A se of the rger crowd blog a street parted as several vans drove by. Janine narrowed her eyes upon notig that it wasn’t a sporadic event; whoever was in charge ehat no one would actally ended up uhe wheels. A group of Orais, seemingly by act, pushed people out of the way of the protesters.

  The protesters who drove and marched on the road carried signs: ‘Stop needless wars!’ and ‘Bring our children home!’. A rotten fruit spttered on Camelia’s battle pte. The woman ighe defat of the precious relic, examining the demonstrators as if they were annoying gnats, while the police closed in on them. Several New Breeds, including a six-armed Malformed, formed a line, not using their cws, bdes, or muscles against the w enforcers, but her did they let them approach a speaker on the leading van.

  No. Janine ched her fangs, sensing Ravager’s aimless focus on the people. The Wolf Tribe could instinctively feel their mother’s emotions when she was close. When she was in anguish, violent turmoil engulfed the tribe, and artisans of the Order produced the most horrific paintings. When the Blessed Mother paid attention to a domination match, it often ended ih. When she was angry, the tribe sallied out, destroying everything in their path.

  “They call themselves monsters!” A tall, tanned man stood atop the van and shouted into a microphone. Reporters captured his face, allowing the man to appear on street dispys. “And I’m forced to agree! These glory-seeking, war-m parasites speak of peace, but decade after decade, our nation’s resources are drained into war so that fiends like Ravager parade their triumphs before us and bask in the gold stolen from the crushed nds! Does it seem just to anyone?!” He gnced around, and as the police brandished maces and tasers, he hurried. “See how they try to silence us, afraid of the truth! Why is there still no free healthcare ier Lands? Why must our brave boys and girls sacrifice their lives in distant nds while our own remains underdeveloped? Every year the gover lures young people to join the army and they e back shell-shocked, traumatized, missing limbs or not at all. Is this a fair exge? Do we not have problems at home? Imagine if ut our efforts into civilian industry instead of building these behemoths!” He poi the crawler. “Other tries would have joined us on their own! Our citizens starve and die from thirst, while these creatures…”

  “You dare?” Ravager’s voice silehe man, and he suddenly found himself in her shadow. Janine was shocked. She could bet her life that no one, not even their cousins, had seen the Blessed Mother move and nd with the grace of a falliher.

  Her arms swung to block the tasers, ign the electric currents that disappeared in her body. Her fiook on the poli’s maces. She didn’t strike at them, but the reverberation from fag impregnable objects in their path nearly caused the cops to lose their maces. A growl stopped Zero and Camelia from advang.

  “You misstrue our deeds and seek fws instead of h the necessary sacrifices.” Ravager’s voice vacilted between calm and fury; her pupils shrank and dited, and blood spurted from her here are true monsters lurking behind the walls. Flo! Ravines of Desotion! Crimson Citadel! Houstad Itself! Remember them well!” Her trembling finger poio a family in the crowd. “I smell it, even after geions. Your aors were chemically marked, correct?”

  “Yes, Lady Ravager,” answered a pale man, standing ahead of a snow-white little girl and a tanned woman. “My grandparents underwent a procedure that caused letters of ownership to appear on their children’s bodies and made them more susceptible to servitude. It ended with my father.”

  “It didn’t. It permeates you and your daughter to a lesser degree, but no longer affects the psyche,” Ravager told him, aking her eyes off the orator. “The men who did it to his aors kept sves in cages. Wheime came, they gave an order, and the poor souls walked to a sughterhouse of their own volition, oer another.” Her fur rose and drool spilled onto the man’s face. “How would you stop a filth like that? Do you think they listeo your words? Do you think they will be awed and humbled by your wealth? They’ll raid to cim those riches! We murder, so you didn’t have to! You named us parasites, but we are a barbarian horde that protects and avehe helpless! We sughter so that people may live! So that you may know pead happiness! Our armies quer to free others from the horrors of servitude, from the terror of beien alive! We bleed and die to protect you! We are the breakers, the monster syers, and you dare to call us creatures, you ignorant, petunt child…”

  “Does culling us protect us, monster?” A calm voiquired.

  Ravager froze and turo fa elderly woman, who held up a sign and used a e to walk around. Ach ced over her left eye. She tossed the sign aside and hobbled over ter, who she air.

  “I remember, I remember, must remember.” More blood spurted from her nostrils. The Blessed Mother shook and slid her own cws uhe skin of her temple. “During the subjugation of Mi, right?” she asked, as if nothing had happened.

  Mi. Jaensed. A quest that happened decades ago. A brutal mutant held nearly half a million people in his thrall, trolling their bodies with his mind. When diplomats of the Recmation Army delivered the ultimatum, he ughed and made them skin themselves alive before the Dynast’s eyes. Even the Wolfkins weren’t safe, and several of them stepped into the tyrant’s mind trol zone and became his willing sves.

  The Dynast then unleashed the Blessed Mother. And the kingdom didn’t even st an hour.

  “Yes.” The at at Ravager. “He trolled us like puppets, our limbs moved against our will; we toiled and dao his amusement, screaming inside. Men and women breed for him, birthing fresh sves. More died building statues in his honor. And thehrew us at you. We could never have harmed you.” The woman raised a trembling fist. “Did yhis, beast? I cracked my knuckles against your hide as you devoured my entire family! I remember your mad ughter and giggles to this day; the crimson sand haunts my dreams. And the stench!”

  “I am sorry,” Ravager said. She didn’t move; she did nothing when a e struck her leg.

  “What good to me your apologies!” The woman shrieked; her feeble voiehow rose to a tornado. “Ravines of Desotion? You demand us to remember them? You remember them! Over forty thousand lives you ehat day—more than Mi killed in a month! What sin, what unfivable crime did they it to perish in your cws? You want fiveness? Give me back my family!”

  “Why is the Blessed Mother tolerating it?” Janine growled. “Why does she allow these unjust accusations to be piled at her feet?”

  “Jani, don’t do anything reckless.” Martyshkina took her by the shoulders, f her friend to stay where she was. “This is the progenitor’s will…”

  “Screw the progenitor’s will!” Eled roared.

  The warlord pushed from the crowd. Predaig tried to grab her arm, and Eled struck, breaking her fingers. Eled breathed hard; a red gleam danced in her new amber eyes. The Blessed Mother’s mood dawned on them; it demanded submission and silence, but the raging fury in Eled’s soul took over, and she jumped from the crawler, the crete exploding uhe weight of her body, sending a web of cracks in every dire.

  “Bullshit!” She roared to the sky and advaoward the woman, snarling at Ravager’s gaze. “People died. My dolences. Death happens in war. You dare call the Blessed Mother a monster? After Mi’s death, we had a huhousand sves who asted freedom. Children who never had a ce to grow up and live, trapped in adult bodies. Was it your wish to see them ensved until their st day? Do you know how to prosecute a war so that no i soul dies?”

  “ander Ravager saved them.” Camelia interrupted her silehe sword saint joined Eled and gred icily at the Normie woman. “She paid for their rehabilitation and their iion into society.”

  “She saved us!” shouted an older man from the crowd. “It was Mi who took our minds! If it weren’t for the Blessed Mother, we would all have died in his thrall!” More voices joined him, telling of their misfortunes or the misery of their aors before the Third delivered them.

  “You weren’t there!” The woman shouted, and Ravager raised her arm, sileng everyone so that she could speak. “You know, you just saw how fast that bitch is. Bullets bounced off her hide, ser beams spshed across her fur. What danger were we to her? She could’ve easily evaded us, but she chose to stay and carve a bloody path out of our bodies!” Tears streamed down her face as she pounded her e and fist against the bck fur. A younger man, who bore a resembo the old woman, took her arm and tried to lead her away. “Here! Use your cws, render me asunder, show your true nature, beast; I don’t care! Give me back my family, or seo them, but end this accused nightmare!”

  “Ner stopped the police from arresting the protesters, keeping her eyes on the woman. “There will be no violeoday, save for one directed at the guilty. Their grievances are fair. They are not to be arrested or harmed. I am sorry,” Ravager told the crowd, bowing her head. “I would like to offer some repense and some measure of satisfa for what I have caused you…”

  “But you did!” Shouted people. “The soldiers of the Third rescued us from Blood Graf, and you gutted the bastard for what he did to our families…”

  “What does it matter?” Ravager stood at her full height, looki and right. “Does a noble deed excuse the evil? What I possibly do to atone for the sea of dead left in my wake? No. I am a monster, fully and truly. Say your piece, good people; shout yer and inflict a token of pain on me I have brought upon you. I owe you this much. I would’ve given my life to pay for what I did, but this is not mio give.” She waited a moment and addressed the elderly woman. “Hate me if you must. There is nothing wrong with spite or hatred, not when they are ho. But direct your ire at the guilty! My kin share simirity in visage, but they do not share my crimes.”

  Ravager k on one knee, and Janine was surprised to see the crowd gather arouhere were no more insults; the police removed most of the demonstrators, but on the ander’s order, they left their leader, a man with long blond hair. He asked the Blessed Mother about her views for the future of the try, and she answered they were in alig with the Dynast’s vision. Build a nation worth living ie the po prevent even a ce of another Extin. Eliminate racism. Multiple cultures, different people, oion.

  After hearing her speak so calmly, more people approached. The Blessed Mother smiled at the pale family, whose daughter no longer feared her. A giant paw patted the little oly, wishing her well. Ravager answered questions about life ier Lands, not shying away from exposing savagery, cruelty, or her oroval of harsh ws. She holy admitted to not remembering a fallen soldier who died serving in the ranks of the Third to his parents. And she ughed at a question about the wound on her head, pointing out that it didn’t bleed anymore. After learning that he was a medic, she bristled and waved the man away.

  “Eled.” Ravager distracted herself from talking to the crowd to keep the warlord from climbing bato the crawler.

  “Yes, Mother.” Eled bowed, putting on suo ease the strain on her eyes. “I am ready to accept punishment…”

  “Good. You have damaged a se of the road. You will help the workers to repair it.”

  “’t…” Eled licked her lips. “’t you rip off my arm and call it even as usual? Fixing stuff is not my forte.”

  “Then it is a perfect punishment,” Ravager ughed melodiously, theuro addressing the crowd as the soldiers marched past and the parade resumed.

  The mayor joihe ander and took her by the arm, guidio a sidewalk where they, the reporters, and ordinary people sat in a cafe near a shop that piqued Janine’s curiosity. It sold ice cream.

  An ice cream e. Janine reminded herself. She will learn what it is, and Spirits help Anissa if she lied to her.