“Re… da… na…”

She’s in agony. That’s a bad sign. That’s a very, very bad sign. Because her body is supposed to release painkillers naturally, when it’s this close to death, but it does so through her circulatory system. And now it’s been destroyed. There’s nothing moving her blood; it grows stagnant in her limbs, her head. She can’t breathe.

It’s as if a black cat is curled up on her chest, crushing her beneath its weight, stealing the breath from her lips, making her heavy and eating her thoughts. Except it also has its claws out, gouging out the hole in her chest, nipping and tearing, making itself a nest. And the next time that Hades sends heroes all the way to Ancient Gaia, gifting them a ship and promises of aid, they’ll find a tree growing here, its branches heavy with pink blossoms, speared through her body. Another failure in a long line of failures.

[i]Redana![/i]

Hades is the only vivid thing in the world. Everything else is being swept away as her senses fade away, the sound of the battle and the storm and her own strangled choking fading away, the sky becoming one huge undifferentiated bruise, and Hades alone, standing there in his black and white. This time he will not offer to pick her up. He will have to leave her here, forever, until she rises again as the shell of something terrible, green and growing quick.

All he can do is stand here as she fades out, her wonderful and genetically-refined body’s functions collapsing, panic running circles around what remains of her thoughts. All Hades can do is stand there, uselessly, and remember her, just as he remembers everyone, every single one of them, every would-be hero and explorer and savior, everyone who jumped at the quest or the prize or the hope or the adventure itself.

[i]Redana![/i]

Goodbye, Hades. Goodbye, Bella. Goodbye sun and goodbye stars. Goodbye, Alexa. Goodbye, Vasilia and Dolce. Goodbye swords and goodbye ships. Goodbye, good night, good night.

She’s so very sorry.

[i]and of all these wonders
of which you have been part;
of all these shining things,
count you first thy mother’s—[/i]

She can’t tell whose voice it is. She doesn’t even know if this is just the dying gasp of the Auspex, garbage data unspooling into the long dark. But she still recognizes the figure leaning over her, though the name’s not on her lips. Her face shines like morning forever and ever. She’s gold and diamond and a shining sapphire, and she’s reaching into Dany’s head and dredging up the very oldest storytimes, the chest in the wood, the lonely November and the lonely god, the lullaby and the sword, the sword everyone’s mother leaves secret and special and safe just for them, and, and, [i]and.[/i]

Redana has trained for the Olympic Games. She has pushed herself to extremes that even ascended humanity finds daunting. She has learned the ways to push past pain and daunting thoughts. And lifting her arm, the blood in it congealing, the muscles as difficult to command as a pack of cats, is still the most difficult thing she has ever had to do. The face above her is still so, so familiar, and she believes that Redana can do it. The Heart almost slips from her numb fingers. Almost.

Someone’s hand closes over hers, and she can’t tell whose. Is it her, shining, immanent? Or is it Hades, intervening just to show a brave little girl a kindness in the middle of a nightmare?

The Heart settles in her chest, and then everything is light and pain and tears, so many tears, everything her fault, how can she live with herself after failing every one of them, not fast enough, not [i]fast[/i] enough, a frozen scream, the weight of every one of them gone, erased, undone. And a hand reaches back and takes her by the hand, and that is the miracle of Ridenki come around again, Hermes who goes back and forth between the living and the dead, between one moment and the next.

Who is here to save you, Redana?

It was always you.

And the Shepherdess embraces herself, and whispers: “I still remember how brave we were.”

***

Redana [i]Epimelios[/i] stands up, and keeps standing up. She’s leaner than the Nemean, a coiled bowstring, long-limbed and long-haired. The lionskin tossed over one shoulder of her red breastplate is not particularly subtle. She holds in her hand the shape of a sword. And despite it all, she’s smiling.

“Not a good idea to take her on directly,” the Shepherdess says, half to herself. “Only so many miracles we can fit in one day, right, uncle?” She turns on the husks of the dead, approaching someone who should have been dead and refuses to be, and she makes a [i]cut.[/i] The shape of her sword, her wand, flickers in her hand.

Bodies fall to the earth, tumbled among neatly-severed plants. And the Shepherdess, the daughter of Hermes, darts forth on glittering sandals, back into the fray. Alone, even she cannot stand against the Master of Assassins.

How wonderful, then, that she did not come here alone!