#impostress

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There are two strangers she learns to call Mother and Father, and when they look at her their eyes loose their hollowness, start shining with fervor, and Klara welcomes it, considers it her duty to make them proud, but when the rumors start mounting and her hands bring just as much grief as they do salvation, it's Catherine who takes her by the hand and says,

"The inhabitants of this town will soon see you as a witch, drag your name through the mud without a second thought. You will be turned into a scapegoat, called a demon when your only sin was to be what God made you. But in order to protect you, I must know, was it you that brought such tragedy upon us?"

"I stand by what I said before," Klara says, doesn't allow herself to think that if the part of her that heals is divine, then the part of her that deals away death like cards upon a table is just as terrible and wrapped in greatness, and she knows a tell or two by now, knows that most things that are one are also the other.

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Alexander Saburov paces through the hall like a beast caged, plans and hopes flaring up and then caving in to dust in the space of seconds, and not matter how viciously he seethes and holds on to his throne, once the deluge comes no power will save him from the abyss.

In one moment of clarity, the Impostress can see all the steps that have led him astray (and she knows this because she remembers being there, right from the beginning, and she also knows what it means to carve a kingdom out from the earth with your bare hands), but the trappings of power he has hungered for are now slowly suffocating him.

Alexander, Alexander, his name beats like a punchline, former glory and a mouthful of forevers that scatter in the wind like leaves, and maybe time is too weak a god to worship, but she can also learn and if it is the myth of the Shabnak-Adyg that men project upon her, then she can reflect back what they want and more.

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"There are wolves in the night, some of them would say after they came home from the war. And there are stories, you know, about wolves and girls. Girls all alone in the woods, about to get eaten up," Gryph says, mouth twisted by a sardonic sneer, and shadows dance in his den, air imbued with the smell of twyre and gunpowder.

Klara smiles back, raw in the gloom, and wonders if they would scream if she peeled back the skin on her chest, showed them what it means to carry the fire with you always, but she relents. Wolves and girls; they both have sharp teeth.

She only gives them one answer.

"Волко́в боя́ться — в лес не ходи́ть."

If you're afraid of wolves, don't go to the woods.

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Anna Angel speaks with a tremulous lilt that belies her hidden nature, and if her voice didn't announce her presence, then Klara wouldn't even know when she was moving about the house, as quiet as a ghost.

She was warned about this, in a way. And she is a prophet, whose only angels are the thieves, the murderers, the cowardly and the meek and they will bleed her dry before her heart does.

But she herself is no better than that, she can lie and cheat and steal just as well as the rest, feels the same burn of survival in the back of her skull that reminds her that her tale is spun in the world of substance.

One after the other they will be judged and found lacking, but it is not Klara's right to feel any measure of protectiveness towards them, no reason to sympathize with them when they close their eyes so tightly that they see stars and convince themselves that it is heaven they are looking upon.

But maybe half the reason Anna can proceed soundlessly through the room is because she is always treading on eggshells, and maybe the crime is never what you steal, but what you leave behind.

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When Maria Kain looks at her, she sees a young girl, not even a woman, too young and inexperienced to ever be a threat. When Kapella looks at her, she sees an equal (Klara, Klara, what a beautiful name! And you sound just they way a Klara would sound, too). When Catherine looks at her, she sees a fearsome prophet, the Land Mistress she never was.

What they don't realize is that what they're looking upon is unholy, and that she is inexperienced girl and wise woman and cannibalistic monster all rolled into one, and already her body feels too small a house for them all.

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Inside the cathedral all sound is augmented to the point of pain, or maybe that's just the fingernails of fear scratching the inside of her skull. Lilich beats the devil's tattoo as she studies her from afar, excited at the prospect of meeting such a fascinating creature but still wary of touching her.

Klara's thoughts congeal into one; godkiller, they say, and as if on cue, Aglaja smiles, painted across her face in beautiful, terrible chiaroscuro. And she may rule with an iron fist, with the cracking of a cathedral, but she is only human and that is something Klara has never had the luxury of being. And the Inquisitor has enemies older than even her biting at her heels; the hand that strikes at God will surely perish.

Watch my hands, Klara thinks, lest you miss my miracle.

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The shelves are stacked with instruments, vials and boxes and barbed wire holding it all together. This is good, she thinks. The living should never be made to serve the dead, but there are so many ways to honor the departed, this entire laboratory almost a love letter to humanity itself.

The Haruspex breathes humanism, no matter his shallow protests, but the Bachelor remains a mystery to her. She sees the way the air is sucked out of the rooms he enters, as if he is a void, an avenging angel, but if he is one then heaven must have fallen lower than ever before. He claims to fight death, but doesn't he see that forever can be cold and hard and final as well? Would he truly steal away the sorrow that these people have earned?

It's all for naught, anyway. He has looked death in the eye so often these past few days, but he still hasn't guessed its secret.

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General Blok wants to spirit her away to the front, a holy war to end all holy wars and maybe she was made for this. Already she can feel holy fire burning holes through the palms of her hands, and if she has to come in from the cold, an army at her back, to spread her power over the land and tear down the old in order to make place for the new then she will do just that.