The Dying Moon ( Feyd Rautha )

Chapter 29

Feyd Rautha bounced his head against the steps in the throne room. The Baron lifted his hand, an invisible tether grew from the palm and clasped itself onto Feyd's throat once more. The Baron weaved his fingers and sent Feyd to his back.

Blood trickled down Feyd's chin, out of his nose and ears. He spat a red line into the cracks and watched it puddle.

"I give you a planet," said the Baron, floating above his tub of charcoal and ink. "A title you don't deserve, an army and a general. You lose them all in a matter of weeks, maim your brother and offer me a message from the emperor in return."

Feyd ached to speak, not in his defense but rather a compilation of every disturbed thought that involved the Baron's death; what he would do given the opportunity to stand. A parable of how many holes he would leave in the mans chest, a symphony of bones cracking. He would weave it all with such grace if only his throat was not constricted.

The Baron ordered his mentat to reread the message. "The conditions of your hold on the homeworld of Grumman have been revoked. Empirical order has been placed on the Galicine army."

"And how exactly will they take them?" Rabban ordered, "They cannot land ships here!"

The Baron momentarily dropped the line on Feyd's throat to send one at Rabban. "The Emperor controls the Sardukar, you fool. They have the equipment to restructure the atmosphere and more than enough men to slaughter what few are left of us."

Feyd groaned and cracked his jaw. The spider loomed at the edge of the Baron's tub, wining and begging. Tethered to his uncle's palm or not, if the beast drove forward Feyd would find a way to pry it's limbs off.

"You will find a way to fix this," the Baron grunted, "Or I will watch with joy as you are flayed and paraded about the palace grounds."

Feyd made the mortal mistake of allowing his eyes to linger on the pet for moments too long. The baron whispered to the spider, and she crawled forward. It leaned over his ankles, lapping at the flesh as it cried. He felt the considerate sting as she tested a bite. Her human eyes peered up at him, wide and disgusting.

The Baron whispered again, and just as suddenly, she leapt for a Moritani soldier at the edges of the wall. The spider took him down with one swift movement, gurgles and pleasured nips echoing from the ceilings.

There was little certainty to be found in such trying times, but Feyd knew one fact above all. The Baron had to die very slowly.

-

Hawk waited outside of the main temple entrance, calcite on her back and blood in her mouth. Each cough produced more of the metallic taste until it flooded her olfactory system as well. The tinctures had stopped working in the previous days and Collette grew more adamant that the end was nye if something weren't done.

Hawk believed her on that front, if nothing else. The pain was revolutionary. Visions of the women became more prevalent, visits descended into elongated stays. They took stock in her peripheral and whispered for action.

Eidan marched through the hollow halls and came to stand before her. He wore the same expression that Sempir often did; pity.
"They're ready for you."

"Will she die?" Hawk asked, a whimper escaping her mouth as she shook to stand.

Eidan thrust a hand beneath her arms, but did not answer. It was reply enough. Hawk had expected as much, but it didn't ease the discomfort to hear it confirmed.

The Alicana leaned back on her cushion, lips sewn shut and eyes understanding. The gallery had all come to watch the death of a god, one that came for too soon after the last. Hawk dropped to her knees aside her and apologized with a hand to the woman's arm, gaze pleading and tears threatening to escape.

All things fall to dust, the words resounded in Hawks head, I am well past my time.

Collette, of course, was the driving force. She stood with her arms crossed, uncaring, devoid of consideration. She looked nothing like Eidan in the crimson light. A caricature of power that did not live it as her son did.

Hawk laid on the cushion and listened to the hum of the Alica, the beats of drums that fell like rain and soaked her in sorrow. The end of a life, an echo of centuries past that would cease to sustain an unworthy girl.

The pressure of a blade came down on her forearm but Hawk lacked the strength to look. She felt the insertion of a funnel like object into her vein and the contraction of her body failing. Any loss of blood at that point was akin to the dropping of a limb. It stung, it heaved, she bled and whimpered, but that was nothing new.

"It's over soon," Eidan said, taking to his knees and cupping her face.

There were no tear strains down his cheeks. She figured that the loss of their reverend mother was something to be met with cheer here, a religious offering, a rite for passage into the other world. They reveled and cried with joy, believing wholeheartedly that they would all be born again. A snake eating it's own tail, the span of life that circled unto eternity.

Hawk did not know religion, so it only felt awful.

"What if it doesn't work," Hawk whispered.

The mothers blood had begun to seep into her own veins. She could feel it attacking her cells on a minuscule level. The main symptom of taking ones blood that was not your own was a feeling of impending doom. Though, Hawk always felt on the precipice of disaster so it was impossible to tell if that were the current case.

"It will," Eidan cooed, hand to the back of her forehead. He spared a glance at Collette, who nodded.

The blood of the mother seeped in fast and with a vendetta. It strung itself to her arteries, pumping a heart that had poised to fail any minute. Whispers harkened inside of Hawk's head, a foreign tongue, one she only suddenly found intelligible. Hawk was so devoid of life fluid that every drop fell like springs in a barren desert. Her body, a vessel lay scattered and broken now filled to the brim.

Hawk closed her eyes as a flurry of light attacked her irises. Blinding, ethereal and tinged with the comfort of a maternal embrace. When she opened them, the source stood above her. The Alicana, or a vision of her, young and growing more youthful by the second. She floated down the dais and placed her hands on each of the followers.

"What are you looking at?" Eidan asked, following her gaze.

"She doesn't hate me for killing her," Hawk whispered.

"No," Eidan smiled, "That's not something you should worry about."

Hawk began to cough again as Sempir plucked the funnel from her arm. A trail of blood crawled out of her mouth and Eidan wiped it away with the back of his finger. She was carefully stitched up, every thread of the needle an artists rendition of forgiveness.

-

A woman with white hair and a smudge over her left eye walked barefoot through the white halls of the Galicine post. A smile planted firmly to her face, a hand planted gingerly to her flat stomach. She beamed through an open door, into the arms of Mikel Tarrat.

He appeared young, standing there in his scaled uniform and swept back hair. The son of no one, the grandson of nothing, yet commanding power with only a sharpened jaw.

"It's a girl," the woman said, "Hawk is her name, she told me in a dream."

"You dream of much," Mikel said, taking to his knees and planting his forehead to her waist.

"She has to stay with you," she said. "There is no life on Gamont for her. You understand this? You cannot let her out of your sight."

Mikel lifted his eyes, pale and considering, "We have no heirs here, but she will learn to fight for all that could be desired."

"Will she be loved by your people?"

Mikel closed his eyes, hand dropping from her bodice, "What is love when one could be feared?"