The moment is long and dangerous. Endurance in one way will resign herself to a continuing rivalry. Her opposite will be here, right alongside her. And yet, having finally got the Didact all to herself, it is clear he has presented her with a great many quandaries. “You believe he could endanger Forerunners,” she says quietly.

“He will violate the Mantle, in order to seize it. Unless he is held back. Allowed to find himself again.”

I see it first in the way her gloved hands relax. Resigned, she says, “With your help, we will guard Requiem, Lifeshaper.”

She does indeed have the best interests of her commander at heart. But her resolve is not without flaw.

“A great warrior requires great enemies, Lifeshaper,” she says. “Will the future present us with worthy opponents?”

“Living Time is fraught with peril,” I say.

This seems to give her the answer she seeks. “Then so it shall be.”

“The transfer from my armor to yours, and from yours to the Requiem ancillas, won’t take more than a few seconds.”

“Give it to me, then,” she says.

We touch gloves.

The transfer is made.

Will she follow through? Has she played her own cards better than I have, just to get me off Requiem?

I have no way of knowing.

I may never know.

* * *

At last, I command the combat Cryptum to assemble. Rising on a stalk of light, the container begins to grow beneath the Didact, lifts him upright, forcibly expels the pallet. The Cryptum’s many sections expand and shape themselves into a great, fragmented sphere, into which the Didact is centered. The fragments then join. The last gaps flash with hard light, close in, seal off.

Finally, I can no longer see his face.

How I ache through mind and body! How I grieve for the husbands I have lost!

The Cryptum rises on the stalk of light and is concealed in the upper chamber, amid other similar shapes, to confuse whomever might disturb this place, however unlikely such visitors will be. The chamber fills with a deep booming and then a painful hiss.

“It is done,” I say. “Soon this world will sleep.”

Sentinels encourage me out of the chamber, back through the tortuous maze of corridors and ramps, across voids clouded by steam rising from roiling magma, vapors sucking and whirling into reclamation vents.

On a narrow span crossing the final shaft before I reach the lock, I sense something behind me, and turn to see a lone, quick machine unlike any I have seen before—moving behind us on delicate, stalking legs. The machine carries another machine on its back that briefly whickers like an insect spreading its wings … and then others suddenly appear, many others—all of them collecting along a long side corridor that reshapes and closes as I watch. I reach for the one closest to me.