The skink star-priest held a dagger to Sorrah Nikos’ throat. It shone with a thousand pricks of starlight.
“Do it, you cold-blooded excuse for a soul,” she spat out at the creature, “it’ll be the last thing you do, and I’ll rise again regardless. You couldn’t even dream of the power I’ve earned. Do it. Do it.”
The skink hesitated – just as the knife had begun to impact her warm skin. They cared not if they perished here, but returning to stardust for no purpose at all seemed, at the very least, wasteful. The great plan intended more of this meeting. The master of the Silver Tower might have gifted her with something…
They motioned with their tail towards the chameleons that stood within the room, if they needed to take longer than necessary, they’d prefer she not know they were stalling. Search. Find. Magic.
“I may be cold-blooded,” they returned to the human, “but at least a star shines within my heart. You’re warm blood hides the cold heart hidden within.”
Nothing from the searching skinks.
Banging from the chamber’s doors – those held shut by two massive kroxigors.
“We know why you’ve turned against your own kind. Where your warbands have been sent. In search of the amber blood. We could give you what you seek…”
The human’s eyes flickered. Searching their crystal-impacted face for insight into their thoughts. And then to a machine behind them to the left. Their tail flickered in that direction, and a lizard immediately started to pull the machine apart.
This clearly agitated her. “So what? You’d never have enough for my plans. And you,” she directed towards the searching skink, “it’s within the glowing ocher sphere. Take whatever you’d like, it’s not as if you’re leaving here alive.”
“You have no idea how much we have. And you have no idea what we request. Surely someone of your… intellect would be not be so foolish as to at least acquire more information?”
The sphere exploded, turning the skink holding it into a thousand black moths that attacked each other in a frenzy of anger and fear.
The door to the chamber banged louder, some sort of breaching item had been found.
“Fine, so we both die here human. But if you do ‘rise again’, as you say, know that we’ll retrieve what we need before you beat them at their own game, know that – ”
Another flicker. Another scowl.
“Ah…” they hissed, “you do not know, entirely, of the foe that you race against? No matter, you will know soon enough. Your mortal brain will fold into the dark like the rest. And then we will have our artefacts, and you will be dead. Replaced. And eventually forgotten. While we sail the stars again.”
The door melted into a magenta-hued crystalline structure. The kroxigors growled.
They drew the knife across her throat, whilst a hidden, foul, dagger plunged into their side. Both warm and cold blood poured together over the flagstones as the door exploded into a thousand fragments of amethyst glitter.
