It came for her on the third day, when Raksha had begun to lose hope. Her wrists chafed against the crude rope the Fallen had used to tie her to the post. She sweated from the heat of the Venusian jungle, and her lips were cracked from dehydration. Such had it been for the last two days, ever since she had been shot from the sky during a low-altitude recon. The lizard landed right in the doorway of the desiccated Golden Age dwelling the Fallen had occupied. It was one of those flying carrion feeders she sometimes saw fishing the Ishtar coast. She was delirious with thirst, and at first she thought she might be hallucinating. It shimmered and shifted in the blinding light, and its eyes seemed to glow. It looked hungry. Profoundly so. Well, if it thought she was its next carrion meal, it was in for a surprise, because she’s saved her last bit of light for a solar flare that would give those vandals the surprise of their lives when they returned to have more fun with her. But if she had to use it to save herself from an ignoble death by a dumb beast, she’d settle for that. It didn’t approach, though. Its head swiveled a few times, taking her in from different angles. Sizing her up. “See something you like?” she rasped. The lizard went still, its eyes gleaming with some primordial fire. Something in the lizard’s gaze made her flesh crawl. She knew she was slipping, but it almost felt like it understood the question. Then it beat its wings a few times, and was gone. A few hours later, Raksha’s fevered death-dream was interrupted by the hooting return of her tormentors. The tramped through the door and jumped about her, laughing with their adolescent bloodlust. They jeered at her in their pseudo-demonic tongue, and then they gave her water. In her pride, she would choose death over their satisfaction, but her body betrayed her. Even as she willed herself not to her throat gulped the warm, foul-tasting water they poured over her head. They screeched and chortled when she disgorged the first helping, then they poured more on her. Then they resumed their fun. Every hurt, every humiliation of their childish, monstrous tortures only steeled her resolve. They spat questions in their ugly, barbed tongue, but Raksha didn’t know it and couldn’t answer if she wanted. They probably knew she couldn’t. They probably didn’t care. She thought about burning them. She thought of little else. She thought about pouring the last of her light into her own little self-made Viking funeral, but she wasn’t ready to die. She didn’t want to bring them down with her. She wanted to win. Sometime later, they left as quickly as they’d come, and Raksha was alone in darkness and silence. The shadowy interior of the ruined shelter lurched around her, whether from the foul water, her starvation, or her encroaching death, she was not sure. They had fed her nothing since her capture. They did not seem to understand human gastronomy. On the first day they had tried to feed her rocks for a good hour before going back to clubbing her. Then again, that was probably for their amusement as well. The lizard came again. It could have been minutes after the Fallen left, it could have been hours. At the sound of beating wings, Raksha rolled her head to the side so she could see her visitor. She noted it was not yet dawn. The thing was appraising her again. Its long neck twisted so it could look at her alternatively with its left and right eyes. It definitely saw something it liked. The first time it spoke, Raksha thought it was the rustling of leaves in the wind. “Are you hungry?” it repeated. With great effort, she lifted her head to stare at the thing in amazement. Her vision continued to swim. “Did you just talk?” she meant to ask, but it came out as a wheeze and a click. “No,” it said, “I asked if you are hungry.” Its mouth didn’t move when it spoke. Raksha didn’t know if she was speaking to death or her madness or a very intelligent lizard with a mothering instinct that transcended species. “Yes,” she found herself saying. “Then food will come,” said the lizard. Raksha’s head lolled. She felt so weak. She heard wings and when she looked again, the lizard was gone. In the morning she awoke to a single Vandal entering her prison. It was the first time one had come alone. She braced herself for what was to come, but the Vandal was in no hurry to resume the fun. It loped around the building, turning things over and glancing at the broken shelves and cupboardry. The pretense seemed to be a search, but to Raksha it almost seemed confused, like it didn’t know what it was looking for. Eventually it wandered in front of her and its confusion turned on her to a contemptuous glare. It stayed there for a minute, then it raised his hand, perhaps to strike her, perhaps to kill her, Raksha would never know, because just then her hand, white hot with solar power, bore through the moldy ropes binding her and fell on his forehead, and like a brazier of fuel, she filled his vessel with fire. His screams were short-lived, and before long it had crumpled to a smoking heap on the floor, and Raksha was on her hands and knees over it, shuddering in pain and the ecstasy of vengeance. She breathed in and her lungs cringed at the hideous smell of scorched Fallen, but then the odor began to change. “Feast,” came a voice from nowhere. The stench became an aroma, and Raksha experienced a sort of revelation. The perfection of roasted flesh, the ambrosia of a body burnt black. Her fingers seized into the vandal’s fire-heated armor and tore it apart, and she sank her teeth into its chest. Through the openings in the trees, Raksha could see the vandal pack dancing the light of the night’s bonfire. They seemed almost drunk on the ether they had feasted on. The danced in wild gyrations and sang in ululating wails, whilst their servitor watched in uncanny ambivalence. She wiped at her mouth again. Her cheeks were still covered in char and blood from her feast, but somehow her hunger had never lessened. She was stronger than she had been in days, but not enough to handle the pack. Yet her hatred smoldered. She felt a familiar concussion of air, and turned to see the lizard. Its features seemed changed, somehow. It was more familiar to her. More human, even. Its eyes were filled with hope and promise, its lines of tiny dagger teeth the smile of an old friend. “You look ravishing, o child of mine,” it spoke in its windless whisper. “Have you regained your strength?” Raksha stared in wonder at her strange new companion, then turned her eyes back to the devils’ revel. “Not enough,” she said. “Oh, what is enough, child of mine?” It seemed rhetorical, but the lizard did not elaborate. Raksha frowned, unaware of her bared teeth. “Their deaths would be enough.” “Would it?” spoke the lizard. “Vengeance is a ravening mistress. She sees only her next meal, and does not dwell upon the last.” “And you know much of vengeance?” she spat. “I know much of much, child of mine. Vengeance is a horse that does not stop running, you see. It is a fire for which burning is the only fuel.” Anger flared in Raksha, and heat surged from her inner fire involuntarily until the leaves beneath her hands wilted in protest. The lizard seemed unperturbed. “You know much of fire?” she growled. The lizard crawled smoothly underneath her, its long neck craning upward until its head was inches from her face, staring into her with its slitted eye. “I know of fire’s jealous and ceaseless heart, o child of mine. If you like, I can take you to meet it.” Its claw grasped her arm gently and it raised itself, its neck coiling around her own until they were both looking down at the blazing bonfire. Raksha felt her hunger welling. “If you have enough fire,” whispered the lizard, “you can have whatever you want. Your horse will never stop running.” The vandals’ dance was reaching a maddened pitch, they waved their arms in unison in some vile ritual of worship. A rope of saliva fell from Raksha’s lips. “You need only come,” whispered the lizard, “a little farther with me…” Raamun marched briskly down the Tower’s infirmary corridor. It had been weeks since he had been called for Warlock’s counsel on a patient. Apparently this one stank of strange magic, and it sounded urgent. When Raamun entered the emergency treatment room, he found himself unprepared for what he was seeing. Captain Morrows was far from the smallest Titan officer, and he was struggling to hold down a feral-looking human female. The patient looked like she had been mauled by a tiger. Her armor was in tatters, so much so that she was not entirely clothed. Her feet were bare. She was covered in dried blood. At first Raamun thought it was hers, but the telltale stench gave away that it was Fallen blood. Doctor Sanris stood with veiled discomfort, attempting to take down basic diagnostics from the patient. The most unsettling part, however, was the demeanor of the patient. She was not angry or defiant, she was exultant. She wore a mask of almost spiritual wonder, and she spouted an endless stream of words that lay between evangelism and prophecy. “—a glorious cascade of living, breathing death,” she cried, “from the rays of the sun to the light of a candle—“ After recovering, Raamun put it down under delusions of grandeur, and decided the patient was simply mad, not ensorcelled. Still, he couldn’t just stand by and watch, so he strode over and tried to assist Captain Morrows by holding the patient’s legs down. “I believe she got lost on the way to the sanitarium,” said Raamun between grunts. He had to be loud to speak over the patient. Dr. Sanris frowned, but did not stop her ministrations. “Give her a good long look, professor,” she had to half-yell. “You’ll see it. She brought something back with her.”