“I might be trapped in the nothingness, or maybe even spat out in this world as a vagrant soul as penance. Denying me peace for as many lifetimes as I’ve taken would be a fitting punishment for a murderer like me.” A sad smile twisted Zoreth’s lips.

“You can’t be serious!” Bytra said. “What about the Master? What about everything we’ve achieved this far? What about me?”

“I’m not saying that I want to die, Byt. Far from it.” Zoreth caressed Bytra’s face with her thumb, managing to keep her life forces under control enough to leave only tenderness in her touch.

“I’m just saying that I’m not willing to be like Raum again, even if it costs me my life.”

After her brief clash with the Wonderer, Bytra had spent every moment in the isolation of her locked room mulling over what Leegaain had discovered in Raum’s base and what it meant for Zoreth.

The Fourth Ruler of the Flames had been forced to look at her shared history with the Master and their projects with new eyes. She wasn’t a researcher who considered the lives of her test subjects as ingredients anymore.

There was no cost-benefit analysis she could use to numb her conscience under the banner of the “greater good” and the “future generations”.