor proper, turning onto my route and beginning to walk. “I brought you here for your safety."

“To mixed success," I reply, catching up to him before slowing my stride to compensate for his.

“There was a plan," he continues, not looking at me. “Things did not go according to plan."

“If you're going to start berating me for my deviation from it, I get it, but I wanna hear you finish first."

“No, I made you think you had more responsibility than you really did," he clarifies. Now he looks at me, eyes newly shiny and bright. I can see my reflection in them, the sclera of my left eye jet black, the amber glow of its embedded hardware a permanent fixture. And I have time to take that in, because he doesn't continue immediately, letting that silence hang.

“Well… why's that?" I press.

“Both sides at play here are acting with far greater urgency and aggression than I had accounted for. You do not have any power to affect that, and you never did." His eyes return straight ahead.

“...Yeah, that makes sense."

“You are a pawn, with no autonomy."

I huff. “Yes, I get it."

“You are like me." He's asserted that before.

“Yes, I get it," I reiterate, but catching the point in my tone, I feel a need to correct myself. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you."

He moves right past my apology. “Do you want to know what I was really afraid of, Merion? What would happen if you kept talking?"

My ears perk. “I… I do, actually."

“You make friends… well, not easily, but they do stick. I was worried the crowd you've begun to associate with might try and hatch some scheme to get you out of Iyakamraa, out into an uncontrolled environment. Where you would be caught and brought to harm. You would have all died."

Suraokh looks at me again, and he stops this time, putting out an arm to stop me as well. “But you came to harm anyway, and now the scheme to get you out of Iyakamraa, out into an uncontrolled environment, is the next necessary move after all. Isn't that funny?"

That gets them flat again, points tracing arcs as my ears fold back in something between irritation and confusion. “So what was all your orchestration for?" 

“It didn't amount to anything, Merion. I am supposed to know how this works. My purpose is to know how this works." He steps forward, and I fear having my shoulders grabbed again like the last time he showed this much vulnerability. He doesn't, though. “Deviations are developing regardless of me, plans being made that no longer involve me, and I am beginning to wonder… is it more accurate to say that I am like you?"

“I… what?" I'm up against the wall now, cold tiles of the pastel blue mosaic chilling me through the thin gown I've been provided.

“Merion, look at you, you have no power. Your destiny lies entirely in the hands of others. I was supposed to be able to hand it to you as part of the greater plan, but I believe that they believe they have graduated from that plan."

“What??" I'm fumbling again. I know what he said but the implications of it hint at a picture I still have not been privy to.

And now, he does grab my shoulders. My hands shoot up to snatch his wrists, but he's strong, I can't get them off me.

“I follow the old plan. Be careful who you trust," he slowly states. “They will use you up."

The next thing I know, I'm outside Jen's office, just as summoned, as if that confrontation had never happened. Even the walk I must have taken to get here is called into question.

Be careful who I trust? I feel like I've been reasonably suspicious of everyone at this point. Some more than others, of course; I know he's not talking about Jen.

It's a lot to think about. But I can't let it shake me right now. If anything, it bolsters my need for clarity, and I'm going to get some right now.

Feeling sick doesn't stop me from storming into the office with all I've got. Admittedly it's not much. In my head I was going to fling those doors open, striding in confidently, but I end up just nudging between them.

At the back of the dim red room, barely visible in the gap between four inlets of daylight, Jen is entirely unperturbed. He's waiting there at his desk, with his chin resting on folded hands as if he'd been holding that pose waiting for me.

I skip the greeting entirely, stopping a few steps away from the empty chair prepared for me and pointing at the curtain above his shelves.

“Tell me what that is," I demand.

“Good morning to you as well, Merion," he says, subtly urging me to course correct. “Please sit."

I do not. “Tell me what that is," I repeat. “When they shot me, I felt just like I do in this room. Why are they the same?"

“Are you really going to take my word for it, Merion?" he asks, rolling his eyes, the fucker. “You know why I can't show you."

“And I'd have to take your word for that too, wouldn't I?"

“You would not. You already know from experience." Now his gaze latches onto me, suddenly severe. “Or did you think you and Nym were being subtle after your little date at the Archival tower?"

Any momentum I thought I'd begun with vanishes. I try not to show how disarmed I am, and thankfully the unpleasant dryness in here prevents me from gulping.

“You were never going to tell me, so do not pretend all your tiles are on the table either," he presses. “Sit."

I'm figuratively cornered here, so with some contempt for how easily I broke, I round the chair and delicately settle into it. Still, I manage to remark, “It must be nice having an informant who can just show up."

“It would have been, yes," the old fox says, and there's a little wavering in his tone like he almost managed a performative laugh, “but he's hardly living up to his usefulness lately. I do not need him in order to know what you are doing, and if I did, he would have left me wanting. Are you ready to listen now, Merion?"

I still have some spine after all. It's almost brand new and proven more than sufficient even under the worst conditions. “Tell me what it is. Or just tell me something."

He sighs. “Do you understand what the stakes are, Merion?" He overuses my name, like trying to hold the focus of a child. Condescending ass. “Do you understand that the entire sum of all our histories will have been for nothing if we fail?"

He stands. I already know he's going to start pacing but it damn near sets me off when he does. Long, practiced strides cultivated in exercises prescribed for the sole purpose of milking grandiosity for all it's worth.

“I will tell you something the public does not know yet," he continues. “I don't really care what you do with it. But the Prelature wasn't here just to raze our city to the ground."

He turns to me, his reflection in the window staring me down with twofold intensity.

“But they very well could have, if not for the quick thinking and selfless sacrifice of 38 furnace workers. Under an onslaught like that, we could never have kept them out of that tower either. Oleander tells me they took something very important."

“They have another piece of Soma?" I say, more mouthing it than speaking it, but it carries.

“They have another piece of Soma," he confirms verbatim, taking his seat again. “At this rate they may well feel emboldened enough to try for the remaining two while we are licking our wounds. So of course I am going to use any means necessary to stop them."

“The creature in the tower, is that what you mean? Are there more of them?" I ask.

He actually does chuckle now. “Merion, of course there are more." And then he lifts his hand, a single finger extended, pointing upward at the curtain. “There's one in the room with us now."

My hackles raise. Out of terror, rather than persuasion, I entirely believe him. By reflex alone I spring out of the chair, taking a few steps back, my eyes on that heavy sheet concealing something terrible. But it's just a flat surface beneath it, isn't it? Maybe it's just the bones, pressed into a slab? Maybe that's all it needs to be.

“Sit!" he demands again. It's not reflex this time, but some other compulsion that draws me back to my seat. “It won't hurt you."

He reaches for the carafe on his desk, taking an overturned glass and flipping it upright. Filling it, he nudges it toward me, acknowledging how parched I must be. There's no reason to play coy about it anymore.

“Why are you telling me this?" I croak.

“Because you asked!" he says, expending all his personable warmth in one go. His arms reach out in a pose I think is meant to invoke graciousness, then he takes a while settling back into a more relaxed one. He leans forward, pushing up his spectacles. 

“And you're late to the party, as it is, Merion. Word is already out there. At least, among hand-picked dissenters and conspiracy theorists who don't even know they've been selected for their simply unsalvageable reputations."

He stands again; for all his projection of power he simply cannot sit still.

“If they're already saying the Archivists are researching eldritch power, sourced from the bones of 'aliens'—“ he holds up his hands in opposing right-angled shapes, pausing to ask, “—these are quotation marks, in Siggska?"

Too bewildered and utterly desiccated to speak, I just nod.

“Very good," he says, returning to his more natural gesticulations instead, as he now circles behind me, like a stalking predator even as he strips bare any pretense of hiding. “Anyway, if the least reliable fringe sources have already been drip-fed some version of the truth, then what sensible citizen will believe them? So…"

He finishes his lap around the office, delicately taking his seat once more, and pouring a glass of water for himself as well. He takes a long moment to drink the whole thing, and then slams it down on the desk between us. His fur bristles, both our coats standing on end now; mine in apprehension, and his allowing his boundless rage to bubble through to the surface. There's a hiss in his tone now,

strained and sharp.

“…tell whomever you like. Nobody of consequence will believe it, and if Nym presumes himself to be a reliable enough source to disseminate it, I assure you it will be the last thing it takes to cure the public of their misplaced respect."

It's almost frightening how quickly he recomposes himself, pelt smooth, shoulders relaxed, and in place of the wrinkles of his snarl, the slightest trace of an agreeable smile is back in its place on his graying muzzle. 

“Now… Are you ready to have the discussion for which I asked you here, Merion?"

I nod, cautiously taking my own glass and drinking. I know I've completely lost, in doing so, but my mouth is so dry now as to fail to even form words without it.

“So, to be clear…" Jen proceeds. He nudges my glass of water back into my hands as I try to set it down, urging me to keep hydrating. “We will see the process of assessing your health to its conclusion, however long it takes, and then you will be relocated, along with Samsara and her sanctifier legion, to a secure outpost far out in the west of Rashuwa."

“Isn't she needed here?" I ask, my voice still hoarse.

He sighs, and drums his manicured claws on the desk in thought. “Optics on Samsara are… suffering, to put it one way. After this recent tragedy, initiated by covert operatives of the Prelature, people are fearful of something like that happening again."

“You're indulging their fear," I object.

“I am temporarily removing a point of tension, however irrational it may be," he defends. “Once this hostile sentiment against refugees from Uldrynth has been engineered back into the embarrassing position it ought to be, held predominantly by those aforementioned bad sources, and your safety has been assured, we can reintroduce her."

“Who's stoking that sentiment, then?" My chair squeaks as I shift forward, meeting his gaze beneath his arched brow. “I've seen the vigil raids on people's homes with my own eyes."

“And many of those who were raided were complicit in enabling today's violence," he says, raising both hands in an almost priestly gesture. Through the windows behind him, facing north, the sheer destruction that befell his city is hardly evident at all. “And many were not. No harm has come to them, and frankly our overreach may have saved them from being targeted as traitors to the nation from which they felt compelled to escape."

Even when he's not explicitly angry, his glare is always so intense, his spectacles failing to filter it at all. I hold that glare for many moments, but I'm losing this argument. Not that it matters, not only is he unshakable, his word is law. It doesn't matter who's right, he's always more right.

I feel an itch to push again. “Samsara knows about the bones too, doesn't she?"

“Again with the…" he rolls his eyes, fingers gnarling. “Again with the bones, Merion? Yes, obviously she knows about the bones, she's a Warden after all. And not only does she understand why our investigation is so vital… she also understands how precarious her position is."

When he relaxes, I notice shallow scratches in the surface of the desk, newly marked. “You would do well to realize such things. Come closer."

To my shock, I do as I'm bidden, without intention. I can feel his words worm into me, filling in the brief fugue during which I must have brought my chair forward to lean against the desk. Necroharmony, aura pressed against aura, his engulfing mine like a predatory amoeba. I am inside his willpower and it is peeling back the layers of mine.

I should be furious. I should be in full fight-or-flight right now, that he'd cast and put me under his thrall to maintain an upper hand he was in no danger of losing.

But I can't muster those emotions, though gods, I try. Save for his command, I am frozen. My ears are not meekly flattened down, they're up, attentive, emotionlessly obedient.

“Clearly, Merion, I need to spell it out for you, that the simplest, easiest course of action to ensure the void siphon does not fall into the wrong hands would be to ask that you rip it still-beating from your own chest for me. And at this moment, you would. And then I would just have to clean up whatever resulting mess comes after; I know all about the way you get."

I have no secrets. I have no advantage, no device, no escape. This is a hatchet to my ribs in essence, its sharpness just as undeniable as the wrath behind it. 

He continues, “But I do not particularly like that approach. Do you like it? Would you prefer that?"

I take a moment to determine whether or not I'm in control of myself again. When I shake my head, it's of my own volition, but I'm all too aware of my powerlessness here.

“Then be pleased with my alternative. Do you see how short our meeting could have been?" he asks, smiling. “If we understand each other, Merion, you are dismissed for now. Run along to your next appointment, I'm sure you're far more eager to be over and done with them than anyone."

I say nothing as he watches me leave, backing up a few steps before turning around and exiting the office. The spiral ramp outside takes me back down into the greater pyramid, and I make my way toward the lab, same as yesterday.

I should have asked about Suraokh, damn it. Even the questions I did think to ask were expertly sidestepped. I didn't have the wherewithal at the moment, but witnessing Suraokh's composure deteriorate as of late actually has me worried about him. What does Jen do with someone like that when he's got no more use for them?

Could he even do anything, for that matter?

I find myself actually wishing he'd show up again. I hate feeling so conflicted about him. I still know so little about him, and other than these recent moments of vulnerability, that seemed to be how he liked it. But between the immensity of what I don't know, and the implications of what I do, my unease is justified. My fear, even.

I think I'm even more afraid of Jen. I should be afraid of anyone who can keep someone like that subservient, and if I read Suraokh correctly, afraid as well.

At the very least, of the two, only one has made such a clear threat toward me. For a moment, I feel almost eager to leave the city, gaining some distance and reprieve from these meetings.

But I can't delude myself for long. No matter where I go he'll have control.

My fingers scratch anxiously at the center of the ring-shaped mark on my chest. It encircles the place I had once already felt the bite of a Dominion hatchet, splitting deep into the meat of the heart that beat there in life.

He always had control.