myself.”
The threat rolls off her tongue before she realizes it, and she is shocked to realize that she doesn’t know how serious it is. Something has changed in her, and she doesn’t know when it happened. Was it when she realized she was responsible for untold numbers of deaths? Was it before that, when she saw how little regard Observer had for the individuals that made up His mind? Was it before that, when she crammed half a Widow into her head, with all the accompanying memories and fantasies of slaughter? Or is it even more fundamental than that? She’s seen what Humans do: is that piece of her nature finally floating to the surface? Is this the Widow or the Human, the Daughter or the Destroyer?
Or is it just…Sarya?
Mer is not the only one sleeping; in fact, Sarya and her two pre-Observers seem to be the only conscious individuals in this entire filthy clearing. Around dozens of fires burning down to coals, lit by the destruction of a trillion living minds, Observer’s many bodies snore the night away.
Sandy scampers around her father, eyeing him from all sides, before deciding on an approach. Sarya watches, completely understanding the challenge of waking an instinct-filled killer without getting oneself instantly ripped apart. And then, with the tiniest of startled squeaks, Sandy disappears. Sarya blinks, just as startled. Even with liters of drink in his system, Mer is faster than anything she has ever seen. She watches, with rising apprehension, as nothing further seems to happen. Sandy is on Mer’s far side—hopefully still living—and Sarya is not about to circle him to see what’s going on over there. If all is going well, the two are having a nice silent father-daughter blinkfest. Sandy—hopefully—is convincing her inebriated killer of a father that he should not eviscerate this Human here and now. If all is not going well, Sandy is dead and Mer doesn’t even know it yet. Or she is alive and telling her gigantic father how she woke up with a Human’s fingers wrapped around her windpipe. If either is the case, Sarya should be heading off into the dark forest right now, at a dead sprint.
She almost laughs. Like it would matter.
So she doesn’t run. She waits, repeatedly using her one good hand to close the other, then opening both. This will be her new nervous tic—if she survives the next few seconds, obviously. She hadn’t realized how much she depended on Roche’s hand until it was taken from her. Even so, Roche is next—again, assuming she survives this. Roche may be cold and irritating, he may be completely indifferent to her, and maybe everyone, but she needs all the help she can get.
She starts violently when Mer’s bulk shifts in the hard light of the sky. He sits up and turns in one smooth, sinuous movement, his talons ripping deep furrows in what’s left of the grass. Sandy peeks around one of his massive arms as he stares at Sarya, eyes shining above glistening teeth. It’s amazing that Sarya could have spent so many days in his presence without realizing what an obvious killer he is. Now, when she is frozen in his predator gaze, it couldn’t be clearer. But Sarya is the child of a Widow—and a killer herself, whether she wants to admit it or not—and so she clenches the only hand she can clench and stares back into those eyes. She swallows as a host of potential sentences run through her mind: explanations and blame, mitigating circumstances, the whole story. But when she takes a breath, none of them come out.
“I’m sorry,” she says softly.
Mer stares at her, his eyes gleaming in the light of a burning sky.
“You too, Roche,” she says, a little louder. She doesn’t know when she became aware that the android was standing behind her, but she is as certain as if he had tapped her on the shoulder. “I’m…sorry.”
Roche stalks around her on slim black legs, in his customary cloud of cold ozone, and folds himself up next to Mer. He pays no attention to his companions—but why would he? Sarya is the target of Mer’s potential rage. Sarya is the one who will be torn limb from limb in a few seconds—or not. “This I must hear,” says Roche, his lenses reflecting the flickering chaos above.
Sarya’s eyes flick from one gaze to the next, among the three intelligences staring at her. To her left and right, she feels Left and