As it happens, it was Galen that reached us first. With coordinates received from Zha, the Eximus Convictor stomped over to my position a fair few minutes before anyone arrives by Lander. He does not know what to say, seeing me in a pool of blood but cradled in the arms of an Angel. So, he says nothing. The Knight kneels before me, and then Galen exits the Throne Mechanicum entirely to begin clearing some of the smaller debris that surrounded us. His presence makes me glad to have an old war-buddy from my pre-Inquisitorial days with me still, but at the same time, that thought makes me long for Silas even more.

  I at first thought that I would be soon to see Silas again, and then I remember that, courtesy of the accursed Phaenonite, Absalom, that would not be happening. Silas was gone, gone. That hurts all the more, and I hold Luciene’s hand more tightly for it. I miss my brother, having naught but his dog tags to remember him by. I wonder, then, how people would remember me; I did not imagine the Inquisition would let my Rosette remain uncalled for in the wild.

  An Aquila lands nearby. Troops spill out of it, as does a trio of dread-filled women. Seems I had that effect on them. Before I could turn my head to them, Mirena tackles me opposite Luciene, jostling me out of the calm relaxation I had found in the Angel’s arms. “It’s over, Cal,” Mirena informs me, holding me tightly. “We…,” she starts, and looks up at Luciene. “We won. We’ve won.”

  “I knew you would,” I reply, nodding weakly in her grasp. I then turn about to Luciene. “Give us some time.”

  “As much as you need,” Luciene agrees, and rises from my side, leaving to join her allies that approach from another Lander. She heads them off before they can get too close, while in the meantime Mirena takes her place at the side of my body still in possession of an arm. Zha and Bliss step into view, Galen joining Zha at her side. Bliss has taken off her mask, and looks on at me with somber dread. Zha eyes me over, then turns about, looking over the red goliath dead a short distance ahead of me. She looks back my way, fear in her eyes. How could there not be? Cronos had done that much, slaying Mordefir and cleaving apart a Blackstone Fortress in the process, while still within the confines of mortal flesh. To be unleashed unto reality in full, the daemon would be capable of far, far worse. I was holding it back, weakened as it was from its bout. But I was far weaker still, and Zha recognized that.

  I nod to her.

  She isn’t ready. She hesitates in giving the order. I knew she would; love was a hard thing to get past, and to speak the words might suffice to destroy her. Another tribute to the daemon’s designs. She needs a boost to fight her way out of the dark. “It’s time, Zha.”

  Zha stares blankly at me, then nods. But still, her mouth hesitates to move before at last she mutters, “Galen, get her off him.”

  “What?” Mirena and Galen ask in unison.

  Zha doesn’t answer them, instead simply saying, “Bliss.”

  “I know,” the Assassin whispers. “I’ll do it.”

  “Thank you both,” I commend them, and then weakly turn to Mirena. “I’m sorry. I wish…I wish a lot of things, Mirena.”

  “I don’t understand, what’s happening?” Mirena protests as Galen at last approaches her from behind and wrestles to get her off me. “Stop it, get away from me!” she tries, shoving against Galen. But even he, it seems, has come to understood the nature of me. Zha leaves Bliss’s side and moves to assist Galen in keeping Mirena back for her own good. “What are you doing?” Mirena shrieks as Bliss raises a Boltpistol—mine, in fact—up to me.

  “I’m glad it’s you,” I say to Bliss.

  “I’m not,” she replies, flatly, water welling up in the corners of her eyes. The Boltpistol begins to twitch.

  “I’m sorry.”

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  “Me too.”

  “I love you.”

  The first tear finally rolls out of squinting eyes onto reddened cheeks. “Me too,” she says, voice cracking. “Remember my room?”

  “Those were good nights,” I agree with a slow nod. Her free hand wipes another tear from her eyes, though that hardly helps. “It’ll be alright, Bliss.”

  “No, it won’t, and you know it!” she shouts down at me, Boltpistol shaking. Crimson irises are backed by reddened sclera in her eyes. She braces her teeth, winces, and then fights to open her eyes again. She wants to see me until the end. I see in her eyes, then, that if she succeeds—or if anyone manages the task, rather—she intends to turn the weapon upon herself. Without me in her life, she’d rather not live at all.

  I knew all-too well what that was like.

  So, she was correct. It wouldn’t be alright, and I did know that. Nevertheless, I meet her gaze again, and much of her body—save for the arm holding the Boltpistol—stiffens. I decide to try to make it easier for her, then. It would be easier to shoot a fiend than a friend. I use my pyskana, which was not much drained from the daemon’s battle, it relying on its own powers instead, to make my one good eye fade to black. A rouse, of course, and nothing more.

  And one Bliss sees through in an instant. “Damn you, Blackgar,” she hisses, but bites her tongue. She is smart enough to know why I tried. It’s the thought that counts, they say.

  My rouse fades away, and I shake my head slowly. “I’m tired of this game, Bliss. I am sorry for dragging you into my mess, but please, I have reached the end of my ability to serve the Emperor. Grant me that, Bliss, before I do far worse instead.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Bliss says quietly. “It was a joy and an honor to roll in the mud with you, Callant Blackgar. I just wish…that you and I could have made a mess of our own.”

  “That would have been nice,” I agree. Then something catches my eye, and I turn to see catastrophe. Mirena has fought her way out from Galen’s and Zha’s restraints, ever the brawler that she was. In tears, she races toward us, either to tackle Bliss aside or shield me with her body. No, that was it. That would have done me in, if she, like Lucene, died for me.

  I look back to Bliss in a panic. She understands. A dreadful moment passes as she rights her aim one final time, then at last pulls the trigger.

  The Bolt slides from the barrel, smoke and flames erupting behind it. But it is too slow. My view of it is eclipsed by Mirena as she falls over me, to my horror. I reach out to her, fast as I can but sluggish in that nightmarish slowdown of adrenaline. My psykana peaks, higher than it ever has; I do not care, for by the time I could feel the pain of it, Mirena would have been blown to smithereens.

  I feel her. All that she is, all that she felt. All the despair, the fear, the grief. The love. In a moment, we are opposite each other on either side of a cell—hers—during our first meeting. In the next, I am back in my cabin on the Coldbreed with our bodies entwined, just after the Red Stain. Then, she and I are holding each other close atop a wrestling mat; then we’re laying in a hotel bed following a barroom brawl. Afterward, we laid together in the cold of Quintus, not knowing whether that would be the end. In all moments of my Inquisitorial life, I had Mirena. She was always there, and always would be—we were inseparable, much as the agents of darkness, and even my own allies, had tried to force otherwise.

  As Mirena fell upon me, and as the Bolt fell upon her, I wanted to be anywhere with her other than there. And so we were. And anywhere-other-than-there was cold, so very, very cold, just as Luciene had said it would be. But even in that dark, cold Other, Mirena was with me, and I with her, as ever we were.

  And, while snow fell upon us from the skies above, my vision fell to blackness.

  Yet from Bliss’s perspective, things made even less sense. The Bolt sailed on, striking burnt Noctilith rather than ripping apart flesh. Some small shrapnel scattered across the scene which Bliss shielded her eyes from, after which she dropped my Boltpistol to the ground and stumbled away, barely keeping her footing at all. One moment Mirena and I were in view. The next, not. There was no flash of light as had once stolen Luciene from their group, no swirling darkness as had protected Mirena from the Everchanging. Nothing.

  We just ceased to be.

  “What…what just happened?” Zha asked, finally climbing off the ground from a brief but losing battle with Mirena.

  “Where are they?” Galen followed up.

  “I…I don’t know,” Bliss frowned, out of breath. “I don’t know. I don’t know…” Her voice trailed off, and she fell to her knees, then fell forward still, prostrating herself in front of where I had laid. She said nothing further, save for at last allowing herself to sob.

  “Where are they?” Zha shouted, not for anyone in particular. She jabbed her vox forward. “Caleb! Sensorium report! Where is Blackgar?”

  “I…I don’t have—the ship isn’t picking up his biosigns anymore, Inquisitor. Nor Ms. Law’s,” Vakian voxxed back.

  Zha tossed her vox aside, useless as it was, ripping apart some of her Inquisitorial garb in the process. She then stomped toward the onlooking group of her allies. “Where are they!” she shrieked.

  Luciene paused to respond, then shook her head. “I have no idea, Zha. I do not see them anymore. Not on this world. Not in either plane, materium or otherwise. Where they are, I think, is gone.”