Shetesh stood just behind the Diviness Hava, the two of them inversions of the many stalactites hanging threateningly above them. The holy river that ran through the cavern below was aflame. The particulates in the smoke cast staticky shadows on the rough golden walls.
“What does it mean?” Hava asked her attendant.
Shetesh grinned and ran her tongue between her teeth and her lower lip. “The Goddesses have rejected you.” She laughed a heartless anticipatory laugh, a sound like the birth of a demon.
“No,” said Hava, the word dissolving in the pit below. “I’ve done all that was asked of me.” She turned her back to the ledge and found Shetesh’s crazed face much closer than she’d anticipated. On it she wore a look of purest bloodlust.
Shetesh produced two hand-length daggers from the folds of her robe. “I am to be the Diviness,” she said. She took a step forward and waved the blades though the air with the precise grace known only by the Knife Dancers. “I,” she exclaimed, “who have been at your side for every lesson taught, who strode through every trial and propped you as you fumbled without vision.”
Hava stood tall, willing herself to become a statue of defiance. Shetesh plunged the daggers simultaneously into Hava’s torso, burrowing up behind her floating ribs. She licked her teeth again, but Hava grabbed her wrists and pulled the blades deeper with a supernatural strength. Hava leaned backwards until she tipped.
Together they fell into the burning river, and once they were smoke and ash, the fire extinguished itself, witnessed only by the Goddesses, their will achieved.
Warmup Pages 