For Salakhan, the Master of Assassins, it has been a long day. 

Some part of her knows that she should be proud of her children; they had exceeded her expectations in every possible way. The problem was that she had expected them to die - she'd been counting on it. She had seen assassins four times their age and ten times their skill go to choke the maw of Thelis Thist. She'd run out of political rivals in the Temple, she'd run out of elite veterans, she'd even run out of promising up and comers trying to put that snake in the dirt. Her organization had hollowed out from the attrition of years of trying to stop Hades' messengers and so she'd been reduced to these children - barely more than distractions while she went and did the real work herself.

And now? Now Thist was dead at the hands of XIII. The Ikarani had outsmarted her Rampant self and now lay in Lethe dreams rather than burning before the sun. The Oratus had remained sane and connected to her body despite the temptation to draw everyone into her hivemind. And the Toxicrene, that silly little body double the Princess called Mynx?

She winced and touched the edges of her bloody wound. The Toxicrene had even fooled [i]her[/i]. How had that been? She should have seen the signs, should have seen the difference between that perfect Princess and the failure Redana who was before her now, but somehow the disguise had been more complete than her own memories. Like she'd somehow hidden the reality of the Princess. Her approach had been a disaster and the Toxicrene's counterattack had been merciless. To be expected. She made those girls too loyal. Now she was an enemy for life. No recovering that one.

Where had she gone wrong?

Her gaze fell on Aphrodite, standing with his tarnished silver cup raised in toast to her. Her eyes narrowed. Ah, she thought - there's the culprit.

Normally she could assume that, this close to the Rift, her targets had lost all cohesion and could be picked off individually. But... looking at it now, that wasn't true at all. All of her plans had failed because people were unexpectedly standing up for each other. The Toxicrene for the Princess, the mouse for XIII, XIII for the Ikarani... this wasn't a mad crew on the brink of treachery and murder. This was a network of relationships that hadn't yet cracked under the strain. And worse, it had drawn in her own assassins. 

"You can't let them survive," said Demeter, everpresent. She was the wheat and the willow and the barley, she was the sweat and the sickle, she was butterfly and dragonfly both. "She's right there. Just do it. Do it!"

But Sagakhan didn't move. She was in the middle of a net and to move in any direction would tighten this fragile web of relationships around her throat. There was no faster way to death for a student of Artemis than starting a hunt you weren't prepared for.

XIII. All of this traced back to XIII. She was the bridge between her assassins and her targets. She was the centre of all of this strange loyalty. Something was wrong with her prize student. Against all reason, against the curse of Aphrodite, people [i]loved[/i] her. Perhaps... perhaps she wasn't on her side at all. 

She relaxed. No matter how bright the flower, one snip would send it falling.

And so the Master of Assassins produced the Golden Heart of Hermes from her breast pocket, held it aloft, and [i]squeezed[/i] it.

She had recovered the Heart from the [i]Yakanov[/i]. The Engine of Regret that had formed the central weapon for the Station, the weapon the Hermetics had used to drown those on the planet in crushing visions of the painful past. They had understood the Heart's power better than she; they had known how to use it to disable cities and armies. Sagakhan with the strength of her grip alone was merely capable of bringing down everyone on this rooftop.

But bring them down she did.

The crushing wave of divine agony that rippled out from the golden Heart was all that was needed. No matter what pain these people thought they were used to was nothing next to the concentrated agony of a god.

*

Who broke the Heart of Hermes?

As crimes go, this is one of the cosmos' greatest and it does not lack for investigators. But you, Redana, Dolce, Bella, Jil, Beautiful, Beljani, all get the front row seat. The Order of Hermes had manipulated this godly artifact with care and skill and had teased out a lifetime of subtle and great regrets with which to crush their foes. The Master of Assassins in her brutality strikes with only the greatest of them.

You see the Spear of Civilization. Molech's ultimate weapon, the triumph of war, the great exporter of entropy. The resources of Empire went into building this, a hundred mighty Engines chained together to concentrate the force of a terrible supermassive black hole. You see it surrounded by the Warriors of Ceron, their mighty and terrible fleet, red with the banners of Nero. They cut through Molech's forces. They board the Spear.

They are too late.

The lance of ultimate blackness erupts out, and it does not strike the Ceron fleet. Instead it flies into the void, dashing from world to world, star to star. Supernovas glitter in their dozens, their hundreds, as the Spear of Civilization brings about the end of worlds and empires. As you watch the galaxy collapses into the underworld, the great Rift spreading across the stars from horizon to horizon. 

[b]Redana, Bella, Dolce[/b], take [b]Damage[/b], stagger, reel, lament, and weep. You shed tears not for yourself or your petty pains, now you cry out for a god who loved mortals and the things they made, a god of haste who was not swift enough to save the galaxy from destruction. You cry out for Hermes. You cry out for Nero.

*

[b]Alexa![/b]

"Do you see now?" said Aphrodite kindly, pinstriped suit unaffected by deep red engine light. "This was all I wanted, Alexa. All I ever wanted. All you ever needed to do to win my favour was defy your father, destroy your body, and endure unbelievable suffering in My name. All I ever wanted was everything." He ruffles your hair in a grandfatherly way. "Attagirl."

He stood up, flicked a cigarette out of his pocket, and lit it on the burning Engine core. "It's a shame I had to destroy the galaxy to make this point, but don't think too harshly of me. If I didn't do it then it would have meant that you lived in a galaxy where love [i]couldn't[/i] save the universe. And what kind of galaxy would that have been?"

He whistles as he walks away. He didn't do anything to help. He didn't do anything for the pain. He didn't do anything to restore your shattered body.

But...

You do feel happiness. The fierce, prideful happiness of having saved the people you loved. That all of this was worthwhile. [i]That you won.[/i]

It's the first time you've ever had that feeling, and it will carry you all the way down into sleep.

[b]Vasilia![/b]

"I have heard that Lord Hades promises wishes to those who carry out his doomed voyage," said the Furnace Knight quietly in the darkening of Hades' departure. "And having heard your tale, I have one final question I cannot help but ask. What is the wish that would make you face that fate? You could step from the road now, become my squire, learn the Rail and live a peaceful life here. After all the suffering your ideals have caused you, what could possibly compel you to face a death as terrible and as certain as the God of the Dead has described?"

There's a quiet intensity in the Furnace Knight's voice and eyes. He needs to know if there is, indeed, a path through the God's despair. He needs to know if there is hope, despite everything.