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Navani had hoped that if she died, it would delay Raboniel’s corruption of the tower long enough for Navani to properly weaponize this new Light. That was not to be. The explosion had been smaller than the one that had destroyed the room with the scholars, and Raboniel was far tougher than a human.
A treasonous part of Navani was glad the Fused had not died. Raboniel sat up, then surveyed the room. Several of the bookshelves had collapsed, spilling their contents. Raboniel’s daughter was still sitting where she’d been, as if she hadn’t even noticed what had happened, despite the fact that she bore cuts on her face. Her attendant appeared to be dead, lying slumped on the ground, facedown. Navani felt a spike of legitimate sorrow for that.
“What did you do?” Navani said. “Lady of Wishes, what happened?”
Raboniel blinked as she stood. “I … put the diamond we created into the hilt of the dagger, then used the tip to draw Voidlight from another gemstone, to mix them. It seemed the best way to see if the two Lights would cancel one another out. I thought … I thought the reaction would be calm, like hot and cold water mixing.…”
“Hot and cold water don’t immediately annihilate one another when they meet,” Navani said. “Besides, heat under pressure—like Light in a gemstone—is another matter.”
“Yes,” Raboniel said, blinking several times, seeming dazed. “If you use the lightning of a stormform to ignite something under pressure, it always explodes. Perhaps if Voidlight and anti-Voidlight meet in open air, you’d get no more than a pop. But these were inside a gemstone. I have acted with supreme stupidity.”
Other Fused—Deepest Ones—melded in through the walls to see what had happened. Raboniel waved them all off as her cuts healed under the power of her internal Voidlight. The Deepest Ones took the servant, who fortunately stirred as they carried him.
The desk was broken, the wall marked by a black scar. Navani smelled smoke—bits of desk still burned. So the explosion had involved heat, not pressure alone. Raboniel shooed away the guard and the other Fused, then picked through the rubble of the desk.
“No remnants of the dagger,” Raboniel said. “Another embarrassment I must suffer, losing such a valuable weapon. I have others, but I’ll need to eventually move you out of this room and have it scrubbed for every scrap of raysium. We might be able to melt it down and reforge the dagger.”
Navani nodded.
“For now,” Raboniel said, “I would like you to make me another gemstone filled with that anti-Voidlight.”
“Now?” Navani asked.
“If you please.”
“Don’t you want to change?” Navani asked. “Have someone pick the shards of glass out of your skin…”
“No,” Raboniel said. “I wish to see this process again. If you please, Navani.”
It was said to a rhythm that indicated it would happen, regardless of what Navani “pleased.” So she prepared the vacuum chamber—it had been behind Raboniel, sheltered from the brunt of the blast, fortunately. As Navani worked, Raboniel sent someone for another Herald-killing dagger. Why did she need that? Surely they weren’t going to mix the Lights after what had happened.
Feeling an ominous cloud hanging over her, Navani repeated her experiment, this time filling the gemstone a little less—just in case—before removing it and holding it up.
Raboniel took it, and though she didn’t drop it this time, she did flinch. “So strange,” she said. She fitted it into her second dagger. Then she undid a screw and slipped out the piece of metal running through the center. She flipped it around—it had points on both ends, and a hole for the screw—before replacing it.
“To make the anti-Voidlight flow out of the gemstone along the blade?” Navani asked. “Instead of drawing in what it touches?”
“Indeed,” Raboniel said. “You may wish to take cover.” Then she turned, walked across the room, and stabbed her daughter in the chest.
Navani was too stunned to move. She stood there amid the rubble, gaping as Raboniel loomed over the other Fused, pushing the weapon in deeper. The younger Fused began to spasm, and Raboniel held her, ruthless as she pressed the weapon into her daughter’s flesh.
There was no explosion. The Voidlight inside the Fused wasn’t under pressure as it was in a gemstone, perhaps. There was a stench of burning flesh, and the skin blistered around the wound. The younger Fused trembled and screamed, clutching at her mother’s arm with a clawed hand.
Then her eyes turned milky, like white marble. She went limp, and Navani thought she saw something escape her lips. Smoke? As if her entire insides had been burned away.
Raboniel pulled the dagger out, then tossed it away like a piece of rubbish. She cradled her daughter’s body, pressing her forehead against that of the corpse, holding it close and rocking back and forth.
Navani walked over, listening to Raboniel’s sorrowful rhythm. Though Raboniel’s topknot of hair spilled around her face, Navani saw tears slipping down her red-and-black cheeks.
Navani wasn’t certain she’d ever seen a singer cry before. This was not ruthlessness at all. This was something else.
“You killed her,” Navani whispered.
Raboniel continued to rock the corpse, holding it tighter, shaking as she hummed.
“Elithanathile,” Navani said, whispering the tenth name of the Almighty. “You killed her forever, didn’t you?”
“No more rebirth,” Raboniel whispered. “No more Returns. Free at last, my baby. Free.”
Navani pulled her hand up to her chest. That pain … she knew that pain. It was how she’d felt hearing of Elhokar’s death at the hands of the bridgeman traitor.
Raboniel had done this killing though. Performed it herself! But … had the actual death happened long ago? Centuries ago? What had it been like, living with a child whose body constantly returned to life long after her mind had left her?
“This is why,” Navani said, kneeling beside the two. “Your god hinted that anti-Voidlight was possible, and you suspected what it would do. You captured the tower, you imprisoned and pushed me, and possibly delayed the corruption of the Sibling. Because you hoped to find this anti-Voidlight. Not because you wanted a weapon against Odium. Because you wanted to show a mercy to your daughter.”
“We could never create enough of this anti-Light to threaten Odium,” Raboniel whispered. “That was another lie, Navani. I’m sorry. But you took my dream and you fulfilled it. After I had given up on it, you persisted. One might think the immortal being would be the one to continue pursuing an idea to its end, but it was you.”
Navani knelt with her hands in her lap, feeling like she’d witnessed something too intimate. So she gave Raboniel time to grieve.
Fused grieved. The immortal destroyers, the mythical enemies of all life, grieved. Raboniel’s grief looked identical to that of a human mother who had lost her child.
Eventually, Raboniel rested the body on the ground, then covered up the wound with a cloth from her pocket. She wiped her eyes and stood, calling for the guard to bring her some servants.
“What now?” Navani asked her.
“Now I make sure this death was truly permanent,” Raboniel said, “by communicating with the souls on Braize. If Essu has indeed died a final death, then we’ll know you and I have achieved our goal. And…” She trailed off, then hummed a rhythm.
