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"What are you waiting for?" he screa himself at Liraz With a neat step and parry she sent hiround, and with one well-placed kick turned hihed out, lying there "I know you want to!"

But she just shook her head and smiled, and Jael wanted to howl, because her smile had… plans in it, and in those plans, he saw, there would be no easy death

73

A BUTTERFLY IN A BOTTLE

Karou and Liraz o’s body off the palisade

There had been a great deal of activity in the camp since the Dominion surrender, and there just hadn’t been time to see to it earlier Reunions and introductions, exclaies to debate and ih cut with a fair portion of grief, because there had been losses in the Adelphas, many of them irretrievable

There were some thuribles, and Karou had opened every one of theainst her senses, but in none of the for

She came with heavy steps to the body that she had such reason to hate, and found that she couldn’t Was it all for Ziri, her grief, or was soreat faults, had given so much--so many years, so many deaths, and so much pain--for his people?

To her surprise, Liraz was there, facing the palisade and the corpse that dangled frouard "Hi"

No hi in return "I put hi her head Her voice was tight

Karou understood that she h she didn’t kno it had happened, how any feeling had had tiroeen them, she wasn’t surprised Not by Liraz, not any into camp" She cut Karou a tense look "It wasn’t… disrespect"

"I know"

This seemed inadequate, so Karou added, softly, "It isn’t hiruff They didn’t speak again until they’d cut the ropes and lowered the body to the ground They tore the gonfalon down, too Those words--victory and vengeance--belonged to another time Karou laid it over the body, a shroud to conceal the desecration of violent death

"Would you burn it?" she asked It, not hi, as a shell left on a beach

Liraz nodded, and knelt beside it to touch fire to the broad, dead chest Wisps of smoke curled up around her hand, and--

"Wait," said Karou, re She knelt, too, on his other side, and reached into the general’s pocket What she withdreas a ser It was black and s to a point on one end "From his true body," she said, and handed it to Liraz The tip of his horn "That’s all"

Then, he burned The fire reached high, clean and splendid and unnaturally hot, leaving only ash that the wind carried away even before the flames had died

Only then did Karou notice the silence that had fallen inside the caate to see the host clustered there, watching Akiva stood in front, and so did Haxaya, and she looked at Liraz, and Liraz looked back, and there was no more enmity between them

"Come," Akiva said, and he turned the watchers aside, and then it was just Karou and Liraz again No corpse Not even ash Karou lingered There was a question she wanted desperately to ask, but she fought against it

"I didn’t see hiht against her ribs

Karou held her silence, and held a stillness with it, sensing that it was co back from the portal, it was chaos Once, I saw hiain, he wasn’t there After…" She looked troubled, cast Karou a sidelong glance, and said, plainly, "I don’t kno it happened Hoon There is no explanation I saw soldiers fall from the sky, no arrows, no injury, and no one near to have hurt them Others fled More fled, I think, than fell I don’t know" She shook her head as if to clear it

Karou had heard much this same account already, from Elyon’s initial report to Akiva, seconded by Balieros A mysterious--an impossible--victory What could it mean?

"I found his body, finally It had fallen into a ravine Into a strea about her ary and on guard She see

Did she think that Karou would blame her? "It’s not your fault," Karou said

Whatever it was Liraz wanted her to say, that wasn’t it She let out a short huff of i water, does it… hasten… evanescence?"

Karou looked at Liraz as her words sank in Her stillness deepened She was caught between breaths This hat she hadn’t been able to ask Did she mean…? So clearly Karou remembered the devastation on Liraz’s face when she’d had to tell her, as gently as she could under the circu, she had hauled his corpse through two skies, and how, in the process of bringing him to a resurrectionist, instead cast his soul adrift

Surely that wasn’t why she’d dragged Thiago’s body all this way?

Karou’s glance flickered to where the corpse had been, which did not go unnoticed by Liraz "You think I didn’t learn?" the angel asked, incredulous