Mara calls a caucus of elected representatives in the Sacred Fire, one of the largest hulks in the reef of derelicts. The Fire was built to support habitat construction on 4 Vesta, where Mara hopes to one day anchor the entire flotilla and set down r ...
"It's bad," Sjur Eido says, confirming what Mara already knows, but nonetheless performing the valuable service of mopping away all the blood and tears and allowing Mara to glimpse the actual shape of the wound that divides her people. Not a literal ...
Of all the disasters that might happen in space, riot is the worst. Breaches can be contained, fires can be starved, plague can be quarantined, radiation shielded, heat vented—but a riot has a will of its own: a chaotic ingenuity that corrodes any co ...
Thus the riven Awoken were riven again, into Reefborn and Earthborn. Those who left went to scour the ruins for lost history and give some succor to their Human cousins who still clung to a hostile world. The Awoken came unto these Humans like nephil ...
Mara made one more attempt, and only one, to call her scattered people home. She had hoped the assault would convince them they had a responsibility to the Reef, to come home and repair the damage they had caused. It went poorly, however, for though ...
It was Mara alone who established a covenant with that young Ahamkara, which chose the use-name Riven, in honor of its host. It was Mara alone whose singular will and unity of purpose saved the Awoken from that which we now name the Anthem Anatheme. ...
Mara's death began in this mark:
X
Later would come Eris Morn, Osiris, Toland, and all the other accessories of the majestic suicide. Later would come the Reef's tentative entanglements with Vex and Cabal, Fallen and Hive, and the fateful decision ...
Ten times and once more Mara asked the Oracle Engine to show her the sword that was death and the way it would appear. Ten times and once more the Oracle Engine showed Mara an image of her family.
First it showed her Sjur Eido, laughing and bright w ...
Mara and Sjur Eido go out into space and kick off the hull, wearing Corsair skin-pressure suits and slim tethers. The stars circle them like hard-focus candles, like the diadems of a trillion dancers. Sjur Eido pulls herself close and touches helmets ...
Later. Much later. It is the night before the day of screams. Mara meditates cross-legged in a cradle of null gravity. Variks has told her more than once how the Fallen speak of the Awoken as sterile, unable to regrow their flesh, cursed to bear thei ...
She closes her eyes. Oryx's throne world smashes through her fleet, the bubble of everted screamspace pulverizing rock, metal, and flesh as mere matter surrenders to the will-made-fact of the Taken King. Somewhere, Uldren roars defiance. This is the ...
"I see. And our Wolfships?"
"All destroyed but the Kaliks-Syn, and she is badly wounded. Burning for Pallas now."
"Galliots?"
"Those that remained at the Outpost are still in good condition for now. And we have some still in reserve at Pallas."
" ...
In the bomb-walled passages of the place called Processes and Services, the screams have stopped.
"I've never heard it quiet before," Lissyl whispers. "Are they gone?"
But she knows, as Portia and Nascia know, as Illyn herself knows, that the Taken ...
"Lightning!" Koro yells, waking Tellia Ros from an uneasy sleep. "It's lightning! At last! At last!" He has gone out in a cloak and a rebreather to dance in joy.
White light flashes through the film of Koro's plastic hovel. Tellia thinks of arc gren ...
Petra has her welcome for Zavala all planned out. He will say something stentorian which, while it is technically a greeting, Petra will also read as reproach, or condescension, or perhaps paternal concern. Petra will smirk at Zavala like she really ...
They lock onto his ship so far out that he actually grunts aloud in shock—but they have seen stealth tech in action before, among the Fallen and against Oryx, so he should not be surprised.
The message comes. "State your business, or be fired upon b ...
Dear Master Ives,
I write to you on behalf of the Cryptarchs of Earth in sympathy for all those who died in service to your Queen. We Earthborn feel your loss and hope this tragedy will usher in a new era. We have made great strides in unraveling a ...
Zavala lowers his brow to the Ionian earth. It feels like the respectful thing to do. There's a big coiled ammonite fossil right under the thin topsoil, though, and he knocks his forehead on it. The pain and the blowing sulfur dust make him sneeze.
...
Spider's lair. Petra in her element, light-footed, light of thought. She keeps herself open to the place. Heat of packed bodies and machinery, bite of Ether in the air. Money and the promise of money and the things money can make people do. Knives. P ...
Asher Mir stands looking at himself in a mirror. He is shirtless. With the hand that still feels, he reaches to the shoulder that doesn't feel. He taps his fingernails against the rigid metal there, then taps his way to his clavicle. The boundary bet ...
As I have made it my life's work to seek as much truth as history can offer, I chronicle these dreams in hope that my subjective understanding might provide some path to truth for others:
INFINITE SADNESS: I stand at the bow of a ship, crying as the ...
Dinna twists the emergency transponder until the circuit closes. And for the second time in her life, she feels the crackle of the beacon as it burns itself out, blasting its life into a single radio howl: PSARA PSARA PSARA
It means that the Queen's ...
the clever one sees through our pawn
'I am not your pawn. My will is my own. Though… perhaps not my actions, of late.'
P A W N S H A V E M A N Y U S E S
'More than you know.'
Her plan was multi-armed. Strong.
'You will never see her coming. Mara ...
Legend
