5 Rising Withering, 1886 CE

Libraratory, Acerbia

"You heap upon me restriction after restriction after restriction." Thiyyatt stood with arms crossed against the torso of her blonde hairsilk gown, ignoring the subtle movements of the organs plated on the golden table as the Libraratory's veins and nerves kept them alive. "You cannot expect me to work properly under these circumstances."

Tvorh groaned. "Thiyyatt, you can't just decide to Stigmatize random people with new organs."

"And why not? Do they and I not serve a common purpose, that of your Gens's desire to see the genophage cured?"

"Sure, but you could just as easily kill them, and that doesn't help Gens Nethress at all." Tvorh waved off the pale-faced purple-blooded whom Thiyyatt had roped into her mad inquiry. The gengineer couldn't get out of the room fast enough. "And for the record, neither does waking me up in the middle of the night. Couldn't it have waited until morning?"

Thiyyatt turned back to the table and grimaced as she picked up an organ based off a kidney. "I would be better off under the care of Gens Nxtlu. Ductrix Eztli understands, and she is a far better conversationalist than you. For all your lowness, Tvorh, you show a distinct lack of respect."

"Eztli's the least Nxtlu-like Nxtlu you'll find, and she's still pretty bad. Besides, we're the only ones with the cure, so you're stuck with us, like it or not."

Thiyyatt put the organ back down. "No longer. This one will work." Thiyyatt tapped on a glass vial atop the table. "It calls to me. My Wisdom desires it."

"We'll have to take it to the Palace and put it into the Cathedral Tool. That way, all the Magi--"

"Not yet." Thiyyatt spoke slowly, as if Tvorh was a dumb kid. "We must test it."

"I thought you said it would work."

"It will. Allow me to prove it to you, that you might carry word of it to your Princeps."

"Huh? What do you--" But Thiyyatt was already unscrewing the top of the vial. "Hey! You can't do that!"

Thiyyatt laughed, though she didn't sound very amused. "Please. This work of Wisdom is my creation. What artist prevents herself from looking upon her own work of art? Does she not rather build the glory of herself into it? Behold, low-born, high-blooded Tvorh, and witness." Thiyatt upended the vial into her mouth.

She ate it. She just ate it. They'd been working for weeks on this thing, and she'd just downed it without even thinking of whether there would be any left over. She couldn't do that. Could she? Her SOPHIOS wouldn't be able to assimilate it.

Would it?

She smelled whole, hale, happy. "Have the Tool cease dispersion of the aerosol," she murmured.

"Are you sure?"

"I would not have commanded it otherwise."

Tvorh's mom acted before he could speak. The low hiss of air ceased and the currents in the mist fell still.

"Is it working?" Tvorh asked after a few minutes of silence.

"Take me elsewhere, Tvorh."

"You're not supposed to leave the Libraratory."

"The aerosol will take too long to disperse. You would have me determine whether my concoction provides the cure? Your Princeps will forgive you." Thiyyatt raised her eyes to the golden ceiling. "Take me from this place to one where there is no airborne cure. Take me out so I might see the stars."

"I really shouldn't--"

"I will see to it that you see the stars as well, Tvorh. You would like that."

"Stop being so nice."

The princess tilted her head. "Why would you have me do such a thing?"

"Because it's all pretend."

"No. Of course I am not nice. I am an ancient evil, and I will have what I demand. This is what you think of me? If I could change your mind, I would, but you are stubbornly resistant to my charms--"

"They're not charms. They're chemicals."

Thiyyatt took Tvorh's hand. "I have charms as well, Tvorh, though you refuse to see them."

"Being blind has its advantages."

"No chemicals, Tvorh. No pretense. No lies. Take me up above, where I might feel the genophage coursing through me and feel the cure striking it down. This is what I require in order to prove that my STIGMOS functions. And in return, I will show you the stars."

Tvorh didn't want to say yes... but she smelled so nice. Plus, they'd been keeping Thiyyatt in here for weeks on end. That would be enough to make anybody stir-crazy. "No tricks."

"No tricks. This is truth. Have I not said it? Would a lie not be beneath me?"

Tvorh let out a long sigh. "All right. Have it your way."

They rode the elevator up to the surface. As soon as the Welcome Relief slid open, Thiyyatt stepped out into the cold night air and flung her arms out to either side. "I saw before through a tiny window. Now the firmament is laid bare before me."

"Lucky you."

She grabbed Tvorh's hand again. "Come. Join with me, and I will show you what I see." Her nerves pressed through the flesh of Tvorh's palm; she had picked up the STIGMOS from him when they'd first linked. Their thoughts and emotions intertwined, and Tvorh--she--blinked the world into being.

Her eyes drifted upward. "Do you know the stars well, Tvorh?"

He'd spent too much of his life in the Chasm. Even when he'd had his eyesight, he'd rarely had the chance to see them. "No."

"Each has its own story, some older than the Heavenfall." She fixed her gaze on a bright reddish point far above. "Yadaljauza," she whispered reverently. "The Hand of the Hunter."

"Why is it called that?"

"It is said that before the Heavenfall, before even the Exodus, the stars were different, and Yadaljauza was the bright hand of a bowman. Now he has been scattered and his foot, called Rigel, has been thrown across the heavens. Do you see it there, burning blue?"

"Of course I see it. I'm using your eyes."

"Yes. Forgive me."

Tvorh couldn't stop himself from sending shock coursing through the bond. "Apologies? That's a first."

Thiyyatt chuckled. "I am feeling magnanimous."

"Doesn't that mean that you'll forgive others?"

"Yes. I will forgive you much, Tvorh, including believing that I needed your forgiveness when I asked for it. Come. The lights here are too bright."

"Light pollution?"

"Yes. Take me somewhere where we can see the stars."

"That means the wilderness."

"So be it."

Tvorh couldn't believe that Thiyyatt still didn't understand how things worked in the present age. "They're Wildlands. Full of Chimeras. I can't take you there." Anger pulsed through the bond, and Tvorh thought quickly. "Though I guess I can take you outside the city limits but stay inside the defensive perimeter. We'd be away from the buildings but still protected by the defenses."

The boiling rage calmed somewhat. "Yes, Tvorh. That sounds acceptable to me."

Like an idiot, Tvorh brought her into his lungboat and flew her out of the city. In his defense, though, she made his brain liquidy.

"There," Thiyyatt said, and Tvorh landed in a clearing in the woods, which the lungboat’s eyes could barely make out in the darkness. "Look now," Thiyyatt said, taking his hand as they dismounted.

The lungboat's eyes were designed for near and mid-distance resolution. Thiyatt's vision was far better. Tvorh gasped at the white starfield that lay unveiled above them. An ivory river ran from one horizon to the other, stars packed so tightly and numerously that he couldn't differentiate any of them from the others.

"The old name for our galaxy," Thiyyatt said. "The Way of Milk and Honey. Did you know this?"

"I didn't. Astronomy was never my thing." But now that Tvorh had heard it, he would never forget it. "Tell me more about the stars. Do they really have their own stories?"

"Yes, every one. And the greatest groups of them, the mightiest and most renowned, tell stories together. These thirteen, forming three hexagons in a triangle? Those are the Honeycomb, the symbol of my dynasty. It is said that during the Exodus, men spent centuries starving, but from afar they saw the Comb. They went into it and took their repast from it, and ever since then, the Way of Milk and Honey has flowed less fully, for they ate of the source of it."

"Do you believe that?"

"Of course not. They are stars, nothing more. But it makes a lovely story." She hushed. "And there is the myth of Sol."

"Sol?"

"The star of the promised land before the Heavenfall." Thiyyatt's voice was a whisper of veneration.

"I've never heard of Sol. But I've heard of the promised land. Aoife--my friend, you remember her? She shot you. Anyway, she's an Adonist."

Thiyyatt waved her other hand dismissively; the sense of the motion reverberated through Tvorh's ears, eyes, and the bond all at once. "Ignorant superstition, but perhaps there is a clue within it. They say that our galaxy's name comes from their old religion."

"Did they have Adonists in the Last Era? I mean, during the reign of the Last Era--Imperatrix Lunja?"

"Of course. They have always been thorns in the sides of the wise and the enlightened for their refusal to bow before their betters."

"Well, that's something that we have in common."

"The refusal to bow to me? Yes, perhaps you do."

"No--I mean your Era and mine. We both have the Adonists."

"I would rather share nothing at all with you than share them."

They sat in silence for a while. At last, Tvorh said, "Thank you for showing me the stars again."

"One good turn deserves another."

He turned toward her. "The cure's working, then?"

"I feel it within me, flowing from my new organs, restoring each cell as it transforms. It is a wonder, Tvorh. I am free of the genophage, now and forevermore."

"Well, good. I guess, maybe, we should be heading back, then."

Thiyyatt tightened her grip on his hand. "Not yet, Tvorh."

"Dorsin'll want to hear about it."

"I know." Thiyyatt squeezed his hand. "But not yet."

They really needed to be going. This was the biggest breakthrough they'd had yet: bigger than the graphene screens, bigger than the Thunderhammer cannon, bigger than any of the wonder medicines they'd discovered so far in the Libraratory. Tvorh had a duty to his Gens. And yet--

And yet there was a lovely woman here, holding his hand, sharing her sight with him, sharing the senses of her entire body. She was here, and she felt contented, and so did he. She felt relaxed, and so did he.

Her heart jumped once, and so did his.

Thiyyatt's hand turned in his. She rose out of her seat and swung a leg over his lap; before he could move, she was straddling him.

No chemicals, she thought, and he could sense that she was telling the truth; there was only the crisp cool winter air. No tricks. No lies.

Thiyyatt...

Only you, Tvorh. Only me. Here. Now. Can you not feel it? Can you not taste that I am the one for you, and you for me? What is our purpose here, together, if not to give the world a greater generation than our own?

I don't--

She leaned forward and kissed his neck. You know it. You want me. You want this moment, and I would have it as well.

Tvorh groaned. He did want her.

I offer you a great gift, low-born, high-blooded Tvorh. Mingle with me, and give this world salvation from the degeneration of its blood. Your SOPHIOS is as strong as mine. We are meant to be. Come away with me. Be my Erus, and I will be your Era, and together we will restore Tellus to its former glory under a dynasty that knows the Wisdom as it knows its own bodies.

She was intoxicating even without the pheromones.

No deceit, Tvorh. Her free hand grasped the waistline of his pants.

And there was Aoife. Aoife? Was there Aoife?

Did it matter?

It mattered more than anything else in the world.

"No!" Tvorh shouted. Shock pulsed through the bond. "I won't do this!"

She wanted him, and Tvorh's hormones raged and he wanted her so badly as well. But she was mad, with her talk of birthing new races of man and ruling over Tellus. She was beautiful and amoral and completely insane. And if he gave her what she wanted, he'd be party to her insanity.

"I'm not going to let you take this from me," Tvorh said as rage flooded into him from her. "I'm not your toy. And I'm not going to--"

"Pity," she growled. Her nerves tore from his; the shock made him shout in surprise. Her hands clasped his wrists, and he activated his echolocation just in time to sense her serpent-hair lashing out toward him. "You would refuse the gift I generously offer you?" she screamed as she lifted him off the seat. "Then you will rue the day you met me!"

Then Tvorh was flying through the air. It seemed like an eternity before he hit the snowdrifts. He thrashed his way to the surface as the pulsing sound of the lungboat's breathing began to meet his ears.

"The day will come, low-born Tvorh, when you crawl on your hands and knees to offer yourself to me," Thiyyatt shouted as the lungboat lurched off the ground. "On that day, if you please me with your begging, you will receive from me a quick death!"

"Where are you going?" Tvorh shouted back.

"I am no fool to share my plans with you, wasteling!" Thiyyatt jerked the lungboat forward. She was fleeing toward the defensive perimeter; beyond there were only Wildlands.

Tvorh whipped his knife from its sheath and flung it with all his might at the retreating boat. He missed it entirely. Aoife could probably have hit it with a powerful gun.

But Aoife wasn't here, because Tvorh was an idiot.

Thiyyatt didn't know the air-defense transponder codes. Tvorh waited for the anti-air defenses to mistake his precious lungboat for a Chimera.

He waited for mighty booms to shake the night.

He waited for the defenses to fill the air with poisonous spores and bone shrapnel.

He waited for an hour, until he had to admit to himself that Thiyyatt had somehow escaped.