In the darkness, Esharah often heard whispers, faint voices at the edge of her Empathy. Whispers that always filled the silence. The first time in years that Esharah had truly felt silence was the two weeks in which Yvris had bound her with cursed manacles before Aven had freed her. In that silence, Esharah still had heard a voice. A soft, questioning voice that Esharah had thought was her own. In Esharah’s greatest moments of despair, that voice asked a question:

  “Does it matter?”

  Now, Esharah knew it was not her voice that asked the question. She heard the same voice speak from the depths of Aven’s memories, from a mouth that belonged to Vestra, and to a woman with Aven’s brow, and to an elderly ogress. Aven had spoken scantly of his time in the voidpit, and Esharah hadn’t pressed. Even his vague description of the horrors he’d seen was enough to deter her from pressing deeper.

  Aven hadn’t mentioned this.

  “Who are you?” Esharah asked, senses joined to Mensikhana and Aven as one. “And why...why do you look like my sister?”

  The triple-face turned slightly to meet Esharah’s gaze. Not Aven’s, not the memories that Esharah was looking through. Esharah herself. “I am the companion of those who are lost and alone, the witness to their suffering in the darkness.”

  “You are Andhakare Prekshakah,” Mensikhana said reverently, physically falling to her knees even observing the goddess only in memory. “You are Tarkkailija. The Watcher in the Darkness.”

  “Those names are reasonable,” the goddess said mildly. As if a name were a trivial thing. “As for my appearance, no mortal can see my true form. That is part of my...nature. or perhaps my curse.” Her eyes looked far away for a second. “What you see me as...is simply who you wish, in your deepest heart, is with you in your most desperate, loneliest moments. The face, or faces, that you see are merely reflections of your own longing.”

  If the words were true...Esharah grimaced in self-loathing. Pathetic, that she still wished for a sister who had not been sister to her for years. Childish.

  “I...I never thought that I would speak to you again,” Mensikhana sobbed. “They...they said that even a priestess is only ever graced once with your presence...”

  “I am afraid that much of what your clan says about me is false,” the goddess grimaced.

  “False?” The quaver in Mensikhana’s mental voice made Esharah wince in sympathetic discomfort. “But...but why? We are your most devoted servants. We alone have kept the true faith. Even after centuries, the Kvormskaja are your faithful-”

  The goddess’ voice was gentle, but there was steel beneath, an iron will that would not bend. “My servants? Would a servant of mine have crushed his own daughter’s throat for speaking my words? Would my servants have watched as one who spoke to me was scorned as a deceiver and ill-omen?”

  Mensikhana sobbed, tears flowing down, “I...I knew. I knew that my vision of you was true. That the voice I heard in the dark was your own. I knew...but I accepted their lies. When they told me the visions were false...only deceptions of the void...I failed to fight for you. I gave in to their pressure. Forgive me. Forgive me, my goddess. I-I will tell the others,” Mensikhana swore. “I will tell them all that we were mistaken, that they are wrong and have lied about your word! That following Sergrud is foolishness when we should be facing the true enemy in the void!”

  “Does it matter?” the goddess asked in three voices.

  Mensikhana didn’t answer, confusion hanging over her like a crowd.

  “Your people did not follow Sergrud fel-Maies, son of Rolaf of Hammerfall because they believed it was my will. Did you? Did you truly believe that Sergrud was sent by me?”

  Mensikhana’s confusion stilled. Shame seeped into the edges.

  “I...no. No. Sergrud’s rise to power was a sign of strength,” Mensikhana admitted. “He was a warrior. Stronger and more vicious than any. And...and I believed that we would win. The...the fantasy I held of uniting the tribes was my own.”

  Silence, but even without being able to touch the goddess with her Empathy, Esharah felt the sense of disappointment and sadness.

  “You’re rather more communicative than you were last time,” Aven noted.

  The goddess smiled, and Esharah’s stomach twisted. It was a playful smile, but without malice. The sort that she hadn’t seen on Vestra’s face for many years.

  “You,” the goddess said, “would not have cared for my will in the slightest, would you?”

  “Not even a little,” Aven agreed.

  A laugh, echoing in all their souls, “Then why should I have expressed it? I do not give commands, but I do have desires. There are paths that I would be pleased to see my children tread. Yet I cannot guide them. I cannot direct them. I can only be present with them. Mensikhana sincerely seeks to know if what she has done was my will, so I have answered.”

  “Tell me, what path should I choose now?” Mensikhana asked eagerly.

  The goddess sighed, chagrin showing on the three faces, “And that, Mensikhana, is where I am afraid I must fail you. I cannot give you guidance. I cannot speak to the future. I cannot tell you what you should do.”

  “But...you are our goddess,” Mensikhana whispered. “Why...why are you here, if not to tell us the right path?”

  “Sometimes,” the goddess said, “simply being there for those suffering in the darkness is enough. You were lost, child. You were alone, and in need of someone who cared for you. Someone to watch you. To witness you. That is my role. To be with you. I am here to bear witness. To listen. Not to guide.”

  Mensikhana’s heart was in tatters. Shredded. Her goddess had abandoned her. Or perhaps the goddess was simply not the goddess she believed in. The hope of the Watcher’s guiding presence was gone, leaving the void’s despair behind. It wasn’t fair.

  “Still useless, are you?” Aven asked.

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  Even in despair, even feeling Aven’s words as true, Mensikhana was shocked speechless at such casual blasphemy. Aven, though, was not deterred. Nor afraid. And the goddess only smiled.

  “I am what I am,” the reply came. “What use that is to you...is up to you.”

  “More or less what you said before,” Aven said.

  “And I think you’ve made wonderful use of our first meeting,” the goddess smiled fondly. Proudly. The look of a mother’s joy at their child’s cleverness.

  “I do have a question for you, though,” Aven said.

  “I will answer as I can.”

  “You watch but do not act. Is that because you’re impotent or because you don’t care? Which is it?”

  Esharah tried to pulse a warning at the brazen challenge, but their minds were already joined. He could already feel Mensikhana’s indignation and Esharah’s own caution. Still, he asked.

  A pause, the goddess looking into the dark with her three faces. The eyes that were not Mother’s or Vestra’s or Mensikhana’s were full of sorrow, longing, and shame.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Not that spawnshit again. Of course it matters. I’m asking,” Aven said. “I want an answer.”

  “Then for your purposes, think of me as powerless,” the goddess said, voice full of resignation. “I cannot guide. I cannot command. I cannot empower. But I do care. More deeply than you could know, whatever comfort that is.”

  “None whatsoever,” Aven shrugged. “But I’m glad we cleared the air.” He turned to Esharah. “We should wake up. I don’t think there’s anything more to be gained in this memory.”

  “Wait!” Mensikhana said. “My goddess, I...will I see you again? Hear your voice?”

  “I am always with you,” another sad smile. “You may not see me, nor hear me. I cannot speak except in very special circumstances. But I can watch you. I am with you. Cold comfort that it is, know that you are not alone.”

  * * *

  And Esharah’s mind returned to reality. The inside of the tent. She felt a headache pounding at her temples, a byproduct of the strain on her Empathy, the burden of holding three minds joined together for such a long time, but she ignored it.

  There were much pressing matters. Like Teja’s knife pressing against her throat, hard enough to draw a drop of blood.

  “Release her,” Teja hissed, words first seeming to come slowly. Perhaps a product of Aven’s Battle Mind slowing the world down as they waded through his memories.. “Now.”

  “No! Wait!” Mensikhana croaked aloud, sobs coming fast. “They are...not our enemies.”

  Teja paused, taking that in. The pressure released. Just a hair, still ready to cut Esharah’s throat at an instant’s notice, but no longer drawing blood.

  “I saw her. I saw my goddess,” Mensikhana continued with her usual strong mental voice, words coming out between breaths and gasps. “She...she was...with Aven, in his memory of the void. He is telling the truth. He’s seen the truth. He’s...he’s seen what the Void intends. They are not our enemies. the true enemy is the void.”

  “Hell of a time to change your mind,” Teja shook her head, knife drifting another inch away. “After all the work you did, controlling the Rocksmashers, conquering Frostwood. You really want to turn away from all that now?”

  Mensikhana looked at Esharah. The sorrow in the ogre’s heart threatened to drown them all.

  “I do.”

  Teja’s blade pulled away from her throat. “Well damn, guess we’re in for it then. Ready to make Sergrud your enemy, are you?”

  “He will see,” Mensikhana said. “If we show him the threat of the void. The...the abyss, that we both saw. He will see and-”

  “Khana, we both know that’s utter shit,” Teja cut in. “Sergrud doesn’t give a damn about the void. Or your goddess. Or anything except his own ambition. You know that better than anyone. You’ve seen his mind. You say that these aren’t our enemies anymore. Fine. Sergrud won’t see it that way. He won’t care. The only thing Sergrud will care about is seizing Hellfrost.”

  Mensikhana bowed her head. Denial. The shock of the moment was too much for her to accept. Esharah helped. She reached out to Mensikhana’s mind again. Teja still remained closed to her, but Esharah could share her own experience of Sergrud’s emotions. The pride. The rage. Absolute fixation on his own power, his own victory, and absolute hatred of anything that challenged it.

  The ogre mindspeaker flinched away from the contact. But Esharah’s heart understood the pain in the ogress’. Betrayal was a hard burden. A betrayal of self was the worst. Esharah couldn’t know how deeply Mensikhana’s belief in her goddess ran. In her own people. How deeply her people were a part of her identity. And how now that was gone. A goddess who did not care. Who did not command. Who watched and did not intervene. An identity founded on a lie, and a belief in the lie that she had helped to perpetuate. The shame was overwhelming.

  “What future do you want, Mensikhana?” Aven asked.

  “Future?” the Mindspeaker raised her head, blinking in confusion at the question. “I...I don’t-”

  “I have an idea I want to share with you,” Aven said. “A vision of the future painted by someone who truly believes that there is a future worth fighting for.”

  Esharah understood. She connected Aven’s mind with Mensikhana’s again and let him share the vision. More than a vision. An ideal.

  A Hellfrost without slaves of the empire, without chains. Without war. Schemes and plans that Etrani had spoken of, teams of workers laboring to make life better, organized in ways that let the parts work for the greater whole. No more endless conquest, no more grinding march to a distant goal, only the endless struggle to improve life. Not a war. A challenge to build something more, something greater. To build, rather than destroy.

  It was...almost cloying. But it was the vision that Etrani sincerely believed it. And, somehow, Aven now believed in it too. At least enough to imagine.

  The vision expanded. The voidspawn tried to destroy that peace. So did the Vulgares. And so (to Esharah’s shock) did the empire. In Aven’s vision, the forces that would destroy Hellfrost surrounded it on all sides, ready to tear apart everything that Aven’s mind imagined. They stood against it. Aven at the forefront.

  “This is what I want to fight for,” Aven said. “If it is possible. I don’t want to fight just to survive. I want to believe that something better is waiting on the other side of the battles. Beyond Sergrud. Beyond the voidspawn. You could be a part of that too.”

  Mensikhana silently observed the vision. It shifted. More ogres walked among the streets of Hellfrost. A camp spread out near Hellfrost. Ogorok tribe members no longer facing the threats of starvation, conquest, or destruction by the void. Mensikhana appeared at Aven’s side, standing against the voidspawn.

  Esharah projected herself into the vision, and the three of them stood together.

  Mensikhana’s tears fell on Esharah’s face, dripping down onto her lap. “Is it too late?” the ogress’ voice cracked.

  Esharah reached out, and Mensikhana hesitated, but finally took his hand.

  “And you?” Aven turned to Teja.

  The felin’s awareness appeared at the edge of the vision, drawn by Mensikhana, not Esharah. Still shrouded from Esharah’s empathy.

  Teja observed the scene dispassionately. Her eyes fixed on the phantasmal image of the empire’s armies arrayed against Hellfrost, seeking to impose a darker, crueler order once again.

  “Quite the vivid imagination you have,” Teja’s voice dripped disdain. “But we don’t live in such a charming fantasy.”

  The vision vanished, and they were all in the tent once more. Wind snuck through the tent flaps, cold bite snapping against their skins.

  “In this reality, Sergrud lives,” Teja said softly. “And if you betray him, he will kill you without a second thought.” A pause, “Unless, perhaps, the rest of the Vulgares stand against him too.”

  “Do you have something in mind?” Aven asked.

  A gleam entered the felin’s eyes.

  Esharah reached out a question to Mensikhana. Would Teja really turn against Sergrud? She had been with him since they escaped Hellfrost. Five years on the run together, battling through the wilderness, conquering tribes. Would someone like that really betray the one that they were so close to?

  Mensikhana must have passed the question along, because Teja turned to look directly at Esharah, “I told you that my one true desire in this world is to watch the empire and all its butchers bleed.” Her teeth bared, “Sergrud is one of those butchers. A rabid dog who turned on his masters, but still the Empire’s dog. A rabid beast that has turned against his allies, even his own pack. I assure you, out of everyone here, no one would enjoy watching Sergrud die more than I would.”

  Then, it was decided. In the darkness of the Vulgares’ prison tent. Four minds joined together to plot the death of Sergrud fel-Maies.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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