Redana should say that killing never solves the problem. She really should! She might hold the lives of all who live in her hands[1], but all she can see is the Master of Assassins before her. She remembers, and no Lethe protects her from, Bella trapped in that awful armor.

They hadn’t killed her. But could she have? Would she have? If she had the thunderbolt, if [i]she[/i] was Mars, if she was the Shogun…

It fills her vision, and she nearly leads the [i]Plousios[/i] astray; some part of its perfect exterior will be ground off and, then, immediately replaced by upset birds. The lightning whines under the strain of being held taut, of being restrained for the sake of a moment’s mercy.

“I… I…”

She is a child, forcing herself to read and reread texts of strategy and political theory, paragraph by repeated paragraph, sentence by repeated sentence, phrase by repeated phrase. She is a novice in the pack, forced to perform and punished repeatedly for her failures.

“Not yet,” Ember says, and her fingers shake for a moment. She is not just herself. She is the Silver Divers, too. She is all of them, joined in the love of Gemini. Her voice has the wryness of Taurus, the way she holds her hand is all Bella. “We’re still wrestling with our instructors, and I think some of us still show potential.”

[hr]
[1]: which is a situation that does not come around very often at all, so one so rarely gets the chance to practice what the right answer should be.