“But you didn’t find them?”
“Only hints and whispers, until you showed up.”
I exhale, nodding. She’s right. It’s more than a coincidence that we met. Still. “Twenty years is a long time to lay a plan like this.”
“Not so long if you’re trying to kill a god, I imagine,” she observes quietly.
We walk on, the conversation turning my thoughts toward what’s ahead. Though I have known its necessity for a long time now, it makes the concept of it no less dark to me. No less repugnant.
“How do you do it, Netiqret?” I ask suddenly. “How do you prepare yourself tokillsomeone?”
She cocks her head to the side. Seems about to answer, then glances at Kiya and considers a second longer. “I don’t. It’s different every time—sometimes violent, sometimes peaceful. Sometimes fought and sometimes welcomed. You would be astonished at how many times it turns out people have hired me to kill themselves, wishing to remain young and virile for the Field of Reeds without obviously violating Ka’s law against suicide. Imagining it will be one way or another only invites surprises.”
The end of the tunnel appears up ahead. “Doesn’t it … get to you? Affect you?”
She gives a rueful smile. Shrugs. “When you were a child, did you ever cry because you’d scraped your knee and saw you were bleeding?”
“Of course.”
“But now?”
I process the meaning behind her words in silence, then, “It’s not the same thing.”
She touches glyphs around the entrance in practiced order. “It’s not so different, either.”
The streets near Ka’s temple are packed and weighted with the grumbling of shocked murmurs as we emerge. Crowds gathered in frightened clumps, the occasional individual threading their way through the throng with evident urgency, though I have no idea where they could possibly be going. Nobody bats an eye as we emerge; almost every head is turned away, toward the Infernis.
Netiqret falters to a halt as she sees what everyone else is seeing, caution forgotten.
I join her and, even expecting the sight, still gape.
A haze of black dust still hangs like a dirty fog over the space where the bridge once was. The lines of emerald light have all but vanished from the river below, the small amount of illumination peeking through highlighting hundreds of misshapen bodies, drifting, as far as the eye can see. Gleaners are hovering all along the river, the gathered crowds shifting and stumbling whenever one of the monsters floats near.
“‘Damaged it,’ you said,” whispers Netiqret, unable to drag her eyes from the sight. “How?”
I don’t answer but when she finally looks at me, and her gaze slides to the crook and flail at my belt, I nod.
“Alright.” She’s dazed, turning back to take in the enormity of the devastation for a few more seconds. “Alright.”
Despite the overflowing streets, it doesn’t take us long to reach the temple, the few Overseers among the crowds easily avoided. As we come in sight of the three massive white stone statues guarding the entrance, though, my heart drops.
The obsidian doors between them are shut, guarded by a dozen black-clothed forms. A pocket of cautious space surrounds them, despite the crush elsewhere.
“Wait here.” Netiqret continues striding toward them, Kiya in tow, even as she utters the terse command.
I do as she says, watching pensively as she approaches the nearest Overseer without hesitation, stopping in front of it with arms crossed, her shoulder-length black bob swaying. No sign of the fear that must surely be clambering through her, face-to-face with one of the creatures she’s been hiding from for decades. Hard not to feel a pinch of begrudging respect for the woman, despite her choices.
The exchange is brief, and clearly not positive. Netiqret is outwardly calm as she walks back, but I know her well enough now to see the agitation in her eyes.
“The temple has been evacuated and sealed. No one is allowed in.” She ushers us over to the opposite side of the street, out of the way of the worst of the milling, distracted throng. “Not even the priests.”
Vek. I touch the crook at my side, heart heavy. I still have to try.
Netiqret sees the motion, and shakes her head.
“Those things over the river would be here in less than a minute. You won’t make it.”
“No choice. If they’re not over the river, they’re guarding the pyramid.”
