"This is," said the Shogun, "exactly what I am talking about. Come. All of you! Look at each other! Really look! Look past the beauty of those faces to see how tired and sad they are! Look past the thoughtfulness of those words to hear how full of despair they are! I was warned that I would greet ambassadors from the Underworld, and if you are they it must be as grim a place as the stories say!"

She leapt into the air, and her burning feet landed on paws held out in offering. She stepped forwards, onto the shoulders of wolves, so that she could stand eye-to-eye with the Azura Dyssia. "Of course I don't want to do that," she said, smiling as she leaned in to touch nose to nose. "But that is not the question I asked. I asked if you wanted to do that, little dissident, little rebel. Because if you do, then how could I not grant your wish? Say the word and I will send my packs to burn the skies. I will have them burn every world just as we burn the worlds of Nemesis. I will have my ships reverse themselves over population centers so that the plasma fire of their thrusters burns cities to ash. I will land my legions to personally crucify every citizen on every planet that resists. I will launch the populations of worlds into space to form a ball of corpses so massive that it will feed the void sharks for years. I will personally travel to the Saoshyant's palace right over there and make her swallow my entire arm so I can feel her choke to death around me."

Her footstool had caught fire, fur burning with oily peals of smoke, the Shogun's burning feet digging their brands deep into muscle and flesh beneath. She steps to the left, onto a new servant, wet nose tracing around your cheek. "It would be nothing to me," she said. "The death of this empire. The return of unrestricted war. Nothing - nothing not nearly as satisfying as offering this small gesture of hospitality to you, my new friend."

Teeth. Teeth. Teeth.

"But you won't. No! You won't. Because you are a prisoner of math. Your huge intelligent brain can imagine all of those people out there. You can hear the phrase 'trillions of deaths' and let it fill you to the point where it overwhelms your sense of scale and your brain short-circuits and shuts down. You would call it atrocity and refuse to countenance it, even though my war would be the cleanest, sweetest, most humane war waged in the galaxy's history! But even if I only had to kill one percent of the population of the Skies, half of one percent, a thousandth of a percent - the death toll would still be measured in those trillions and the war would still take centuries. That is their greatest shield, did you know? The scale of what they have built. But all the ideology in the world will not stop me because I do not care, eternity will not stop me because I will die young, all the numbers in the world will not stop me because I cannot read. So take care when you tell me what it is that I want," she kissed your cheek and stepped down to the ground, leaving her second footstool engulfed in greasy fire, "Lest I decide that what I want is you."

She swung around to Vasilia, each footprint that left its scorch-mark in metal rather than flesh coming as a relief and a blessing. "No angels?" she said. "Are you sure? Because what is an angel if not a perfect being, created by God for the maintenance of the galaxy? As She once wrought a universe alive with nymphs, sprites and spirits, so have our Creators wrought us to be whirling natural forces. Imagining yourself as people is a delusional appropriation of an alien moral system. You are the mudslide, you are the west wind, you are the gravitational force that holds the planets in check! You have a purity of purpose and a purity of essence uncorrupted by selfishness, one that will forever reassert itself no matter how far you wander from it! You, little sheep? What will you do once you have miraculously built a galaxy of peace and kindness? Why, you will settle down and open a little tea shop and spend the rest of your days in the kitchen. Just as you did before, just as you naturally returned to on Bitemark, you are forever enslaved to what you think is beautiful and satisfying and calming and that was written aeons ago by men with computers."

She took a deep, satisfied sniff. She stopped, not quite within arms reach.

"For you to come here and stand before all of this war and chaos with steady back - that is the most daemonic thing I have ever seen. You have built your own personal hell, and it is right here and right now. I respect it."

And at last, she turns her attention to Bella, looking at her palm atop hers. She considers it, gently, thoughtfully, even as she takes her thumb and starts to twist it back at a painful angle. "You talk of the Empress," she said, no longer playful. "You talk of the Empress while in such pain? You talk of the Empress with such despair? You disrespectful fool, how dare you? Her name is light and joy, and should be received and spoken with light and joy. Your broken body is unprepared for this blessing."

With a whirl and rush of fabric she took off her overcoat and cast it to the side in one smooth motion, revealing a chest bandaged with ribbons.

"Get down on your knees. Take off your shirt. Press your cute breasts to the cold metal floor. I am going to massage you. I will beat all the pain and misery out of your battered body. Only once I have you gasping in pleasure and liberation will you be ready to receive your answers."

She did not speak from a place of lust or dominance. This was religion, this was duty - and you are broken meat that she is going to, without compassion or gentleness, repair.

The tiny breath she draws in is the only acknowledgement she makes of the pain. Bella watches her thumb back farther and farther, twisted and pulled to unnatural lengths, and her lips stay set and proper. Her eyes are curious but passive. She inclines her head to the slightest degree while she waits for the digit to break, and she watches.

But the Shogun releases her. Gingerly, she spreads her finger wide, and then balls them into a fist. She turns her back on the woman whose information she craves. Her feet carry her in four careful, perfect steps to the place she should have been from the beginning. She takes her wife's face in both her hands. She pulls close, close enough to feel the warmth of her body radiating onto her forehead. Close enough to feel the splash of startled murmuring against her lips. Close enough to drink in every star and sparkling detail lost within her quivering eyes.

She pulls her closer. The kiss is hot and angry, and it tastes like blood. It is dizzying, to drink in something so beautiful and complete and yet so far away from the splinter of obsession now pulsing in her eyes. When she pulls away, she nearly stumbles. When she pulls away a trickle of blood dribbles from the corner of her lip. She laps it away as she squeezes Ember's wrist one last time. This is the touch of the Anemoi, this is the quiet thank you and I love you and goodbye.

"Do not interfere!" she barks.

Her voice is loud and firm, with the inevitable and rolling depth of absolute authority carrying every syllable. Her crown blazes on her head brighter than a sun and in this single moment Bella is an Empress in her own right. Her posture is proud and defiant even as her face is carved as a statue of absolute composure and grace. The air around her crackles with power. For one shining moment, long enough only to notice and admire her, she is the most powerful figure in the room. There are no shadows on this ship. Only wolves bending their knees toward a queen.

Then the light dims and the magic dies with it. Though she does not slacken or show fear, she is simply Bella again. This was never an act of defiance or aggression. Her orders were only ever toward the people who were supposed to be counting on her. As if any of them could ever understand. The noise in her throat is called Revulsion.

With a maid's pride and a maid's delicate precision she unclasps her dress and lets it drape around her waist. She can hear the scraping of the glittering chains of jewelry against the metal floor. For one last elongated moment she stands as tall as she is exposed. And then she lowers herself with reverent gentleness onto her knees. She dips low and places her hands in front of her head, touches her forehead to the ground. She presses further. Bends her spine. Lowers herself until she feels the sharp sting of cold metal kissing her breasts and pressing them into her ribs.

"Please." she says, and her voice is nothing more than the desperate longing of a child only just rescued from a Box, "Do what must be done."

What light there is in the room seems bent entirely upon her. In this moment the scars on Bella's back glisten so sharply they seem freshly carved. Nero's field of roses stands out against the paleness of her skin so clearly and unmistakably that even the dead and the blind could not fail to see it.