本章概述：

????????????亞歷桑德拉上了碧池。

????????????In which Alessandra rides bitch.

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正文：

一場風(fēng)暴在安菲特里亞上空爆發(fā)。

我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己正從臥室里看著窗外的雨，這間房間的窗戶讓我能從自己躺著的地方相當(dāng)好地看到窗外的景色。我依舊渾身疼痛，而比這更糟的是……伊莎萊仍不見蹤影。

睡夢斷斷續(xù)續(xù)，但至少這次我的姐妹們沒有在夢境中等候我，當(dāng)我在十個(gè)小時(shí)后再度醒來時(shí)，伊莎萊仍舊沒有回來。

這本不應(yīng)該讓我如此困擾，可我還是很擔(dān)心。我知道伊莎萊會(huì)照看好自己，我也相信她說的自己會(huì)回到我的身邊這句話。至于為什么她回來這點(diǎn)如此重要我并不清楚，不過在她離開前的那一瞬，我只知道我需要她做出那個(gè)保證。

我需要知曉她會(huì)回到我身邊。

“起來，”我虛弱地念叨著，在原地轉(zhuǎn)動(dòng)我受傷的僵硬身軀，直到我的那只完好的手臂被置于身下。“起…….來……”

我推動(dòng)著，把自己的身體撬到坐姿，隨著傳遍全身的劇痛我痛苦地呼出一口氣。

到處都疼得要命。

從床上起身是一件苦差事，我得慢慢地來。我主要的功夫都花在盡最大的小心把體重壓到雙腳上，同時(shí)避免讓它們罷工。要是伊莎萊回家的時(shí)候看到我試圖用腦袋把自己撐起來的話我將永生難忘。

“家……”我輕笑起來，雙腿在撐起我時(shí)危險(xiǎn)地顫抖著，但它們還是撐住了。

“這里不是家……不是我的也不是她的，那為什么……?”

為什么我會(huì)這么想？

很多在忠嗣學(xué)院里被撫養(yǎng)長大的孩子們都是帝國衛(wèi)隊(duì)軍官的戰(zhàn)爭遺孤，他們被吸納進(jìn)來，根據(jù)自身的能力受訓(xùn)。風(fēng)暴軍，政委部，國教，以及其他組織會(huì)從學(xué)院產(chǎn)出的忠嗣中挑選它們最優(yōu)秀的戰(zhàn)士和仆人。

修女會(huì)經(jīng)常是僅存的例外。

修女們一半是貴族或軍官的女兒，被送往國教的監(jiān)護(hù)下以什一稅的形式為帝皇服務(wù)。我的很多姐妹們都知曉她們的家族紐帶并為之而自豪，可我……

我自出生以來就在學(xué)院里。

我的雙親，無論他們是誰，都沒有養(yǎng)育過我。我無法回憶起關(guān)于他們的任何細(xì)節(jié)，僅曾被告知他們身居高位。我是在修會(huì)嚴(yán)酷的訓(xùn)練體制下長大的，受訓(xùn)于教官修士，幾乎從出生起就被打造成為鍛鋼利刃為地上的祂服務(wù)。

小小孤兒亞歷桑德拉從來也沒有過家，那她怎么會(huì)知道家是什么樣子的？

我踉蹌著穿過大廳，在寒冷中緊抱著自己，又回到了主室內(nèi)，思考著這個(gè)問題。

究竟如何。

我記得伊莎萊在我的夢境中歌唱時(shí)的嗓音，強(qiáng)勁而又優(yōu)美。我記得在噩夢中她牽著我的手時(shí)的觸感，以及她在我跌倒后將我放回床上，小心翼翼地確保我的舒適。

我在走到沙發(fā)邊一頭栽倒進(jìn)去，毫無預(yù)兆地發(fā)了一聲苦笑。我笑著想著一個(gè)靈族女巫到底是如何在幾個(gè)小時(shí)中對(duì)我展現(xiàn)了比我一生中知道的都更多的善意。

我不后悔于學(xué)院嚴(yán)酷的做法。它教會(huì)了我，錘煉了我，將我?guī)У搅松窕手庵?，可…?/p>

一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)善意也是不錯(cuò)的。

我瑟瑟發(fā)抖著躺在沙發(fā)上，深吸了一口氣，想象著自己仍能在伊莎萊曾經(jīng)躺過的地方嗅到那股淡淡的冷煙味道。

砰

“我想我告訴過你該睡覺了，Cre’yth?！?/p>

我直接彈了起來，轉(zhuǎn)身看到伊莎萊穿過陽臺(tái)門，腳邊放著一個(gè)塞滿到幾乎要爆開的挎包，用責(zé)備的眼神凝視我。

“伊莎萊……我確實(shí)睡過了，”我還擊道，“你是——”

一個(gè)啞光黑的東西被扔到了我的身上，我差點(diǎn)沒接住它。

“如果你能走路的話，就穿上這個(gè)，”伊莎萊嚴(yán)厲地說。“如果你能做到的話我得帶你去一個(gè)地方?！?/p>

我抖開那捆黑色的網(wǎng)和織物，在意識(shí)到這是什么的一瞬間呼吸凝滯在喉嚨里。

一件備用的修女會(huì)緊身服，具體來說是被用于穿在修女型動(dòng)力甲下面的內(nèi)甲部分。她不是我的，那件仍在盥洗室里被獸人殘骸包裹著，那意味著它來自別人。

“你是從哪里弄到它的？”我平穩(wěn)地呼吸著，轉(zhuǎn)身看向與我的視線交匯的伊莎萊。

“伊莎萊？你是在哪里找到這個(gè)的？”

“穿上它，”這是她唯一的答復(fù)。

我不幻想一支修女小隊(duì)碰見了伊莎萊的話，她們不會(huì)先開槍后問話。如果我們相遇時(shí)我還能移動(dòng)不止一條肢體，并且還有爆彈的話，我也會(huì)做同樣的事。

“伊莎萊，”我開口，放低了緊身服，緊咬著嘴唇以讓自己保持鎮(zhèn)靜?！拔摇乙愀嬖V我真相……”

“我從來都只告訴你真相，Cre’yth，”伊莎萊輕聲說道。

就我所知那是真的，可“就我所知”并不能很好地替代“實(shí)際上知道”。

“那么告訴我，”我對(duì)著她拎起緊身服，“你為之殺了我的一個(gè)姐妹嗎？”

“如果我告訴你的話，你會(huì)穿上它跟我走嗎？”她問到，我的嘴唇緊繃成一條直線。

“伊莎萊！”

她嘆了口氣，搖了搖頭，隨后看向我的眼睛。

“不，Cre’yth，”她最后回答道?！拔覜]有殺死你的任何一個(gè)姐妹?！?/p>

我舒了口氣，涌上我心頭的解脫感幾乎是種物質(zhì)上的力量。我的手指發(fā)麻，雙手仍在顫抖……我還不想相信伊莎萊殺了我的修會(huì)中的任何一員，但我也知道她是什么。伊莎萊不是人類，她是個(gè)靈族，更糟的是，她是黑暗靈族……比靈族海盜更惡劣，更甚于神秘的先知……他們是一個(gè)所謂的施虐狂海盜種族，會(huì)從虛無中現(xiàn)身，在消失在它們神秘的網(wǎng)道中前劫掠整顆星球的人口。

但是，我無法把自己對(duì)他們的認(rèn)知與我所知道的伊莎萊相重合。

她很溫柔。

唔……我回想起了她用獸人創(chuàng)作的壁畫，并把最后的那個(gè)想法修正為：“她對(duì)我很溫柔。”

帶著些許困難，我把連衣裙拉到頭頂，然后開始費(fèi)力地拖起緊身服熟悉的重量。它有著輕薄的裝甲和緩沖墊來支撐起動(dòng)力甲的重量，而它的觸感令我倍感安慰。我已經(jīng)穿著這種緊身服和其上的護(hù)甲太久，久到它像是我的第二皮膚。在我強(qiáng)迫著幾乎無力的左臂穿過袖子時(shí)，壓縮面料也有助于穩(wěn)定住我顫抖的肌肉。

“你能……？”我轉(zhuǎn)身背對(duì)著伊莎萊，對(duì)著搭扣做了個(gè)手勢。

她移到我的身后并把它們固定好，在完成時(shí)拍拍我的肩膀，我用已經(jīng)不像之前那么抖的雙腿站了起來。

一部分是由于壓縮面料，可我知道剩下的部分是我的心境。再次穿上我的修會(huì)的戰(zhàn)甲讓我感覺更好，哪怕只有其中的一部分。

“來，拿著這個(gè)，”伊莎萊打開了主室門邊的其中一個(gè)衣櫥，抽出來一件長外套舉向我?！巴饷婧芾?，而且還在下雨，我們必須趕緊行動(dòng)。”

我拿過外套，把它甩到我的肩膀上，用手強(qiáng)迫我的左臂穿過它的袖子，然后跟著伊莎萊走到房間角落里的防水布邊。

“我們要去哪？”

伊莎萊拉開防水布，我則盯住了下那面彎刀形狀的噴氣摩托。

“有些你必須看到的東西，”她簡單地回答道，把她的腿跨上車座，又示意我加入她。

車座很舒適，而且明顯是為兩個(gè)人準(zhǔn)備的。我回想起在某次培訓(xùn)時(shí)了解到，靈族的噴氣摩托在個(gè)別情況下會(huì)搭載兩人，一個(gè)駕駛員和一個(gè)負(fù)責(zé)火力支援的。那些噴氣摩托快得難以置信，甚至快過阿斯塔特的載具，如果傳言屬實(shí)的話，它們還搭載了強(qiáng)力得出奇的武器陣列。

“我們會(huì)緩慢而謹(jǐn)慎地行動(dòng)，”伊莎萊一邊說一邊啟動(dòng)噴氣摩托的引擎?！爸荒苡玫凸β省也幌胍鹑魏巫⒁?，但你沒法像我一樣在房檐上移動(dòng)?！?/p>

“經(jīng)過練習(xí)的話我相信我可以做到，”我坐上座椅悶悶地回答道?！爸徊贿^是因?yàn)槲沂直凵线€有傷?！?/p>

“繼續(xù)這么告訴自己，Cre’yth，”伊莎萊回答道，語氣后隱藏著一絲笑意?！艾F(xiàn)在，手放到這里……”

她把手向后伸向我那只完好到手臂，抓住我的手肘，把我拉向前方直到緊挨著她，又把我的手臂環(huán)在她的腰間，我無意中把臉埋到了她日出般的長發(fā)里，不禁深吸了一口氣。

在我緊緊環(huán)抱著她的腰間并試著忽略這感覺起來有多……美妙時(shí)，我放松了下來。

“舒服嗎，亞歷桑德拉？伊莎萊問到，她的語調(diào)中仍帶著一絲笑意。

“閉嘴，女巫”我尖刻地回復(fù)，可我的語氣卻出乎我的意料地帶著玩笑的意思，我把臉靠在她的肩上，這讓她笑了出來。

然后她轉(zhuǎn)過身去，把嘴唇貼在我的臉頰上。

“抓緊了。”

我驚訝到無法回答，伊莎萊打開節(jié)流閥，噴氣摩托以反重力的推進(jìn)從地面上升了起來，幾乎無聲地駛?cè)腙柵_(tái)門外的暴風(fēng)雨中。

我們穿梭于尖塔之間，伊莎萊緊貼著尖塔的墻壁，讓遮陽篷和陽臺(tái)保持在我們上方。她以任何帝國載具都無法達(dá)成的穿針引線般穿過發(fā)卡彎讓我驚嘆于這機(jī)械的敏捷性。

“我一直以為它們還能更快點(diǎn)，”在伊莎萊壓彎時(shí)我在她的發(fā)間嘟噥道。

“它們能，”她回答說。“我們只是為了避開感應(yīng)陣列才以基礎(chǔ)推力運(yùn)行?！?/p>

我點(diǎn)點(diǎn)頭，讓自己更舒適地依靠著她。我絕對(duì)不會(huì)承認(rèn)這點(diǎn)，可像這樣趴在她身上，噴氣摩托在我們身下嗡嗡作響，她柔順的頭發(fā)貼在我的臉上，幾乎足以讓我忘記我們身在何處。有那么一瞬間，我想，如果有一天我們能在別處……不是在戰(zhàn)區(qū)中間騎行的話，那該有多好。

只有我們兩人。

真是個(gè)徒勞的念頭。

在帝國信條的要求和伊莎萊絕對(duì)不會(huì)成真的尋死念頭間，我將我成長過程中的無聲告誡和內(nèi)心中“異端”的尖叫推到了腦海深處，并決心享受我能做的一切。

我們騎了不到一個(gè)小時(shí)后便在一個(gè)轉(zhuǎn)角處起起落落，隨后便保持著水平接近一個(gè)小教堂，從教堂的設(shè)計(jì)和符號(hào)元素來看，可能是被我自己的修會(huì)的一支分遣隊(duì)看管的?？伤?jīng)受的損害對(duì)里面的姐妹們來講不是個(gè)好兆頭，我在心底做好了最壞的預(yù)期，與此同時(shí)伊莎萊將摩托滑到一旁，然后向后，再然后是我們接近的那座被炸開的窗戶的另一邊。

我在她把摩托對(duì)準(zhǔn)窗戶時(shí)發(fā)出抗議，它實(shí)在是太小了！

但在我能發(fā)話前，伊莎萊的手就掃到了我的后腦勺上，將我與她一同拉低，她同時(shí)俯身直沖向前，扭轉(zhuǎn)了噴氣摩托讓我們短暫而暈眩地上下顛倒，然后便穿過了那個(gè)在摩托底座與石塊間只有勉強(qiáng)一指寬的縫隙。

伊莎萊專業(yè)地?fù)P起車尾，讓它在與地面平齊的降落點(diǎn)上平穩(wěn)地盤旋著，像在建筑石塊上捕獵的貓一樣發(fā)出呼嚕聲。

“下車，”伊莎萊說，在她操作時(shí)我小心地把手從鎖在她腰間的位置上掰開?！拔以O(shè)置好了動(dòng)力制動(dòng)器，所以它不會(huì)再動(dòng)了，”她從它身上翻下來，然后向我伸出一只手。

我不假思索地接受了這個(gè)邀請(qǐng)，小心地從這輛輕型載具上下來，我的內(nèi)心對(duì)著它沒有被固定在任何地方這點(diǎn)發(fā)出尖叫，如果我轉(zhuǎn)移我的重量的話它就可能會(huì)移開。不過它并沒有，伊莎萊也堅(jiān)實(shí)地抓住了我的手，讓我舒適地踏上地面。

“謝謝你，”我低聲說，意識(shí)到她像是在對(duì)待一個(gè)第一次騎車的貴族女子那樣令我有些郁悶。

“別為此感謝我，Cre’yth，”伊莎萊的聲音失去了所有的打趣的意味，她轉(zhuǎn)身指向小教堂?！拔乙呀?jīng)遲到不能欠你的謝意了?！?/p>

我順著她的手臂看向教堂中央的雕像。

以及躺在它下方的三具尸體。

?

原文：

A storm had broken over Amphitria.

I found myself watching the rain from inside the bedroom, the windows of the room providing a decent enough view of the outside from where I was able to lay. My entire body still ached, and worse than that… Isarae was still gone.

Sleep came fitfully, but at least this time my sisters weren’t waiting for me in my dreams, and when I woke up again ten hours had passed and Isarae still wasn’t back.

It shouldn’t have troubled me as much as it did, but I was worried. I knew Isarae could take care of herself, and I took her at her word when she told me she would come back to me. Why it was so important that she come back to me was something that I couldn’t quite place, but in the moments before she left all I knew was that I?needed?to hear her make that promise.

I needed to know she would come back to me.

“Up,” I muttered raggedly, turning my stiff, compromised body in place until I had my good arm beneath me. “Get… up…”

I pushed, levering my body to a sitting position, then let out a pained breath as agony lanced through me.

Absolutely?everything?hurt.

Getting to my feet from the bed was a chore and it was one I did slowly. It consisted largely of doing my best to lower my body weight onto my legs with enough care that they wouldn’t give out. I’d never live it down if Isarae came home to find I’d split my head open trying to stand up.?

“Home…” I chuckled as my legs shook dangerously while holding me up, but hold they did. “This isn’t home… not my home and not hers, so why…?”

Why did I think that?

Many of the children raised in the Schola were war orphans of officers from the Imperial Guard, they were taken in and trained according to their abilities. The Militarum Tempestus, Commissariat, Ministorum, and other organisations drew from the loyal Progena produced by the Schola programmes for their finest warriors and servants.

The sole difference was often the Sororitas.

Sisters were, as often as not, the daughters of nobles or officers remanded into the custody of the Ecclesiarchy, given in tithe to the service of the Emperor. Plenty of my sisters knew their lineage and were proud of it, but I…

I had been Schola from birth.

My parents, whoever they were, had not raised me. I couldn’t recall a single detail about them, I was only ever told they were highly placed figures. I had been raised under the brutal training regimes of the Adepta, trained by the Drill Abbots of the Schola, and beaten into a forged steel blade in service to Him On Earth practically from birth.

Little orphan Alessandra had never had a home, so how would she know what a home looked like?

I staggered through the hall, hugging myself against the cold as I made my way back out into the main room and considered the question.

How indeed.

I remembered Isarae’s voice, strong and beautiful, as she sang in my dreams. I remembered the touch of her hand as she held mine through my nightmares, and the way she put me back onto the bed after I fell, taking care to make sure I was comfortable.

Without warning, a bitter laugh bubbled out of me as I made my way around to the couch and dropped onto it. I laughed as I considered how an Eldar witch had shown me more kindness in a few hours than I’d known in the whole of my life.

I do not regret the Schola’s hard ways. It taught me and forged me, and brought me into the light of the God-Emperor, but…

A touch of kindness would have been nice.

Shivering, I laid down on the couch and took a deep breath, imagining that I could still faintly smell that cold-smoke scent of Isarae from when she’d lain here too.

Thud

“I thought I told you to sleep,?Cre’yth.”

I bolted up straight and turned to see Isarae stepping through the balcony doors, a satchel almost full to bursting was resting at her feet as she gave me a level look of reproach.

“Isarae… I?did?sleep,” I countered, “are you-”

Something matte black was thrown to me, and I just barely caught it.

“If you can walk, then put this on,” Isarae said sternly. “There is somewhere I have to take you if you can manage it.”

I shook the bundle of black mesh and fabric out and felt my breath catch in my throat as I realised what it was.

A spare Sororitas bodyglove, specifically the underarmour portion intended to fit beneath a set of Sororitas-class powered armour. It wasn’t mine, that was still sitting in the washroom covered in Ork remains which meant it came from someone else.

“Where did you get this?” I breathed quietly, turning to look at Isarae who met my gaze evenly. “Isarae? Where did you come across this?”

“Put it on,” was her only reply.

I had no illusions that if a Sororitas squad had come across Isarae they would shoot first and ask questions never. I would have done the same had I been able to move much more than a single limb at a time, and had I any bolter shells, when we had met.

“Isarae,” I began, lowering the bodyglove and biting my lip hard as I tried to keep my composure. “I… I need you to tell me the truth…”

“I have only ever told you the truth,?Cre’yth,” Isarae said softly.

As far as I knew that was correct, but ‘a(chǎn)s far as I knew’ was a poor substitute for actually knowing something.

“Then tell me,” I held up the glove towards her, “did you kill one of my sisters for this?”

“If I tell you, will you put it on and come with me?” She asked, and I set my lips to a hard line.

“Isarae!”

She sighed, shook her head, then looked me in the eye.

“No,?Cre’yth,” she replied finally. “I did not kill any of your sisters.”

The relief that stormed through my heart was almost a physical force as I let out a sigh. My fingers felt numb and my hands were shaking… I hadn’t wanted to believe that Isarae had killed any of my Order, but I also knew what she was. Isarae was not human, she was Eldar, and worse,?Dark Eldar… worse than corsairs, worse than the enigmatic seers… they were a supposed race of piratical sadists who would emerge from nothingness to reave whole planets of their populations before vanishing back into their mysterious Webway.

And yet, I couldn’t reconcile what I knew about them with Isarae.

She was so gentle.

Well… I thought back to the murals she had painted out of the Orks, and amended that last thought considerably to: ‘she was gentle with me.’

With some difficulty, I pulled the dress over my head and began tugging on the familiar weight of the bodyglove. It was lightly armored and cushioned to hold the weight of powered armour against it, and the feel of it was comforting. I’d spent so long wearing the glove and the armour over it that it felt like a second skin. The compression fabric, too, helped keep my shaking muscles steady as I forced my still mostly-limp left arm through the sleeve.

“Can you…?” I turned my back to Isarae, and gestured to the clasps.

She moved behind me and finished securing them, patting my shoulder when she was done, and I stood on legs that didn’t tremble quite as much as they had before.

Part of that was the compression but the rest, I knew, was in my mind. I felt better being clad in the wargear of my Order again, even if it was just a part of it.

“Here, take this,” Isarae had opened one of the side closets of the main room near the door and pulled out a long coat that she was holding towards me. “It is cold and still raining, and we must move quickly.”

I took the coat and slung it over my shoulders, forcing my left arm through its sleeve manually before following Isarae as she walked over to whatever it was that was tarped in the corner of the room.

“Where are we going?”

Isarae pulled the tarp and I stared at the long, curving blade-shape of the jetbike beneath.

“There is something you must see,” she answered simply, slinging her leg over the saddle, and gesturing for me to join her.

The seat was comfortable, and clearly made for two. I recalled somewhere in my training that the Eldar jetbike was occasionally crewed by two during their raids, one driver and one who would provide supporting fire. These jetbikes were devilishly fast, quicker even than Astartes speeders, and carried a surprisingly effective set of weaponry if rumour was to be believed.

“We will move slowly and carefully,” Isarae began as she cycled up the jetbikes engines. “Low power only… I do not wish to attract any attention, but you cannot move across rooftops as I can.”

“Given practice I’m sure I could manage,” I replied sullenly as I settled into my seat. “And only because my arm is still injured.”

“Keep telling yourself that,?Cre’yth,” Isarae replied with a touch of laughter hiding behind her tone, and I scowled. “Now, hands go here…”

She reached behind herself to my good arm, seized me by the elbow, dragged me forward until I was flush against her, and settled my arm around her waist, and without meaning to, I buried my face against her long, sunrise hair, and couldn’t help taking a breath of it.

I felt myself relax as I took a firm grip around her waist and tried to ignore how… good… this felt.

“Comfortable, Alessandra?” Isarae asked, her voice still hinting at a smile.

“Shut up, Witch,” my reply was harsh but my tone, even to my own surprise, was playful, and she laughed as I settled my chin on her shoulder.

Then she turned and pressed her lips to my cheek.

“Hold on tight.”

I was too startled to reply as Isarae opened the throttle and the jetbike rose from the floor with gravity-defying propulsion and hummed near-silently out of the balcony doors and out into the storm.

Isarae hugged the walls of the spires, keeping the awnings and balconies over us as we soared between the spires. I marveled at how nimble the machine was as she dipped through hairpin turns and took needle-sharp passes that no Imperial vehicle could have managed.?

“I always thought these were much faster,” I mumbled into Isarae’s hair as she leaned into a turn.

“They are,” she replied. “We are operating on base thrust only to keep from detection by any sensory arrays.”

I nodded, and settled myself more comfortably against her. I would never admit it, but laying against her like this, with the jetbike humming gently beneath us and her soft hair against my face, was almost enough to make me forget where we were. I thought, for a moment, that I’d like it very much if we could be elsewhere one day… riding somewhere that wasn’t in the midst of a warzone.

Just the pair of us.

A futile notion.

Between the demands of the Imperial Creed and Isarae’s own deathwish that would never happen, so I pushed the silent admonishments of my upbringing and internal screams of ‘heresy’ into the far, far back of my mind, and resolved to enjoy what little I could.

We rode for less than an hour before swinging around a corner and leveling out on approach to a small chapel that, from the designs and symbology, was probably kept and managed by a detachment of my own Order. The damage to it, though, did not bode well for the sisters who would have been inside, and I braced myself for the worst as Isarae sidled the bike around the side, then the back, then to the opposite side we approached from a window that was blown out.

I started to protest as she angled the jetbike towards the window. Surely it was far too small!

But before I could speak, Isarae’s hand swept around to the back of my head and pulled me down with her as she ducked low and shot forward, twisting the jetbike so we were briefly and vertiginously upside down, and passed us through the aperture with barely a fingerswidth to spare between chassis and rockcrete.

Isarae expertly swung the tail of her bike around and brought the vehicle to rest at level with the floor where it hovered contentedly, purring like a hunting cat just above stonework.

“Dismount,” Isarae said, and I carefully pried my hands from around her waist where they had locked when she’d performed her maneuver. “I’ve set the kinetic brakes, so it won’t move,” she dropped off of it, then offered me a hand.

Without thinking, I took the offer and stepped cautiously off of the lightweight vehicle, my mind screaming at me that it wasn’t secured to anything and would shift the moment I put my weight anywhere. It didn’t, though, and Isarae took a firm grip on my hand to allow me to step comfortably to the floor.

“Thank you,” I muttered, a little sullenly as I realised she’d treated me like a noble’s daughter on her first ride.

“Do not thank me here,?Cre’yth,” Isarae’s voice had lost all of its mischief as she turned to gesture to the chapel. “I was far too late to owed your thanks.”

I followed the line of her arm to the statue in the center of the chapel.

And to the three bodies laid in state beneath it.