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| - She wasn't as beautiful as he remembered. Shinsu felt a mild sting of embarrassment, that his first thoughts as he gazed upon the one he had sworn to love and return to after all this time were so purely aesthetic, but the shame amounted to little more than a forced rebuke. In his battered, weakened state, the niceties of censoring his thoughts was an unnecessary art that was simply beyond him. And besides, it was the truth. When he had last seen Cena 'Zandan in the flesh, she had struck him as the epitome of all the beauty that Sangheili females strove to embody in both art and their own supple figures. In that long ago time, nothing had escaped his gaze; not the graceful swish of her movements nor the subtle curves in her arched neck and pearly-grey arms. Now, clad as she was in the intricately patterned robes of a keep mistress, Cena was still beautiful, but it was a cold, distant kind of beautiful, as if he were seeing her from the other side of a thick, hazy window. It was a beauty that he could distantly recall associating with his mother, not the one who had once stoked so much passion within the depths of his hearts. The only thing that hadn't changed about her were her eyes. These were as clear and bright as ever, but their loveliness was muted by the pain that radiated from where it was locked, trapped, behind her shining yellow pupils. Shinsu took all of this in with the detached air of a disappointed craftsman looking upon a creation that he had once thought of as a masterpiece but now found sadly lacking. It was the only way he could take in the loss now, as he slumped against the arching back of a sculpted chair in the uttermost chambers of the Zandan keep. His body, garbed in little more than tattered rags, was covered with sores and wounds; every muscle in his body ached from days of ceaseless over-exertion. He was grateful for the pain. It kept his mind from fully registering the loss of feeling for Cena, merely the latest in an unending stream of losses that seemed to stretch back over the course of his entire life. A part of him found it all rather amusing. It was a part of him that, not long ago, would have recoiled from the utter shame of it all, but now saw little point to the pride it had once sheltered within his soul. "When Commander Zal reported that he had found you, I called him a liar," Cena said quietly. Her magnificent eyes traversed the chamber, flickering from one priceless family heirloom to another but never coming to rest on Shinsu himself. "I will have to apologize to him for that." Shinsu inclined his head, sending ripples of pain coursing down the gashes in his neck. "So you will," he managed to rasp, the words scraping across his throat like rocks. "My warriors have been searching every mile of our holdings ever since we learned of your escape," she continued, her voice remaining soft and low. "The army is out in full force looking for you." "I know." He had to force each syllable out from his mandibles, but he refused to let the pain rule him. "Why do you think I took so long in coming here?" "They are still searching. They don't know that you have been brought here." "Good." He leaned back in the chair, letting his muscles uncoil. "Very good." Cena did not speak again for some time, and Shinsu wondered if he had offended her by not bringing more news with him. It would never have been something to worry about before, but now, in the formal robes of the Zandan bloodline, Cena was a figure with rules about her, rules that had never been there before. He cast his gaze about the room. It had been here, not halfway across the chamber, that the Sons of the Preserving Blade had been born, forged by the oath never to rest until they had aided the Fallen in driving back the government forces and restoring the Sangheili to their former glory. It was here that he and Gin had knelt before Hij and Zura and been proclaimed commanders within the militia. It had been then that he had met Cena. He glanced at the spot where she had stood, watching as her brother and Hij welcomed him and Gin into the ranks. It had not been long after that that he had taken it upon himself to speak to her for the first time. She had her back to him now and was contemplating a small holographic display that rested on the carved desk at the head of the chamber. A masterpiece, she had once called the desk, one that had cost the keep dearly many generations previously. Back then her eyes had been filled with wicked play, amused that her ancestors would give so much for something so mundane. Now she ran a slender hand over the polished with all the reverence of a cleric handling a holy relic. "How," she asked after the long silence. "How did you escape? The details we have been receiving have been rather... lacking." Cena had gathered intelligence for the Blades as they fought alongside the Fallen, lowering herself to deal with mercenaries and spies in order to help them. Clearly her penchant for data collection was one thing that remained the same. But Shinsu hesitated before answering. There was still something innately wrong with how Cena was going about all this, something that went far beyond his altered feelings for her. The last time he had spoken with her, mere moments before the Blades' destruction, she had been desperate to know if he was safe, faithfully reporting everything she knew even as the enemy closed in around him. Now she was cold and distant, speaking as if dealing with some troublesome subordinate rather than a friend and lover. "My captors let their guard down," he said carefully. Walls had come up now, walls that he had never thought he would raise with her. But humiliation and torture had strengthened the barriers he had already pieced together from the fragments of his pain, and now it seemed not even the memory of Cena's faded warmth could pierce them. "I seized my chance and now... here I am." He didn't feel much pained by the new wall between himself and Cena. It was little more than regret, really. "I see." Cena was still not facing him. Her arms were clasped in the iron grip of a stiff military commander rather than the elegant poise of a keep mistress. Yes, there was something was wrong with everything here. Shinsu could feel it in every fiber of his aching body. And in spite of all the pain and barriers, a part of him still wanted to rise from the chair and cross over to Cena, to put his arms around her as he had done in the past. But it was a small part of him. A very small part. And he simply could not indulge it. Not after all that had happened. I do not love her anymore, that larger part realized dully. This revelation was nowhere near as painful as he might once have feared. It was simply one more thing to regret, and a trivial one at that considering everything else he had lost. But still that small part lashed back desperately: No, don't be a fool, this isn't the real you, you've come through so much, just give it time... Cena cast a glance over her shoulder at him, and for the briefest moment he saw that same struggle, that same tortured indecision, reflected in her own slit pupil. Then it was gone, gone like his own feelings, gone like his father, his family, his master, his comrades. All gone. "So tell me," she said. There was a firm resolve to her voice now, nothing like that sorrowful poise she had been putting on earlier. "What do you plan now?" He met her steely gaze with one of his own. "The same as it has always been. I will rebuild our followers and continue the fight." They were strong, noble words, but Shinsu's body didn't feel at all like rising to begin the revolution anew. Right now it seemed content to slump in the ornate chair and let everything seep away. This chamber had been where it all began. Perhaps it was a fitting place for it all to end as well. But the words were firm enough to convince her, because she nodded once. "I see," she murmured, her voice dropping back down to that of a more recognizable Cena. "I see." "The first thing to do will be to find Zura," Shinsu continued resolutely. That small part of him rose up in hope, hope that talk of her brother would rekindle the flame between them. "I know he is still out there. He might have others with him. While he and I live, the Preserving Blade continues to fight the fight." Cena turned to face him, and their eyes locked for a moment. But nothing passed between them, as it had so often in the past when they had traded gazes. Now Shinsu looked into a pair of eyes--still as beautiful as any gem--and found a resolve as hardened as his own. "Shinsu," Cena said, as if expelling the name from her body. "You will not find Zura, and he will not have other warriors with him." Shinsu blinked, stonewalled by her certainty. "What?" She shook her head. "Shinsu, they have him. They have Zura." "What are you talking about? Who has Zura?" "The enemy, you fool!" she snapped, her aristocratic composure slipping. "The loyalists, the government, whatever you want to call them, they have my brother!" For a moment, he couldn't think of anything to say. The information was worming its way through the barriers to the guarded parts of his mind, and until it reached them he could only stare at her, dumbfounded. He shook his head slowly. "Then he is still alive, and we will save him." He couldn't think of anything else to say. But Cena was already shaking her head. Her whole body was shaking, trembling, with rage or sorrow or fear or any combination of the three. "No, we will not. We cannot. They will hold him for as long as necessary in order to get to you. It has worked well for them so far." Shinsu stared at her. Finally, he asked the only question that seemed to have any purpose in being asked. "What do you mean by 'so far'?" Cena let out a small, shuddering gasp, of either pain or anger, Shinsu couldn't tell. When she spoke, she spoke slowly, as if each word hurt her to utter it. "They have had him since before they got to the rest of you. Ever since the massacre. They captured him in the forest nearby, as he lay injured there. Within days, they knew everything about our keep's support of your efforts. They would have arrested me, arrested every one of my retainers, taken away all of our holdings, everything our bloodline fought so hard to gain..." A terrible realization was dawning on Shinsu, but like all the other realizations it was muted by his own pain, both the one from the body and the endless, aching one from his mind. So this is how it all ends. But he maintained his composure. He did not snarl, he did not beg for it to be a lie. He simply looked Cena square in the eye and nodded slowly. "And that is why Hij met his end," he said calmly. The calm was not a lie; he felt as if a cold fist had clamped down on his hearts, rendering him unable to do anything but accept this newest madness the galaxy was foisting on him. "He charged right into the target you gave him, as we always did. Into the trap you had set for him." She looked away, flinching as if his languid response stung her. "I did what I had to do," she whispered. "For my keep. For my clan." "And that is why they found us immediately after I contacted you," Shinsu continued, deadpan. "Tell me, were their agents standing behind you as you begged to know if I was still alive?" "Don't!" she cried, unable to take his stoic acceptance any longer. "Do you think I wanted this? That I wanted any of it?" "None of that matters anymore," Shinsu said mildly. The walls were completely raised now. He would not let her break through to him. Not like this. "Hij is dead. The Preserving Blade is gone. They will most likely kill Zura when he is of no further use to them, and then you will be entirely at their mercy." He clicked his mandibles. "The only question that remains is a simple one: Why did you have me brought here instead of killing me outright?" Cena took a step forward, and Shinsu realized what was about to happen. After all, it had happened before, in another time, another place... "I will prove this keep's renewed loyalty to the Sangheili," she murmured, a line she had clearly repeated to herself many times before now. "You are here, Shinsu, and I must do what must be done." He nodded. "I see." She hesitated, her hand slipping inside the folds of her robe, and for a moment she was just Cena again and he was merely Shinsu. "You must hate me now." "I hate a great many things, Cena, and perhaps I will come to hate you in time. But right now, you are not one of them." She nodded, and then the moment passed. She was the mistress of the Zandan keep, honor bound to save her bloodline, and he was the Black Knight of Sanghelios, sworn enemy of the Vadams and their allies. "Then perhaps we will meet again, in the world after this." "Perhaps." And then the blade came out--a full-sized warrior's blade hidden within her robes. It flickered to life and she hesitated, as if surprised by the jolt as it activated. Then she lunged forward, the blade arcing towards the wounded figure slumped in the chair... And then it had buried itself in the now vacant back of the sculpted wood. In that last instant, Shinsu had twisted his body to the side, evading the blade entirely. His scraped and bleeding hand shot forwards, striking a pressure point just below the hand. With a cry, Cena instinctively released the blade and it tumbled into Shinsu's outstretched palm. There was no hesitation from him. In the next instant, he had cut her from neck to abdomen. Purple blood cascaded across his ragged chest, staining her intricate robes and dripping onto the carpeted floor. Cena fell backwards, slumping across the precious desk. She still had enough life in her to fix those beautiful eyes on Shinsu one last time. "Forgive me... Shinsu... my... light..." And then the light faded from those gems forever. Shinsu did not know how long he stood there, staring down at the corpse of the one he'd loved. He did not feel any more pain, just a little more regret. How strange. He felt completely empty, and yet there were no tears to be shed. He couldn't even bring himself to heap this latest crime on the pile of those he would one day make the Vadams answer for. It was merely a footnote, a final gasp in a life that was now truly over. Yes, there was only one path that was in front of him, and it was one that he could only walk alone. And it didn't matter how many Gins or Hijs or Zuras or Cenas who fell along the way. He would still tread the path in front of him. There was no other way to keep on living. He turned away from Cena's corpse and strode from the chamber without looking back.
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