By the old rites, only the greatest ancestors of this world’s bygone years were saved from the rot, saved from being cast into the choking depths. Their remains were enshrined—imprisoned into tombs of careful craft, sealed behind archaic wards of old stone and metallic bone to be preserved and worshipped. It was said that wherever the Cities took root, the mutagen—those crawling nanomaterials—turned even the still and sacred dead into abominations hungrier than any beast alive. Indeed, in these latter ages, the dead rarely rested quietly, stirred by profane growth within their marrow. Thus, it became the custom that most freaks were left where they fell, to be dragged away by recyclers: drones that patrol the endless corridors, seizing corpses and the broken forms of the maimed who were unable to flee ‘erelonger, feeding them to the great filters buried deep in the City’s fleshy bowels. There, all was broken down to viscera and pulp to fuel Acetyn’s endless advance.
Vashante Tens knew these truths as she knew her own shadow. She had long accepted them as a simple fact of life. Death was fuel. Mourners were weak. The City’s heart demanded sustenance. She had never questioned it. Now, though, standing upon the ruined ramparts near Ymmngorad, beneath a sky gone dull with soot, she witnessed something that challenged her every certainty. Bee—Lady Bhaeryn—held a remembrance for the dead.
The young woman, who had been dubbed with that name “Bhaeryn,” stood dressed in black. Not the cheap darkness of ragged cloth, but black of fine weave, fitted close, with the barest tracery of gold at the cuffs, collar, and hem—a concession to Jhedothar’s aspirant house colours, now turned into her own quiet heraldry. Once donned, the whispers said, Lady Bhaeryn would never again remove that sombre shade.
To see her in such attire, a woman with the burdens of countless atrocities pressed upon her narrow shoulders, shook Vashante to her core. The Eidolon remembered her as the child she first appeared: uncertain, angered, defiant. Now, Bee wore sorrow like a mantle of lead. Time passed them by ineffably, quicksilver slipping between their fingers. She was growing into her own.
The crowd assembled at the base of Ymmngorad was a ragged host: twisted freaks, battered survivors, some missing limbs or eyes, many scarred by recent violence. They peered out from under collapsed vaults and blasted spires, overgrown by the relentless Rose of Thorns, tentatively pressing forward to see this makeshift wake. They came not to challenge but to bear witness.
Once, not so long ago, these freaks had trembled at Bee’s pronouncement, her taking of the title; indeed, some had seen their kin felled in a digital storm of her ill-made conjuration. Now they clung to each other, wide-eyed and fearful, yet drawn to this unusual display of remembrance. They knew no funerals in this City that devoured its own. Yet here was Bee, insisting upon one, standing before them in solemn silence.
Vashante stood near the forefront, near Bee and Slashex, knowing her place but uncertain about what to do with her hands or how to carry herself. She could not speak, and perhaps that was a mercy. She did not have words to reconcile the ache in her heart. She, who once so often slaughtered without remorse, now beheld a Lady who mourned the unnamed dead—freaks and lowly born whom most rulers would never spare a thought for.
The guilt gnawed at Vashante’s quiet soul. She recalled distant raids and vicious hunts, times she had earned praise for brutality. Now, under Bee’s gentle, if burdened gaze, that pride soured to ash.
Yonmar Free, the old bone monk, was here too, hunched in his craggy mask. He said nothing, only bowed his head in respectful silence. Slashex lingered at Bee’s side, arms folded, mismatched metal limbs casting strange shadows in the gloom. He did not mock this ceremony openly, but Vashante saw the disbelief on his mottled and twisted lip. The Eidolon understood that Bee’s empathy was not a currency Slashex cared to spend.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Toshtta Yew and Sar-ek stood by as guardians—Toshtta, clad in bronze-hued plate, vines curling over her visor-clad helm, standing impassive as a living statue. Sar-ek, ever arrogant, tried to maintain a stoic dignity, proud of whatever promotion he had earned in service to Bee that let him stand here this day. Vashante noted how neither dared to speak ill of this moment. Even those who might find it folly said nothing as if Bee’s quiet gravity demanded their regard.
Yoxsimer, the many-legged scion of the Abbalate, stood somewhat apart from the gathering throng. His numerous limbs shifted with elegant care, his posture betraying neither fear nor disdain but rather a quiet curiosity as he regarded the scene. Cartaxa, his cousin of pale visage and stoic demeanour, spared Vashante a swift, sidelong glance—an old soldier’s subtle empathy—and then returned to his vigil with aloof composure. Yoxsimer, who harboured a taste for statesmanship and the drama of the court, recognised the potency of silence at a time like this. He watched Bee—Lady Bhaeryn—with a sharp, thoughtful turn to his compound eyes, observing how she handled the delicate balance of grief and authority. Vashante recognised a schemer when she saw one.
When Jhedothar emerged, it was as a phantom stepping from a wound in the City’s flesh, Ymmngorad marred from the recent days past. His centaurian form came from that old tower’s deep shadows to stand at Bee’s flank. He wore black, too, with gold accents, mirroring Bee’s attire in silent acknowledgement. He made no speech—he simply stood beside her, presenting a united front to those who watched. Vashante’s gut twisted, wondering if this was politics or some flicker of genuine remorse. It scarcely mattered. The gesture was made, and the crowd saw it.
In the moments that followed, Bee bowed her head and spoke softly to the dead, promising no more than a witness to their passing. She did not speak of redemption or retribution, only shared the silence of grief. The freaks bowed their heads, some sobbing quietly, others merely staring, confused by this alien kindness.
Vashante’s eyes stung by some bare remembrance of a reflex. She had no tears to shed—her augmentations had long since altered such responses—but she still felt a trembling in her chest. She had helped cause so much death, and not since taking her mantle had she felt shame. Not since she betrayed the Hash family, who had accepted her into their realm, for the bidding of an erstwhile master who revealed himself a monster. Now, Bee’s care laid bare the truth: strength did not lie solely in violence. Here was a young Lady who showed mercy even when no one asked for it. And even in doing so, no one was in a position to stop her, to depose her or dethrone her.
Was such empathy a weakness in Acetyn’s brutal calculus? Vashante would have answered yes, once. But now, watching Bee’s dark-clad figure stand amidst ruin, offering respect where others would reap only fear, she began to doubt that old certainty. Maybe mercy, like a sharp blade, had its own power. Maybe such empathy could challenge the City’s endless hunger in ways no weapon could.
Perhaps only the strongest could dare to be kind. The thought struck Vashante like a hammer blow.
So the Eidolon stood silent, wrestling with heartbreak and guilt. She pledged in that quiet moment, with no one to witness but her own battered conscience, that she would see this through to the end. Too easily did loyalty change hands, did cloaks turn, and the benighted change their steading. Step by step, through shadows and blood, she would guide her Lady, defend her, and lend what strength she had to ensure Bee need not stand alone.
To the end, then: to the Ossein Basilica, to the dread Pilgrim seated therein. Hope for redemption, for vengeance, for justice. To sanctify and save dear Bee, or to let the fate of the dead finally take Vashante Tens once and for all. Perhaps, she dared hope that she, too, would be remembered…
High above them, the many ancient titans that held Cruiros’ vast bone sky aloft on their shoulders groaned lowly in their own grief, witnessing again the changing of the ages.