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He half expected her to smile at his commentary It was the sort of quiet, cerebral humor that the fury seemed to appreciate She did not respond

"You'll help us?" he asked

She inclined her head slowly "Of course"

Tavi stepped closer to her abruptly, reached down to her folded hands, and lifted them His heart went up into his throat as he did The fury before hi of almost unthinkable power If she took exception to his actions

But she only stood there regarding him with a calertips

They looked ragged, the material of them frayed, somehow, chewed Tavi had once seen the bodies of soldiers who had fallen into a river during a battle The men had drowned, and their remains had not been recovered for more than a day The fish and other creatures of the river had been at the off tiny bits of flesh The wounds had not bled They had rerey, as if the bodies had soers looked like that - like a wax sculpture an industriousupon

"What is this?" he asked her quietly

"Inevitability," the fury replied "Dissolution"

He frowned for asunk in a few seconds later He looked up at her, and whispered, "You're dying"

Alera gave him a very calm, very war," she replied "But I suppose that from your perspective it does share certain superficial similarities"

"I don't understand," Tavi said

Alera considered her hands in his for a th of her body, and said, "Know you how this form came to be? Why it is that I speak to your faave hilance "But you have conjectured"

Tavi inclined his head to her "I hypothesized that it had so to do with the mural in the First Lord's"The ht there froinal Gaius Primus was able to co hilimpses of places far away, and to do his will" She pursed her lips "That hen I first began to become aware of myself, as a discrete entity Over Prieal, I suppose, would be the best word for it He sensed my presence and, in time, I understood how to speak with him and how to manifest a material form" She smiled, her eyes distant "The first words I re with one h

She smiled at him "The mosaic was the focus upon which this form was predicated It hat drew thousands upon thousands of furies with no individual identity into so more" She put a hand flat to her own chest "Into Alera"

"And when randfather destroyed Alera Imperia, the mosaic was destroyed with it," Tavi said

"Unavoidable, from Sextus's perspective Had it remained intact, the vord Queen would have possessed it She would almost certainly have understood what it ht even have succeeded"

"And that's why the First Lords never spoke of you to anyone," Tavi said quietly "Why there's not a word of you in any of the histories"