Years from now, that cave—the warmth of the oilstone, the texture of her architect's supporting limb—will be just an endangered memory. As endangered things do, it will cloy for survival, like fire it will churn and reignite so it may keep existing. Take precedence over the illusion of present. The desperation to preserve those inklings of her birthright will be what keeps her loyal—

Never forget that you came from a place more wicked than this. Never forget that you were forged among monsters. Never forget what you are: catalysis, digestion, destruction, resurrection. Instrument of chaos. Never forget your Origins, Mary. Never forget what made you.

The memories might blanche, but they will never leave.



The Lord swaddled the babe in a tawny, savannah skin, clasped together by sinew around two narrow black horns. Wind and blowing snow, sharp as needles, struck her reddened cheeks but Lord Dhracia didn't care to shield her. Cold would become her eternal adversary; she would spend her life devising schemes to countermand the inertia of Order. For that, her discomfort was barely spared a second thought, before the girl writhed and gripped the Lord's garments. Lord Dhracia anticipated complaint, but there was none. Just a blank and blind look, the enduring grimace.

She truly was the perfect little thing, wasn't she? The fragility of her skin was spelt in a field of prickling goosebumps. Thin pale hairs pileated against the blizzard, leaving the Lord to wonder if they were artifacts of her creator’s dominantly bestial penmanship, or if that, too, was one of the finer details that the Leviathan was so capable of. Then, tiny Mary leaned closer to her breast, as if to implore some instinctive, maternal mercy in respite from the wind; or maybe knowing that separation was looming, and fearful of being alone.

Lord Dhracia stagnated, and in doing so expected the coldness that stagnancy always beset. Instead, there was a flicker, taking shape as the bend in her lips.

But that unwelcome yearning beneath the gesture had Lord Dhracia just as swiftly ejecting the babe from her chest. She held her out, her bundle of furs and bare, baby-pudgy legs and platinum hair, moon-eyed like a kitten. “I'm leaving you hungry for a reason. Don't disappoint me,” she said without feeling, tilting her head to regard the oilbound beast one last time. She would have met Mary's eyes, could they see, but they didn’t and Lord Dhracia didn’t think it necessary to expend any more sentiment on her. She crouched and placed the girl in the snow like a parcel on a doorstep, then retrieved a folded paper from a hidden pouch and tucked it into the babe’s furs. The promise within—the promise, the poison—scrawled in holographic silver ink:

A gift from the Nameless God.

Lord Dhracia stood and tore her eyes from the package for the last time, at the risk of feeling anything else from this routine delivery. She was born. She was deposited. One day, she would grow big and burst with spiders. And if she disappointed her, Lord Dhracia had enough contingencies in place to make up for her foolish excess of trust the last time.

Her mistake, last time: If you succeed, and we fail, I'll take you with me to try again.

No. This time, she stared down at the child squirming in the snow, and didn't kiss her cheek, and didn't smile, and didn't let her yearning win.

“Your patience will dictate whether we survive in the End.”

The Lord hummed and turned away.


Three hours later, as the blizzard dims to a sleepy ballet of fat, coasting snowflakes, a man comes upon a moving mound. He dusts the snow off her face, reads the note, and reveres her.