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Later that day, an alarm sounds. The warden projects a message in Variks's voice. The doors of her cell open, unprompted, as frenzied Eliksni and Cabal charge through the prison, thirsting for freedom. | Later that day, an alarm sounds. The warden projects a message in Variks's voice. The doors of her cell open, unprompted, as frenzied Eliksni and Cabal charge through the prison, thirsting for freedom. | ||
==IV. The Visionary== | |||
In the first several months of her freedom, Eramis curses Misraaks the Forsaken. | |||
He is a wish-to-be Kell, a captured traitor, a four-armed Dreg cringing before a false queen, playing pretend among the enemies of the Eliksni. | |||
And worst of all, the most humiliating: he has beaten Eramis. | |||
She has failed to acquire the SIVA weapon, failed to shame the Guardians, failed to reignite the fires of the House of Devils. Her failure haunts her. | |||
Now she sits in the bridge of her stolen Ketch, straight-spined, staring. Staring at some distant point that she has long passed, one she can never return to. | |||
Atraks, youngest of her council, watches her from across the room. She closes the gap between them. | |||
"My Kell," she says. She has a voice like a child. | |||
Eramis is quiet for a beat longer than she needs to be. Finally, she says, "You are too young to remember the old house. What the Devils were before." | |||
Atraks bows her head out of respect. | |||
"This failure has no sting for you," Eramis bites, bitter. | |||
Atraks keeps her head bowed. Then, slowly, she raises it. Her eyes dart over Eramis's face, searching. "I am too young to remember," she agrees. "But my eyes are clear. I can see what the Devils will be." | |||
Eramis opens her mouth to remind Atraks of her place, and then pauses. | |||
Something in her mind has unlocked. | |||
She stands to her full, towering height, stretches her second set of arms. | |||
"No," she says. Clarity has descended on her like a Riis rain shower. "The Devils are nothing." | |||
She begins to walk out of the room, purpose in her step, fire reignited in her belly. "The Devils are dead." | |||
House of Anarchy. House of Ruin. | |||
House of Eramis. | |||
"We must become something new." |
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