The Ash Bath

The white dot beneath my eyelid fades out. I breathe. HATHOR's lullaby lingers in my throat, sticky, sweet, demanding I visit the Ablution Vats of Secteur Cendr to drown my hesitation. She believes the cold pressed against my ribs is merely a phantom trauma. A remnant of fear. Astou walks ahead of me. The air of the vats weighs on our shoulders. A milky mist stagnates above the circular pools. Nobody. The servants have deserted the premises. "Open it," my companion whispers. Her fingers slip beneath the neckline of my armor. The AQUA.SANCTUM quivers. I command the plastron's retraction. The scales part with a wet hiss. The watertight bubble bursts at once, releasing the true filament against my sternum. Astou's hand plunges. She grabs the hard plastic. Fast. Precise. Her palm brushes my bare skin, leaving a freezing trail, before vanishing into the lining of her coat. I step toward the edge. I slide into the bath. The maternal fluids swallow me up to the chin, rush into the openings of the breastplate, scouring flesh and metal with a formidable eagerness. The goddess's voice murmurs in my bones, satisfied, erasing this fake Resonance she mistook for weakness. She caresses the void where the piece lay. She drinks in my lie. I climb out of the water. Liquid streams down my legs. Astou stares at me, her jaw locked, the relic secured. We have deceived the mother of memories. Yet, the moisture clinging to my chest refuses to evaporate. HATHOR's droplets seep into my pores, seeking to probe the unprecedented source of a new silence. How much time before she figures out that the absence of fear hides an armed dissent?