“It was an eradication effort.” Colonel Skomantis’ voice was hushed as he leaned near to me, gripping my arm. “We have to get you out of here.”

I didn’t understand. I was still groggy as we made our way from the transport ship through the corridors of the capital ship. My near burn through had made my head a fog, and only what was nearest and most bright made its way to my consciousness.

The Colonel shook me, “Daria!”

My real name hit me like a lightning shock running from my belly straight up my spine to the crown of my head. I stood tall and gaped at the Colonel. “What?”

He let go my arm but leaned in still closer, “We will get you to your father. We’ve prepared an escape.” He glanced back and then began to walk.

“Desertion?” My mind was scrambling to catch up to what was happening as the older man guided me away from the larger mass of troops returning from the raid on earth. “I can’t. You’re mad.”

My feet seemed to follow him of their own accord, without my consciously willing them to. I felt the hint of a pull, and my eyes crossed as I tried to resist it. “Don’t use the power, not for this!”

The Colonel stopped and looked back, his face grave and filled with worry. He shook himself, “I didn’t even realize.” He turned and beckoned me to follow. The tug of his coordinator’s power did not relent, but it seemed somehow gentler. I could have resisted it. On the battlefield there was always the temptation to do so, to fight, to go my own way. Our stories are riddled with those who did and were destroyed. A stray bolt, clipping a voidzone, even simple falls. Here we were not in battle, and the pull was so very gentle, so calm, and yet I had never felt such a strong impulse to disobey that pull combined with a greater sense that it must be followed.

I stood stock still for a few of his paces, each one stretching the distance between us, and each making the tug tauter, like a rubber band stretching out. He looked back, worry plain on his face, before he spoke, “Please, Daria. You are more than we. I’ve fought their wars, but this I cannot stomach. This I cannot allow. Please.”

“Explain!” My voice cracked like a whip, but he turned as a group of luminary soldiers rounded a corner of the corridor carrying their weapons.

Fear like a battlefield filled me. The Colonel stepped between us, and I felt the power push me away, guiding into a distant corridor. A split second of hesitation was enough for me to see the soldiers raise their weapons and fire on Colonel Skomantis.

He was only a pace away, and the bolt struck him and carved and canyon through his chest. I screamed and the power burst from me, stitching the man together in a fraction of a moment.

My whole body seemed transported to another world, soft grass played between the toes of my bare feet. A soft sun hung overhead and seemed almost to smile. Its flame burned in multicolored radiance and danced around me. My hair blew in a soft breeze around my face, and all felt peaceful. Something touched me on the shoulder, and I turned to look. Everything snapped back into place, my boots, the corridor, the freshly healed Colonel’s eyes boring into me. I heard his voice in my head as clear as the clarion call of trumpets at the end of days, Go!

The sound of another pulse blast chased me as my feet pounded the metal corridors, sprinting as fast as they could carry in the direction the power led. My legs felt like faulty pillars beneath me, ever ready to collapse. The power guided me through the connection, and I could feel his agony along with a surge of brilliant purpose. The image of my path was clear as the noonday sky above the crimson sanctum. It was as if I were removed from my body and raised above a vast 3^rd person view of the whole capital ship. I knew every step, every jitter, every guard, every tiniest fraction of a change.

I ducked through a gap in ducts that were under repair and made my way to a small loading bay for supplies where a small ship had been abandoned. I arrived and found waiting for me one who I always knew would be present.

“My Daria!” My father’s embrace encompassed me, and I melted into his arms for a brief, but precious eternal moment. The scent of him filled me with memories of kinder days. I wept but was soon jarred as he gently pulled me away from him.

“My love, my daughter of delight. There is no time.”

I clawed back toward him, hugging him tighter feeling so little strength in me. He carried me to the ship. I vaguely heard shouts and orders in the surrounding corridors. He set me in the pilot’s seat and strapped me in as if I were a child, my mind still foggy from the run and the use of the power so soon after my near burn through. I was on the edge of consciousness.

“Baba, I love you.” I muttered it, and felt as though I really were a little girl again. Out the front of the bay, the containment shield that led out into the deep darkness of star-strewn space flickered.

My father brushed my hair out of my face and leaned in to kiss me on the forehead.  The words he spoke to me are mine alone. I will carry them in this heart for all the days of my being and into the undying worlds.

More shouts outside the ship and a strong tug of the coordinator’s power accompanied the sudden flash of my father from my side. His face burned into my vision with a broad smile wreathed in the power, and I closed my eyes but found the echo of him even there in the twilight of my eyelids. I felt the ship’s engine roar into life beneath me. At the time I did not quite understand. I swam through the wake of roaring power and was tugged by undertows of confusion.

I know now what happened. Cameras surround the ships, and through the logs I witnessed his combat with the swarms of luminary soldiers seeking to stop my departure. At the time I was flowing in and out of consciousness, but looking back I realize just how near a thing it was, how close to capture.

Colonel Skomantis and my father were taken into custody by the luminaries, but I escaped and my ship made its way, pulled along the threads of power, to an enclave of my brethren on a world I will not name but with a leader who you may know.  

Arianas Meffin received me. He did not tell me how he had escaped the luminaries after our brief encounter, after his rebirth in fire. He was full of uncanny happiness, though, all the years of his age seemed erased and his old severity gave way to an easy joy.

He told me of what had happened. It had taken some weeks for me to reach them, though to me it had only been a day or so. It was not mere few of the deathslayers, but none who had survived the raid on earth. None but myself. The Colonel’s words stung me, “eradication effort.” Why then? Why not before or after? The transition from warriors of the luminaries great war to sudden outcasts and criminals is still not entirely clear.

I have heard stories of my father, captured and sent into deep space. I have heard others of the Colonel, driven mad and beyond his own memory, a fragment of what he once was but still speaking of the glories of the True Flame.

As for me, for Sof? She is dead. She never lived. I am Daria Severin, first and last of the deathslayers. Though not the last in truth, for no flame ever says enough, and this power is not for me alone. We few who remain of the sons and daughters send out a call, for all those of the remnant to rise and to gather wherever you can – to seek one another’s good and live – to draw others to the flame. The luminaries may continue the hunt, may pursue us to the very edge of the universe, but the true flame will not relent. Their lightless kingdom cannot last forever.