Redana vaults over Alexa’s shoulders. She seems as graceful as the bird on the wing, her movement as effortless as keeping those wings outstretched; it would take a moment of frozen time to appreciate the strength that holds her limbs in close and her torso straight as she flips nimbly over Sagakhan and continues her ascent. The Master of Assassins may try to follow, but Redana is light of foot and Alexa is in no mind to allow her free passage. Every moment that Redana might delay is one where Alexa will bear the responsibility, the price, and so she rockets up towards the tip of the pyramid.

She sweeps up a fallen spear in her wake, spins it from hand to hand. It fits perfectly in both when she drives the spearhead between the stones, and she is already leaping, vaulting, dashing up the shaft, and from the butt she jumps even higher, as if trying to reach the upper sky, as if trying to reach her uncle’s domain. She ascends from the chaos all about, radiant. Then she twists about, faces what lies below, vast, monolithic, defiant.

For a moment, her light flares around her like two great wings, and she draws the string of her awful and wonderful weapon back to her cheek. For a moment, she hangs in the air, a beacon, shining bright and beautiful and holy, her face set with the serenity of determination, and the world holds its breath for her. For a moment, her mother’s love radiates outwards from her in vast mandalas, the shapes interlocking, the words pregnant with meaning, the colors shining like her uncle’s waves crashing against the ships of the Grand Armada.

She releases the string, and her rebuke of this black blasphemy shrieks downwards, strikes the stones, and does not stop. It stops for nothing. Not even the sand will stop it. The light’s fingers worm through the cracks, and as if great hands, they leverage the stones apart, one from the other.

It takes a moment for the roar to catch up with the wave of light that sweeps outwards: a roar that is the half-understood word, an exhalation of divine breath, the sound of shackles snapping and stones slipping free, the shape of the name of Alexa’s heart. Who else could be the dart? Who else could shine so, could set shoulder to the work, could ever hope to take apart such an edifice?

It’s simply a convenience, to tell the pyramid that it has already met Alexa and been found wanting. That’s all it is. Assertion. The weapon of Hermes’ daughter is meaning, and the collapse of the black pyramid is art, is a showpiece, is Redana’s final word on the meaning of [i]Alexa.[/i]

Do you see, dear heart? Do you see it? It’s for you, because it is you, and because you are the answer you were looking for all along.

And now she tumbles back down to ride the stone rain to earth. Even lightless, even with her wand shoved through her ponytail, even with the petals of her skirt flaring about her hips, she’s impressive as she falls like a cat, tumbling into place, hopping from one stone to another, glowing like the Imperial Princess making her way through the obstacle course in the gymnasium with her loyal Bella timing her and keeping track of the score. Even now, she’s grinning and long-limbed and a wonder to watch.

Here she is. Here she is!

[Redana nails the Finish with Blood with a [b]12[/b].]