Author: Lurina

181: Blood of the Covenant (𒐆) - The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere | Royal Road

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7:32 PM | The Ninsirsir, Deck 3 | December 31st | 1608 COVENANT

She only caught a glimpse. No braids; black hair that fell straight down her back, though it failed to make her look much more adult. A conservative white dress, like for a Mekhian funeral. And eyes that looked like she hadn't slept in years.

Lamu was trying very hard not to panic, which was to say that she was panicking, a lot.

Ths speech given by Bardiya, largely in sedate monotone - the one thing about him that apparently time was incapable of changing - was surreal. Though she was unable to fully concentrate on it, at some point it segued from flat commentary on the importance of tonight's event and the political moment generally into something far more outlandish, though the transition happened so slow and with such banality that she missed it at first. He spoke about the situation in state-controlled territory, and the growing mood of cynical contempt responsible for rioting and support for 'extreme political ideology' (he didn't say 'Iconist' - even at an event like this hosted by the old political order, there were probably a few people who'd be offended) that had to be addressed to restore stability in the world beset by 'several difficult economic transitions'.

He then began to talk about his own work in medical policy advocacy, and how scholars had long identified a series of traits within the anima script responsible the development of 'asocial personality traits' that were believed to 'instigating factors' for social unrest - risk-taking, novelty seeking, aggressiveness, disgust reflex, compliance to authority. He then discussed how there was reason to hope that the recent 'period of difficulty' would come to an end, and how the world would soon be entering an era of 'state distinction therapy intervention' where newborns outside of freeholds would to 'optimized for prosocial traits' and oh god he's talking about mandatory eugenics.

"Mandatory eugenics," Lamu muttered, like the world's quietest parrot.

"I know, it's distasteful, isn't it?" Malko clicked his tongue. "It's like watching a fish flounder in a bucket. These people will try anything to forestall the inevitable slide of our wretched society into oblivion." He drank from his glass, which he had at this point refilled. It had been less than five minutes. "I've come to terms with our inevitable demise, but I really was hoping it would be a little more dignified, rifle-in-hand sort of death, not this pissing-on-the-floor-as-we-struggle-vainly-to-hit-our-medical alarm one. Eshk, what a bloody nightmare."

"I can't follow all this fu--lipping jargon this guy's dropping," Gudrun complain. "What is he saying he's gonna do, exactly?

"He's talking about modifying the anima script to make newborns surviving under state welfare grow up to be more, well, socially compliant," Theo clarified. "Trying to engineer a non-landowning population incapable of radicalism on a physical level."

"He always does this, you know," Malko said, gesturing towards Theo with his thumb. "He'll explain something perfectly well, then say the same thing rephrased in a slightly more obtuse way. I think it's a symptom of insecurity."

Theo scoffed. "Oh, be quiet."

"Does that actually, like work?" Gudrun asked skeptically. "Like, y'know, I'm no neurogenetiscientisterist or whatever, but it feels like a personality is more environmental than that?"

"Well, obviously it's not clear-cut," Theo clarified. "You can't really dictate what sort of beliefs a person will have by their genetics alone, or even necessarily something as rudimentary as their temperament." He cleared his throat. "But, er, you can manipulate trends, to an extent, on a large enough scale. Predispositions, how people are more likely to develop."

"Ohh." Gudrun nodded knowingly. "So it's like estrogen-in-the-water shit. I getcha, I getcha."

Theo scratched the back of his head. "Well, no, not exactly--"

"That's frigged up though!" She objected. "Like, the only thing that keeps everyone from rotting in those places for their whole lives is ambition. Being willing to take a knife to this bitch of a world." She didn't seem to notice that a swear had slipped through the cracks. "If you breed everyone to just not be able to care about anything, that's like cutting them off at the shins. Nothing would ever happen. It would be boring."

"I think it being 'boring' might be the least of our worries," Theo said flatly. "My mother used to be into dog-breeding. Anyone can tell you that trying to meddle with the behavior of even an animal can have deeply unintended consequences, and that's animals. We're talking about people, and on a scale to impact all of society." He sighed to himself, looking discontent. "Anyone serious could tell you the idea is insane, regardless of the circumstances."

"Didn't you go to school with Bardiya of Tuon, Theo?" Malko asked idly, tipping his glass towards him. "I vaguely recall something like that."

"You know I did," he replied, sighing. "I've talked about it numerous times, especially back before the war, when he was actually in government and trying to frame himself as one of the last of the Humanists."

"Maybe this is what Humanism is now," Malko commented. "I mean, they're letting him speak right at the start. They're obviously going for broke. Why accept that your political project has spent so long avoiding any sort of confrontation with the elephants in the room that it's more or less destroyed society, when you can instead say that, no, it's human nature that's wrong, that needs to be fixed? The theory is sound, we just need a better species. Humanism! Not politics, but science. Not for the humanity that exists, but the one we must invent." He laughed to himself, drinking more wine. By the end of this evening, he would drink so much wine that Lamu would be convinced he was some kind of cyborg.

She was stunned. She'd known Bardiya had wavered from his beliefs - molded himself more and more into the shape needed to succeed in politics - but this was absolutely insane. It contradicted everything she understood about his character. Was that even Bardiya? Had they replaced him with one of their own, through Egomancy or a brain transplant or straight-up cloning, like in some pulp novel? What the fuck was going on?

There was no question now this was a setup; the only point of debate was whether the goal was a psychological attack on her personally, or something more practical. Lamu was leaning towards the former.

Utsushikome hadn't spoken another word since that single phrase, but that alone had been enough to render her essentially a living mannequin. She sat almost perfectly still, rigid, facing ahead towards the space between Theodoros and Malko. In order to avoid appearing abnormal, she sipped from a glass of white wine and gave simple answers in a hushed voice when she was addressed, creating an illusion of still being a legitimate participant in the conversation, but every action she took was a risk. The woman behind her was not Theodoros; she remembered that she had an extremely sharp memory, and while frequently as socially inept as her could, on occasion, be extremely perceptive. If she got a good look at her face...

No, even that was only delaying the inevitable. Obviously someone in a position of power here had made sure they were gathered in the same place. If they wanted them to notice one another, it would happen, one way or the other.

Sweat rolled down her brow. Was this the complication Nhi had spoken of? Or was she the orchestrator behind all of this, bringing to testify not just her but everyone left with some connection to the Order? Did she think this was cute? A little class reunion?

Mercifully, after what must have been almost ten excruciating minutes, Bardiya's pro-human experimentation lecture came to an end, and it was announced that the next 20 minutes of entertainment, while the first course was served, would consist of light music. A sitar, lyre and piano team played bittersweet jazz while a Rhunbardic woman, who might have been the whitest woman Lamu had ever seen in her life in pure reflective luminosity, sang a solemn yet vague ballad that could have been about anything from a dead lover to a defective air cooler.

Gudrun and Malko continued chatting inanely for the next five minutes - now focused on Gudrun's complaints that there weren't enough real men's men in the modern world, real take-charge sort of guys, with Malko emphatically agreeing - before the soup (or in her case, just bread) finally arrived, once again dispensed by a completely different waiter. She overheard a bowl of soup also being served to Utsushikome, who somehow had a table entirely to herself.

"Thank fudge," Gudrun said. "Feel like I've spent all day trudging around. I'm ravenous."

"The food here is not as good as the wine, though it's still rather good," Malko explained, poking at his spoon without much in the way of explicit interest. The chunks of duck swirled around the crimson-tinted brown water like flayed flesh on a battlefield. "The lead chef used to be immaculate, but apparently another event based in Pallatakku poached him, and the man they had replace him is decent at best. I'll tell you, there's more money floating around that city nowadays then there probably is in heaven itself."

"Never been there myself," Gudrun remarked, reaching over to the shared bread basket and preemptively taking two of the mini-baguettes. There were only six mini-baguettes. "Really good dramas, though. Lots of really hot people. Love that stuff."

"Where are you from, Gudrun?" Malko asked.

"Turaggoth," she told him. Lamu did not know if this was the truth, but considering her name, it seemed plausible. "Falthrain, specifically, I guess."

"Right at the edge of the world, eh? Must be an appeal to that in this day and age."

"Nah, it's awful," she said, for once seeming actually a little put-off. "Never wanna go back there. Even if you hate it, I'd be happier being in a place like this forever." She sipped her soup. "What's in this again?"

Theo glanced over. "Looks like they gave you the same one as me. Lobster and asparagus."

She rolled her tongue around the inside of her mouth. "You're right, it is sorta mid," she declared, her palate apparently already having advanced several social classes. Maybe the financial mana really was entering her body. "Kinda a weird earthy taste? Hard to describe."

"That'll be the saffron," Malko said. "Typical tool of a middling chef, to broaden the flavor profile without deeper thought. Displays a certain insecurity, in my humble opinion."

"You're calling everything insecure today," Theo pointed out.

"Oh, but you're right, my beloved." He sighed melodramatically. "What have I become of late but a broken record, regurgitating the same jokes and complaints ad infinitum? Perhaps the real reason I complain so excessively about this event is that my diminished innermost self is merely a reflection of it, just as the event is a reflection of this diminished world." He chuckled. "What a curse! To live in an age of death, to be forced to partake of its waters until its stink swells in our very flesh!"

Theodoros sighed, slurping down a chunk of lobster.

Lamu realized that she should eat something. She reached out towards the bread basket, taking a single mini-baguette, which she did not butter, and placed it upon the small plate which she had been given. Slowly, she used her knife to cut it into four smaller chunks, then raised the first to her mouth. She bit--

"I know that you're there, Lilith," she heard the woman behind her say. Her voice was soft and casual, yet cold. Cold in a way she'd never heard from her in their youth. "And that you're listening to me."

Lamu's body froze. The bread, half-masticated, hung from her lips like a condemned criminal. The others, preoccupied with their silly conversation, did not notice.

"I hope you didn't think," she continued, speaking strangely slowly. "That you being here escaped my attention."

Oh god, Lamu thought. What is happening. What the fuck.

"What are you doing here," Lamu said, extremely quietly and out of the corner of your mouth. "How are you here. What do you want."

"Lamu is an interesting name to have chosen for yourself," the other woman replied with an aloof curiosity, seemingly ignoring these questions. "It's a contraction of Lamashtu, isn't it? Commonly interpreted as the original Eme name for Lilith." She hummed flatly. "But in the actual mythology, the two aren't entirely identical. A Lilith, while sometimes interpreted as a feminine demon, was also sometimes seen as simply a sort of wild spirit. That's literally what 'Lil' means in Eme, of course - 'spirit'. The 'Lilith' in the Epic of Gilgamesh is nothing more than an owl in the goddess Inanna's garden. That's why it's seen as an acceptable name in the modern day, I presume, alongside it being cute." A pause. "...on the other hand, though, Lamashtu was unambiguously a monster. Child-eater, famine-bringer. A cursed child of Anu-- Anue, who we still honor as a Dying God in the modern day. I wonder, why would you change your name to something like that? Were you trying to make some statement about yourself? Or did you not know any of this, and it simply seemed like low-hanging fruit in terms of a pseudonym?"

"Please answer the question," Lamu said. The world contracted. This was starting to feel like a repeat of her original conversation with Nhi.

"Then again," Usushikome went on, "Every so often - not much, but in a couple surviving texts - Lamashtu was identified with Inanna. With Phui, the goddess of love and fertility herself." She laughed softly. "That's, well-- It's weird, isn't it? All the ancient fables are like that. When you go back far enough, nothing is anything. All the gods and demons blur together into one big mess." The laughter grew painful and bitter for a moment, like she was suddenly emotional and attempting to suppress it. She slurped more of her soup; the sound was loud and bubbly, like a child.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"Your second guess was correct," Lamu whispered quickly. She thought Malko might be glancing towards her and snapped her mouth shut for a moment, forcing a smile, but he was only searching for the champagne bottle to get a third glass. "There's a backdoor in the scripting of the Grand Alliance citizen database where you can confuse the system and have your bridge identifier swapped to someone else, but it only works with people with the same date of birth and first initial. So I needed another 'L' name, and made a decision based on whim and a superficial understanding of the mythology." This was actually a lie - she'd picked 'Lamu' for much more sentimental reasons even though the whole idea made her identity slightly less secure, which had been obscenely illogical, but there was no point in telling her that. "Please answer the question--"

"Of course, there's another way you can look at it," the woman continued. "Ran, you know... she used to love mythology. When we were young, she'd talk about it all the time. And one night - I think this was when we were in university together - she told me that, to people in the Fire Epoch, possessing no cultural concept of logic or object definition whatsoever and so thinking more like intellectual beasts than men, perceiving the waking and dreaming world as merely two sides of the same softly-cut coin... perhaps there was nothing wrong with something having two completely contradictory natures at the same time." She sniffed, and though her speech maintained its volume, the tempo accelerated. "Maybe that's how you have to see the world when you can only look at its face, you know? When you can't cut it up into little bits like we've learned to do."

"Fire warms, but also burns. A storm drowns, but also nourishes. The law protects the good and kills the innocent. Love completes us and kills us. Maybe they're still right, whether you're talking about a person, a force of nature, of even the world itself-- And we've just lost sight of it in our pursuit of reason. Maybe a goddess of love can decide to chop down a tree to build herself a new throne, and at the same time love that tree and see it as her home as a goddess of hate, with no contradiction existing whatsoever. Maybe we're all like that. Snakes eating tails eating snakes eating--"

"How's the bread, Lamu?" Gudrun asked cheerfully, champagne glass in hand, face getting a little flushed.

"It's-- It's good," she managed to reply, her voice coming out louder than she meant it. "I love bread. This bread, I mean. Not all bread." She chewed.

"They bake it on the ship," Malko remarked. "I wandered down into the kitchen by mistake once and saw it myself. They claim the wheat is hand-grown, too, though unlike the wine I have my doubts."

"Can you really taste that?" Gudrun asked skeptically. "It's wheat."

"Oh, you can absolutely taste it," Malko asserted. "It's much worse."

"Could you pass me a piece, actually?" Theodoros asked. "I was going to save space for the next course, but I'm remembering the tiny lamb fillets they served a couple of years ago. I don't want a repeat of that if we're, er, going to be stuck here for the next few hours."

As Malko passed him the bread, Gudrun asked: "What happens if you need to take a p-- If you need to pee?"

Malko winced. "You really haven't been to many dinner parties, have you?"

They laughed. Lamu laughed. Ha ha ha.

This was insane. Her mind wanted to reject this anathematized turn of events as junk data. What was happening? Why was she ranting about this, what was wrong with her? (Also, why was she presenting the concept of dualism like it was some obscure idea? Didn't she realize that was what the whole two-faceted thing with the Dying Gods was about, as a theological reaction to living in a destroyed world? Was she an idiot?)

"Sorry, I'll try to get to the point now," Utsushikome continued, her speech having returned to its original measure. "There's something I want to tell you, but before that, there's a few things that I need to convey in terms of the situation." She took a deep breath. "Firstly, you should be aware that I know everything about why you came to this event, I do mean everything. I know about the deal you made with Nhi, and what you intend to do tomorrow afternoon, of course. But I also know about the context in which that deal was made. Your life in Last Respite, and your work there as a delver. I know about your family, and the reason you abandoned them to leak confidential military research. I know about the group you've been beholden to for the 200 years prior to this point. I know what really happened between you and your mother, what role you expected to play at the conclave 200 years ago, and why the plan changed. I know about your involvement in the apparent deaths of the Order, as well."

Lamu's eyes were wide. Gudrun was complaining how she wished she'd ordered the duck blood soup and asking Malko, like he was already a lifelong friend, to trade. (He refused.) She heard a clinking and liquid sound; she realized Utsushikome must have been eating her own soup, suggesting she didn't want to draw attention to this either.

A mercy, albeit an infinitesimal one, especially considering what she said next.

"Most importantly, though, I know who you really are. I know your name."

And then she said it. Lamu bit on the bread like it was a surgical gag, her whole face tensing in a sharp movement like she was having a stroke.

The rest of the room - the table, the other three, the music and hum of conversation, the hundreds of little table lights building up to the stage - began to fade away. Suddenly it was just her, alone, on a chair which floated in the void. The voice behind her a suffocating shadow against her back.

"That's all that pertains to you personally," she continued. "But also pertinent is what I know about this gala itself. There are roughly 700 people aboard this ship. 510 guests, 165 staff - including a small piloting and engineering crew of 13 - and 25 members of security, most of whom have military backgrounds. Each of the two ships at our flanks has an additional crew of around 160 each, of which 70 are armed soldiers, 50 occupy navigational or technical roles, 20 in unskilled or accessory labor like cooking, and 20 more in largely ceremonial positions. Of both of these crews - not counting the guests - there are just over 30 arcanists, almost all of which have received some degree of combat training beyond the fundamentals. I have information on all of these people, without exception, including where they have been assigned to sleep. For example, I know that you and Gudrun were assigned room #96 on the second deck."

Lamu was silent, a pit growing in her stomach. Where was this going. If she intended to blackmail or expose her, as she'd assumed a moment ago, what was the point in this information?

"I am completely aware of the layout of the ship, including the bridge area not included in public maps, and its capabilities as a vessel in both a military and recreational sense," her apparently-psychotic former classmate went on. "The weapon systems, the different novelty rooms, the artificed intelligence and the various fail safes and emergency protocols and so on."

Lamu let out a stiff breath. "How do you know this?" she whispered.

"So Malko, lemme ask you something," Gudrun said, taking a bite out of her own soup-lathered bread.

"Mmhmm?" He could not speak. Because he was drinking wine.

"So you're a successful guy, right?"

He breathed deeply as he finished. "I suppose that depends on what you mean by 'successful'. I have a lot of luxury credit, if that's what you mean."

"I won't tell you how I know all this," Utsushikome answered - though her cadence was strange, barely reactive, "because it is irrelevant." She paused for a moment. "You're probably wondering about the rest of our class. You've seen Bardiya and Theodoros already, no doubt. So are they all here? The answer is yes." She inclined her head. "Look up ahead, towards the stage. nine tables forward, two to the right. Do you see the woman sitting there?"

Lamu's eyes shot in the according direction; how the hell did she expect her to make out anything at such a distance, or even count the tables properly without standing? She wasn't certain if it was who she meant, but she thought she could make out a woman with back long hair, partially tied back, and a somewhat darker complexion. Maybe.

"That's Ptolema of Rheeds, attending with her husband," Utsushikome informed her. "Ezekiel is here in this room as well, in the far corner near the stage, and Seth has likely already made his way on board as one of the senior soldiers on the Royal Penitence-- It's been arranged. As for the rest, well, they'll be around very soon. I won't say everything."

"Shouldn't you be rooting for these guys, then?" Gudrun asked Malko, a question which Theodoros seemed to see coming and subtly rolled his eyes at. "Like, you seem so down on all this crap. And don't get me wrong, it does seem pretty stupid? But I'm guessing you don't think we should all become Paritists like in Mekhi or some-- Or something."

He chuckled. "You're an innocent soul, Gudrun. You underestimate my capacity for hypocrisy on an industrial scale."

"You are a Paritist, you mean?" She wiped soup from her lips with her napkin, violating several etiquette rules.

"I've had flirtations with the old Irencan school, but no, I wouldn't exactly say so," he explained. "I'm just a cynic. In the past I would have said I'm an advocate for competent Humanism - willing to put some regulations on property control, or failing that at least manage one Empyrean development program competently - but now I feel foolish for even believing such a thing is possible with the conditions of our world." He shook his head. "No, we were fucked the moment we bred past the population the Ironworkers meant for us, I think. Too small a world for too few people, an animal outgrowing its environment, tale as old as time in nature." He sipped champagne.

"Mal, you promised not to get into politics at the table this time," Theo scolded him uneasily.

He took objection to this, though it was impossible to tell how much was sincere and how much was performative melodrama. "Well she asked me to, Theo! Do you think I'm made of stone? Am I not a mortal man?"

"No, no, I totally agree, honestly," Gudrun said. "Y'know, I was saying to Lamu on the way here-- You remember, Lamu?"

"Like I said, it's not even a political thing," she continued obliviously. "It's just human nature. Crabs in a bucket."

"Wonderful!" Malko said, raising his glass in cheer. "Let's revel in our nihilism, then."

Theo frowned. "Mal--"

"Having so many arcanists, too, that was a damn stupid idea," he continued. "All these little men with bands around their heads doing nothing but casting replication arcana all day, every day. The world's already filled with forgettable garbage, why would you want people making copies of it until it floods the damn continent?"

"And now they wanna copy people, too," Gudrun chimed in. "Make everyone the same bland asshole."

"Exactly!" Malko exclaimed, pointing at her enthusiastically. "Fill the world with the same empty tin men!

Lamu barely heard any of this; it passed over her like a gentle wind. "Are you... responsible?" She whispered out of the corner of her mouth. "Did you bring everyone here? Are you working with Nhi?"

"Well, I'm afraid I've sort of buried the lede," Utsushikome continued, after considering this for a moment. "This will be the first time our class has reunited in all of the years since the conclave. And it will also be the last." Another liquid sound, this time softer; sipping from her glass. Lamu pictured her there, glass in hand and sat alone in a relaxed, focused posture, the opposite to her brittle fear, back to back. An inverted reflection.

A vivid image. Two children of the Order, contrasted. Blissful ignorance and wretched knowledge. Hadn't it been so when they were younger? Well, no, because Theodoros was also a child of the Order and wasn't very aesthetic.

Despite her tendencies in moments of crisis, the next words Utsushikome said ripped her mind from all artistic thought.

"By now, you probably understand that I've learned everything," she continued. "That I know everything. I know what you are, Lilith of Eshkalon, what all of you are. What the Order truly did, and your role in that." She spoke through gritted teeth. "And I cannot put into words the extent of my hatred for you. My utter and complete loathing. After-- After all these years, I didn't know I was still capable of feeling this way, so sick with horror and betrayal."

Lamu had given up on eating entirely, her face dropping to a neutral expression. How was this the same person?

And she-- No, she was being vague, that didn't mean-- But she knew--

"We could have been a culture of dreamers," Malko stated, waving a hand in the air like he was giving an futurist speech, except he almost knocked over one of the bottles because he was already becoming observably drunk. "Artists. Everyone devoting their lives to creating beautiful, unique things for one another! All filled with purpose, with civic favor!" He sighed. "Instead, we turned the entire world into a grey, ugly factory. And it's put us all out of work."

"That's a really good way to put it, yeah," Gudrun said. "I know tons of people stuck outside the freeholds with zero chance to find even state work, let alone something that pays enough to offset the yearly decay on their credit. Know of tons of people stuck out the freeholds. Know of them."

Malko looked slightly thrown off. "Well, I more meant out of work spiritually," he stated. "Morally. As a people. Though-- Yes, it's also a literal problem."

"Would that really work, though?" Gudrun asked. "I mean, not everyone has some kinda special skill. And even I'm more a doer than a creator, y'know? I couldn't make art that didn't look like crud if you pointed a gun to my head."

"A salient observation," Theo said distantly, taking a drink for the first time in the night-- Red wine.

"Well, obviously I'm speaking as a matter of generality. In this world there'd also be more room for people to do simple labor passionately. Farming, for example. We could all be eating the shitty expensive grain."

"More like starving," Theo said. "Not to, er, beat a dead horse, Mal, but I'm not sure living in essentially a pre-industrial society would be quite the utopia you're thinking."

"Ugh, again, I'm generalizing!" he declared, rotating his hand before flopping it downwards. "But you're probably both right. Humans just aren't a mature enough species to improve their lot in any way but trying to raise the numbers on a balance sheet." His head sank as well. "No one sees the bigger picture! What quality and care does for the spirit."

"No one but you," Gudrun said.

"Well, obviously."

"You've misunderstood," Lamu spoke slowly. "I wasn't involved in anything the Order did back then." Her eyes darted to the side, trying irrationally to face this woman, even though she knew that was impossible without turning her head. "They-- They didn't trust me. I wasn't stable." Her mind raced for the correct words. "And releasing the data for the Scorned had nothing to do with them at all - they contacted me independently, effectively blackmailed me. I'm not even the person who you think I am, I'm a type II--"

"I know that you are the closest to innocent," Utsushikome interrupted. "But I do not care, because my rancor is infinite, incomparable. Collateral damage does not matter to me. In fact, I hope to cause it, to burn everything even close in proximity to this-- This abomination you've created to cinders." She took a breath. "But still, you are the closest to innocent. Which is why I'm telling you this. Explaining myself."

"If you know why I'm here, you know that I have the same contempt for the technology as you do," Lamu spoke insistently. "We're on the same si--"

"You destroyed me," she interrupted for a second time. "Destroyed everything left I believed was sacred. And I have absolutely nothing left to lose." She paused for several moments to consume another mouthful of soup and drink some more wine, during which more of Lamu's protests went unheeded. "Now that I've said all that, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do."

Lamu gripped the edge of her chair. Her eyes wandered pleadingly around her, at this point almost wanting someone to notice what was going on.

"Man," Gudrun said, munching. "This bread is good."

"Tonight, before this world has a chance to end, I'm going to kill every last one of you. As I now know I ought to have done 200 years ago." Utsushikome delivered the words matter-of-factly. "I will begin at midnight tonight, and I want you to understand that I am aware of everything on these ships, and absolutely nothing and no one will be enough to stop me. In fact, it would please me if they tried, for it would give me great pleasure if they tried, that I might lay waste to the providence of this world to the greatest extent possible."

She's insane, Lamu realized. She's not even listening to me. She's gone completely insane. Everyone in the class has gone mad except me.

Was this even about what she thought it was, or was the woman completely deluded?

Lamu considered trying to cast, to do something, but the weight of the arcane lenses bared down on her, the knowledge that she would likely be incapacitated and arrested in a second inescapable. And yet if she believed that, why did these threats feel grounded in any reality whatsoever?

"What Theo said aside, you will want to save some space for the main course," Malko told Gudrun. "It's a bit hit and miss, but sometimes they do go over the top, and beef tends to get bigger portions than lamb."

"Your fate is completely inescapable, though in your case, I will at least try to give you a relatively clean death," she continued. "But the others I will have suffer in accordance with their crimes, with what they've enabled and what they've done." Her voice finally grew severe. "This is an oath, and I swear it upon everything left in me, on every god left in this debased farce of a world."

"What kinda cut is it gonna be?" Gudrun asked.

"Perhaps I won't succeed in quite the way I want," Utsushikome continued. "Maybe not all of you will get exactly what you deserve. But I will have my revenge, of that I am categorically certain. Not one of you will leave this place alive. No matter who tries to stop me."

"Rib-eye," Theodoros answered, slurping up a piece of asparagus.

"Make sure you watch closely, Lilith," she said.

"Oh, yummy!" Gudrun replied, pleased.

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