Author's Note:

Something something life's hard something something sorry for the wait.

The short version: I moved to New Zealand and got engaged. This was very exciting! And time consuming. It is very easy to be distracted by your beautiful fiancé. Also, I've been diverting most of my creative energy to my original novel, which hasn't left a whole lot of time for DragonRise.

However, I do want to get back at this story. I have a few interesting events upcoming (well, I think they're interesting, at any rate) … to those of you who have been waiting, I genuinely apologize for the delay. To those of you who are still reading, you have my equally genuine gratitude.

Neutral Ground

xXx

They sat in silence after that, eating cold soup in a dimly lit parlour. Aria wasn't avoiding Nicole's gaze, but she definitely seemed distracted. Nicole could only guess how much it had taken for her to reveal what had happened to her daughter. Especially to a near-complete stranger. Nicole had wanted to ask why Aria had chosen her, but that answer was self-evident: no one under Aria's employ would be able to beat a Justicar to her target. It wasn't pride that led Nicole to realize that, but fact.

Best to stick to the facts. That would make this easier on Aria. Absurdly, Nicole realized she was trying to protect the feelings of a mob boss.

Well, Nicole thought wryly, That may be because I'm in love with a mob boss. Not that the Brokerage was a "mob." But it was close enough that Aria felt like some bizarre analog to a work friend. Nicole's spoon clattered into her soup bowl as she finished her meal.

"I'm assuming you know all the top narcotics people on Omega?"

"You assume correctly," Aria replied, wiping the corners of her mouth with a napkin. This was despite the fact that her mouth was utterly clean. "You want a list?"

"I want interviews. Anyone who might have access to nisiris. Anyone who would have the means or knowledge necessary to manufacture it. That includes any chemists. Pharmacists. Actually, prioritize the pharmacists. She wants to avoid suspicion, she won't go to a known drug dealer."

"You'll have anything you need." Aria nodded seriously.

"I'll need a small room set up, secure against communications, where I can work. How many asari are there on Omega?"

"Something like ten thousand. About what you'd expect," Aria said softly. Omega's population was nearly seven million, but asari population numbers had always been low. "Ten thousand people who are very pissed off that I'm not letting them travel off of this station."

"Yeah, that's about what I'd expect," Nicole agreed quietly. "You know the Justicar's on my ship. I can't very well stop her from leaving. She knows Morinth is here."

"I know. I don't blame you. Before tonight, how could you have known not to bring her here?" Aria waved a hand dismissively. "She won't have your resources. Or your investigative talent. Justicars just bulldoze their way through bureaucracy. I think she'll find Omega is a little harder to bulldoze through."

Nicole couldn't help but feel a little doubt at that. Was Aria planning some sort of trap for Samara? Aria must have noticed something on Nicole's face—which was remarkable, because Nicole's face was normally as readable as a pane of ice.

"I don't mean anything sinister by that, my friend. I assure you. But this place … the connections between people grow thick as a spider's web. You know, they always fascinated me, those creatures of yours. Spiders. It's not that they're immune to the threads of their web, just that they know which ones are dangerous. When you're in a web … it helps to know the spider."

"The spider in this case being you."

For the first time since she said her daughter's name, Aria smiled.

"Precisely."

XXX

When Nicole returned to the Normandy, Samara was waiting for her in the CIC, looming out over the galaxy map. The golden band of light suspended between the tusks of her mask was faded, almost translucent, and for the first time Nicole could almost make out her facial features. There were deep, faded blue circles beneath her eyes, and her irises were almost white. Samara's eyes fell on Nicole the moment she returned, and she began her ponderous descent down from the CIC command deck. The weight of her armour echoed deep, reverberating thuds from her every step.

"My daughter is on this station," Samara said, her voice a growling mechanical drone. "And you have just met Aria."

So she knew.

"You know about Tavenia?" Nicole asked. She didn't want to use a more specific term. Even though the ship's crewmembers were all Broker employees now, she didn't quite know how much to trust them. Just a few months ago those same people might have been ordered to kill her. Samara nodded. She barely moved her head, but the movement of her tusks exaggerated the motion, making it somehow threatening.

"I assume Aria has asked you to torture and kill my daughter."

"Just the second part. She was pretty clear about that."

Samara seemed surprised. As if aware that she had let slip some fragment of emotion, she re-enabled the full band of light between her tusks, and her eyes were obscured once more. Samara approached the airlock, where Nicole was standing, and stopped when she was only a foot apart.

"It would be wise to refuse Aria's request."

"Probably," Nicole admitted. But she couldn't do that, somehow. Respect, honor … those things were so tangled and rare in a world like Aria's that to risk as much as she had on someone like Nicole took a lot. Most of the time, Aria was a merciless, untouchable kingpin who was half a warlord. But today she was just a grieving mother. Nicole looked at Samara and thought, So is she.

But Nicole had her own sense of honor, too, however twisted it might be.

"I am sorry, Samara, but I have to do this."

Samara looked at Nicole very seriously, and Nicole found herself wondering if she would strike then and there. Nicole suddenly felt very exposed, without her armor—of course she hadn't worn that to dinner with Aria. Even Nicole knew how much of a social faux-pas that would have been.

"There are few things I do not in some way regret." Samara stepped past her. "I will not be stopped in what I have to do, Shepard."

Nicole turned and watched Samara leave, vaguely aware that one of the Broker guards who was patrolling the CIC had disengaged the safety on her assault rifle. She wasn't even sure when she'd noticed that. The airlock beeped pleasantly to inform them that a guest was leaving. As it closed, Nicole realized that she would see Samara again.

And that they would both regret it, when the time came.

XXX

"I still want to send someone with you."

"No."

Nicole could be as stubborn as a koriat when she was in the mood. Liara had nearly wanted to drag out her "Operative Nyxis" armor before Nicole had, in a display of stunning childishness, taken the locker which Liara kept the armor in and simply held it out of reach until Liara had given up. It had actually been funny. But once that had been over and the laughter had stopped, reality had settled back in like fog. Nicole was going to try and kill an Ardat-Yakshi who was being hunted by a Justicar. Liara felt stomach-sick thinking about it. Nicole was changing into her armour in the bathroom; Liara was sitting outside back against the wall, wearing a long nystha she'd taken from her office on Illium. It was similar, Nicole said, to a combination of a sweater and an overcoat in human fashion. It was exceptionally comfy.

"Nicole, I know better than anyone how—capable you are. But Samara is a Justicar. She's one of the Justicar-Eminent. You saw what she did to Zaeed."

"Yeah, and you saw what I did to the last Shadow Broker, remember?"

"You had help," Liara said, very pointedly. The bathroom door swished open and Nicole stepped out, fully clad as the Red Dragon. Her armour was sleek and black, composed of lightweight armour plating on top of her usual combat mesh, as well as the eyepatch Mordin had designed for her. She had her shotgun slung around the back of her waist, and the almost-ludicrously sized hand cannon that she used was strapped to one leg. When Liara didn't get up, Nicole sat down opposite her in the hallway, resting her hands on her knees. "You don't know what it's like, Nicole. To lose you. Every time you go out, and I stay back here, I can't help …. I can't help thinking, what if this is it? What if it happens again?" Liara thought she'd be crying, but strangely she wasn't. She'd been here before. They both had.

But it had to be said.

"I can't lose you again. And I know—I know we've had this argument a thousand times. I just … it never gets easy, Nicky, knowing you're out there. I don't think it ever will."

Nicole got up and moved across the floor, so that she was sitting next to Liara. She took her hand. When Liara looked in her eyes, she realized that Nicole must have taken the eyepatch off.

"I know. And I won't lie to you and say it's not dangerous. I'm sorry, Liara. I hate putting you through this. But it has to just be me, and whatever people Aria gives me to work with. We can't risk entangling the Brokerage with the Justicars."

"Fuck the Brokerage," Liara said, with feeling. Of course Nicole was right. Liara was tired of managing her life around all this intrigue, all the dark scum that had accumulated in her life in Nicole's absence. Liara pressed her fingers against the side of her temple. She was starting to feel a headache. "I know I can't just make all this go away. And I know you're right. And I know you can handle yourself. I know all that. I just wish what I knew changed how I feel. Because this all just feels awful."

Nicole wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close. Liara couldn't help but smile. A few months ago, she'd thought that might have never been possible with Nicole. Then she actually gave her a gentle, sweet kiss on the cheek. Liara laughed, wiping tears out of her eyes. She looked Nicole in the eyes.

"Come back to me."

"As long as I can, I will."

"It'd be too much to ask for you to make a promise you can't keep about 'always coming back,' wouldn't it?" Liara asked dryly, only half-joking. Nicole smiled, and pulled apart from her. As she did, she took Liara's hand and gave it a soft, gentle squeeze.

"What, you think I could lie to you?" Now they both smiled. It was so precious, seeing Nicole smile.

"No. You're too good for that." Nicole blushed, and Liara felt the pure, undiluted joy of seeing a compliment really affect the person she loved. "What do you think Samara will do? If you get to Morinth first." Nicole stood up and shook her head. She put her eyepatch back on, and activated the combat mask, wires unspooling from the eyepatch and conforming to her face.

"I honestly don't know."

XXX

As she burned blood from her claws with biotic fire, Samara reflected that there was a reason a Justicar had not come here once during the station's entire lifespan.

There was simply too much crime. Per the Code, it was mandatory that she prioritize the most urgent matters for sentencing, and on Omega, there was always an urgent matter. She could twist the truth and say that a serial Ardat-Yakshi was more dangerous than a drug-addled turian with a gun, but she would be lying. And the Code permitted only the truth. For years, she had permitted only the truth of herself.

It was the only way she had survived.

The lights on Omega were dull and red, and the alleys were cluttered with the detritus of a thousand lives. Crates and filth seemed to accrue on the station like mould on a rotting plant. Wherever Samara went in search of a lead, she was waylaid by a judgement she could not ignore. She kicked the turian's body out of her way as she passed, not out of disrespect, but impatience. Morinth would notice her soon enough.

And then she will run. She had been running for five hundred and twelve years. Running heedlessly from the arms of one lover to the next. Samara still knew her, all these years later. She was a romantic. Half of them she would mean so much to her that she would convince herself that they would survive the joining. The other half she would convince herself were part of the tragedy of her life. In a way, Morinth was her own greatest victim.

In a way. In another way, Aria would have every right to hate Samara for daring to think that. Aria, and all the other mothers and fathers who had lost their children to Morinth.

I need to find her. And soon. In an ironic twist of fate, Aria's ban on asari travel off of the station was working to Samara's benefit, as well. Surely by now Morinth would have heard of the Justicar on Omega, and tried to flee. If Samara had any doubts about Aria's ability to contain the asari population, she would have been checking the docks, waiting for Morinth to show up smuggled in a ship. But Samara had no delusions about the effectiveness of Aria's organization. Ten thousand asari were as good as trapped on Omega. It occurred to Samara that this number now included herself.

It occurred to her not altogether separately that Shepard was, despite her age, doubtlessly a better detective than Samara herself was, and Shepard wasn't hampered by being morally obligated to track down and sentence every other drug dealer she saw. Since the Vorcha were technically children by the Code—which considered aliens of any species less than eighty years old "children"—nearly every criminal on Omega was technically a child abuser. Samara knew the "Vorcha problem," as the Justicariate had taken to calling it, was leading them to seriously consider updating the Code's ruling on age equality.

She knew what she had to do. As a younger Justicar, she would have been forced to consult the Justicariate first, but as a Justicar-Eminent, she had at least some freedom. She entered a code into her omnitool, knowing full well the scrutiny she would be placed under following her present mission. She spoke, leaving a recording for the Justicariate and the Chroniclers who would have to pore over every moment of Samara's actions until she re-enabled the live link.

"Due to the urgent nature of my mission, I will need to temporarily disregard several otherwise serious infractions of the Code during my time on Omega. As Justicar-Eminent I am disengaging my live link and acting on live interpretation of the Code. If my actions are later deemed in violation of the Code, I fully submit myself to the Judgement of the Justicariate."

The band of light on her mask flickered. The color of the band was purely artificial—on Samara's end, she saw normally. In fact, through the band, she saw better than she otherwise would be able to. The golden color was for the benefit of the common people who saw her. When the band returned, it was jet black.

At long last, this will end, Morinth. You will have your rest.

XXX

The apartment stank of death. It wasn't hers, of course. She'd been on the run for so long that she'd learned how to live in style while doing it. But she'd needed a place to crash, and she'd remembered a friend of a friend who'd suddenly stopped showing up at the club. He'd been a heavy severis user, which was a drug so hard that even Morinth wouldn't touch it. She hadn't been surprised to find his body in his bed, all four batarian eyes rolled upwards, staring lifelessly at the ceiling. Getting rid of the body would attract attention, so she had to deal with the smell.

She wouldn't stay here long. She couldn't. She'd heard through the grapevine that Nikilos, her turian friend, had been brought in for questioning by Aria's men. No one could say for sure why, but everyone knew that the Normandy was docked at Omega, and the Normandy was a ship whose reputation was growing bloodier by the day.

Aria knows. Morinth had realized that the moment she'd heard that the station had been shut down. Had she roped the Red Dragon into trying to find her, too? It wouldn't be beyond Aria's resources. Morinth had never wanted to come here in the first place, but Rachel had wanted to—

Don't think about it. She couldn't afford to spend the rest of the day crying.

She opened Jarax's fridge to find a jug of water and a few racti fruit. Same thing that had been there hours ago. She hated racti fruit.

She took one anyway. As she reached for the spiky, bronze-skinned fruit her hand shook. She hated the feeling of running. Of being pursued. Even if the Red Dragon had no interest in her, her mother would be on her trail soon. Of course she was. Her mother had never stopped trying to punish her.

The lighting in Jarax's apartment was dim and red, like most of Omega, and it did nothing to improve her mood. He'd had an old, prickly couch that he'd used to entertain guests on. Morinth had been on that couch once before. With Rachel.

The last two days, in this apartment with Jarax's corpse, she'd been sleeping on the floor. She didn't want to sleep in the bed where someone had died. Old asari superstition. And she couldn't sleep on the couch.

Not for the first time she wondered if she should just wait. Just let it happen to her. Maybe she even deserved it by now.

"You're not what they say you are. I know that. So do you."

Rachel's voice stung in her mind. They'd been so good together. And Rachel had—she'd understood. She'd really understood. Morinth had never meant to meld with her. To reach for her mind. It had just happened. Every instinct in her had wanted to be closer to her, despite centuries of horror warning her against it. And Rachel had wanted it, too. Morinth knew that. When they'd been together, for those few blissful minutes, everything had been perfect.

And then Rachel had died. Just like all the others. The last thought that had come from Rachel's mind, as shock and pain ran through her body, had been "I love you." Morinth held on to those three words like flotsam in a stormy sea. All the others had been scared in that last moment. Rachel hadn't been. That had to mean something.

It had to.

XXX

Nikilos had been taken to a black, windowless room, which was occupied only by a steel table and two chairs bolted to the floor on opposite sides of the desk. Aria's man—a bare-faced turian—had shoved Nikilos into one of the chairs and told him to wait. His hands hadn't been bound, which he considered a good sign. But he was pretty sure the door was locked. He rapped his talons against the tabletop, then stopped once he realized someone might be watching him. Before much longer, the door opened.

Great bleeding barefaced spirits.

Well, at least he knew he only heard the most quality rumours. First, it had been that someone had been looking for nisiris a few weeks ago—now, it turned out the Red Dragon really was on Omega again.

And she's staring right at me.

"I hope Aria's men didn't make you too uncomfortable," the Dragon said. It was a moment later that Nikilos realized it had been a question.

"Uh, no, not at all," Nikilos blurted, grateful that years of living on Omega had made the tip of his tongue a fairly safe organ to think with. "How may I help you?"

"I was hoping to avail of your expertise. I've been doing a lot of homework lately," the Dragon said. She paced around the room, leaving the chair opposite Nikilos empty. She handed him a holo-tablet that had readouts on the pharmacokinetic action of nisiris. He blinked in surprise as he looked at it. It was quite advanced. "Recognize this?"

"You'll find it in most asari textbooks. Nisiris is notoriously complex to manufacture, highly sought after by certain clientele, and due to its structure and method of activation can be extremely dangerous if poorly manufactured. It makes for a good object lesson for the budding illicit pharmacist."

"And given the legality of nisiris on a few worlds like Illium, I imagine it's more than an object lesson for some. You've some experience with the drug, don't you?"

Do not start lying to the extremely dangerous Shadow Broker hitwoman, Nikilos advised himself, despite every instinct in his body screaming otherwise. He didn't want to say so much as a word, but he'd been around long enough to know that someone so well-connected would be able to trace pretty much every action Nikilos had ever taken since he'd set foot on Omega six years ago.

"Yes. As a matter of fact, I manufactured a reel on special request just two … maybe three weeks ago." He started to smile to try and indicate he was co-operating, but halfway through he remembered how badly humans could misinterpret a turian smile. The result was that he sort of momentarily bared his teeth.

Oh that's much better, Nikilos. Good job.

"Sorry. A reel?" The Red Dragon could not be called an emotive woman, but she sounded genuinely curious. Nikilos felt relief flood his system as he started to explain. If she was asking that sort of question maybe she really did just want a pharmacist's advice about drug manufacture.

"It's asari slang. When you have the final product, it's like a long strip of paper. You roll it up, kind of like a reel of tape. When it's spooled together it won't burn easily, so you can unfurl it a little, light it at one end, and inhale, without worrying about the rest of the reel lighting."

"Interesting. Could you tell me who you prepared the reel for?"

Normally, this is where Nikilos would say something about client privacy.

"Yup. Some asari, didn't want to give me her name. She was operating out of the Brundskin district, I think, and she wanted enough made to last a while, even for a long-time user. She definitely was one of those, she knew all the slang. She asked for a pipe, though, so I'm assuming she also wanted to introduce a friend to the drug. Newbies crush up some of a strip and just smoke it through a pipe. Not so strong that way."

The Dragon's mouth was hidden by her mask and her eyes hidden by that strange holographic band projecting from her eyepatch, but he could've sworn he saw her grin.

"Thank you. You should know, if the person you prepared nisiris for is the one that I'm looking for—and I'm confident she is—she's an Ardat Yakshi."

"Spirits." Nikilos felt a shudder travel down his spine—a fear reaction that was apparently common to most bipedal species. He'd come that close to an Ardat Yakshi, one of the real boogeymen in the Milky Way. "Damn. I'd tell you if I knew more, honest. She wasn't big on talking."

"Probably for the best. Thanks, Nikilos. You can leave at any time."

Nikilos let out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. Very carefully, he got out of his seat and approached the door. As he walked the Dragon laid a hand on his shoulder. Just that one, casual motion made him freeze like a statue.

"One more thing."

"Yes?"

"You can now consider yourself in good standing with the Brokerage. If you ever need anything from the Shadow Broker, you'll be taken care of. My way of apologizing for dragging you out here."

"Uh, thanks. Thank you very much, ma'am. It's been a pleasure."

"Likewise. Treat yourself to a couple drinks at the bar if you like. The bartender will know you."

She took her hand off his shoulder, and Nikilos walked out of the room, doing what he thought was a pretty good job of not shitting his pants. It was only once he was outside that he realized he was in Afterlife. He'd forgotten that Aria's men had brought him to Aria's club. All in all, he had to admit he had come out much better from a confrontation with the Red Dragon than he'd thought he would. She'd been downright reasonable.

Still, that didn't stop his knees from shaking.

Maybe I ought to go ahead and get those drinks.

XXX

The idea of placing a tracer on someone like Nicole Shepard was absurd. Even if she somehow missed such a crude tool—which was unthinkable—she had the whole of the Shadow Broker network backing her up. That would never work.

But it was becoming increasingly apparent to Samara that she had little better alternative. She had attempted to find individuals who Morinth might have socialized with, but the problem was that everyone on Omega looked like someone Morinth might have socialized with. In this place, Samara could not tell the victims apart from the criminals.

Ria would have laughed at that. Or would she have wept? After all this time, Samara realized the one great love of her life had been reduced to abstractions in her memory. If she were a different person, that would have made her weep. But she did not. Samara had turned herself into someone who did not weep.

forgive her, Samara. she is our daughter.

No. She would not. She could never forgive Morinth for what she had done. For what they had both become. A lifetime ago she had wanted to change her. Half a lifetime ago she had wanted to protect her. Just one hundred years ago she had only wanted to bring her to justice. Now, in her last free daughter Samara only saw the agony of failure, and indecision, and wild genius and desperate stupidity.

please, love.

How long had it been since Ria had said those words? Samara no longer remembered the date. Once, she had known. But that memory had been too painful, and she had turned from it in the centuries. No mind could hold all the details of a life as long as an asari's … and Samara had forgotten so much of their past together. She could remember scraps of conversations. The brief, fleeting image of a smile, or a gesture.

She still remembered Ria's face. She remembered it every day.

She smiled, her face awash in blood. As Samara frantically called the Ralicon Emergency Service, Ria only looked up at her and sighed.

"forgive her, Samara. she is our daughter."

Samara looked down in shock as her omnitool flickered in the rain. The dark nighttime glow of the city threatened to envelop them. Samara was vaguely aware that a crowd was drawing around them. This place had once been a restaurant, where families might come….

"She has done this to you." Samara heard the bitterness in her voice. She tried to take Ria's hand, but Ria, in her last act, batted Samara's hand away and reached for her face. As she looked at Ria's dying face, Samara knew that her wife was trying to tell her something, knowing that she did not have the time to say the words.

"please, love."

"It's okay, Ria, help is on the way. Ralicon owe me, they'll get here—"

"Samara. please."

Whatever Ria had meant, Samara had never learned.

She realized she had been lost reminiscing for minutes, now, as she stood above a crippled asari whose leg she had broken. Her name was Olian … Olian something-or-other. Samara always found it difficult to remember names. They blurred together now, in the half-life she'd been living since that day. Olian had murdered a human ten years ago—technically child-murder, by the Code. But in this moment, Samara was not obligated to follow the Code. Whether Olian knew it or not.

"Do you see the black band of light between my tusks?" Samara whispered. Olian nodded, clutching at her leg desperately. Her skin was sweaty and her eyes had the rapid, nervous movement of someone desperately trying to find a way not to die. "The black band means I do not follow the Code. For now. I do not have to kill you for the murder of a child. If you give me information, I will be lenient."

"What information did you need?" The woman hissed sharply through the pain, but Samara could see there was intelligence in her eyes. Good. She had not fallen completely to pieces.

"I need information about an asari named Morinth." Olian's silence spoke volumes. "An Ardat-Yakshi, perhaps?"

"I know nothing about an Ardat-Yakshi. Kill me, then. Enforce the barbarism you call the Code." Despite her pain, Olian managed to sneer. "Did you know that human I killed was himself a murderer?"

"He was a child," Samara said simply.

"He was forty-eight. That's half as old as most of them will get without any help. He'd killed his business partner. My husband."

"Then he should have been jailed. Children cannot be killed."

"Oh, shut up! He wasn't a fucking child, he was the man who ruined my life! I don't need your bullshit," Olian spat. "Just get over with it, Koriat."

Samara. please.

Olian forced herself to sit straighter, so that she could face her death head-on.

"Not an Ardat-Yakshi, then. What have you heard of the Red Dragon?" Samara saw recognition pass over Olian's eyes.

"Aside from the fact that she's here? Apparently she's downright friendly."

"Go on. Do not lie."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Olian muttered. She made a show of meeting Samara's eyes. "A few people have been taken in for interviews. Drug-suppliers, pharmacists, that sort of thing. And before you start judging, I only know this because I was in Afterlife at the time. I don't use."

"You will have to do better than that."

"Surely I don't hear a Justicar bartering for justice?"

"You're hearing a Justicar offer you a chance to save your life," Samara said, whispering so softly that her mask only barely changed her voice. She knew what she was doing. Regretted it. But it had to be done. The long tragedy of Morinth's life had to have its end.

And so do I.

"She left the club not long ago … a little before I did. But there was a turian, at the bar, ranting about an Ardat-Yakshi scaring the shit out of him. He started telling this story about this dingy little shack where he met her … it was mostly bullshit, but I recognized his description of the shack. I know where it has to be. That good enough to buy my life?" Olian spat the last word with so much venom that Samara was surprised she couldn't physically feel it.

"Tell me where, and you live." Samara raised her voice so that it came out in a synthesized, rumbling growl.

"Brundskin. That's where all the old run-down factory shit is. If she's going after your Ardat-Yakshi?" Olian phrased it as a question, but Samara gave no response. Olian rolled her eyes. "Then yeah. That's where the Red Dragon is. You going off to save an Ardat-Yakshi, then? I can't imagine the Shadow Broker's right hand is just paying her a friendly chat."

Samara said nothing. Instead, she rummaged in her armour, activating one of the few pockets it had. She extracted a recent addition—emergency, civilian rations of medi-gel. She handed one to Olian.

"Tell me," Samara asked. "What do you regret?"

XXX

Morinth had no way of getting any news in this apartment. She wanted to leave, but she also wanted to stay. She'd moved Jarax's corpse to a closet on the first day she'd come here, but by now the smell was becoming unbearable. A part of her screamed to leave. A part of her told herself that she deserved it.

She always went through this. She didn't know what her mother might think—that she celebrated killing someone who she'd been so intimate with, that she would take pleasure in the death of someone she loved. She always thought it was funny how many of them thought that. There were so few Ardat-Yakshi to begin with, how likely was it that they would also all be utter psychopaths? Even the cruelest person would feel some shred of empathy for someone they'd made love to.

And Morinth knew that she was not the cruelest person. No matter what her mother might think of her. Of course Samara blamed her. Thought that she'd killed Ria on purpose. Her own father.

I never meant to. She'd meant to say those words that day, but she hadn't been able to believe what she'd done. To this day she couldn't remember how the gun had gotten into her hands. She'd never once remembered pulling the trigger.

She wondered if Samara was coming for her now. If she was on Omega. Maybe the Red Dragon was working with her, helping her track Morinth down. Maybe the end was coming for her, right now, courtesy of Aria.

Morinth wasn't even sure that she would mind. She still remembered Tavenia, all these years later. Like so many, Tavenia had been hurt, and betrayed … like so many, in that last moment Tavenia's love had turned into shock, terror, and even hatred. At least one of Morinth's lovers would get her revenge. At least one.

She heard the shrill, repetitive beeping of Jarax's door and whirled around in fright—but no one was there. It must have been a glitch, or something. Jarax's apartment hadn't exactly been a high rise condo. As Morinth was walking over to the door to close it, she thought she heard something, like a breeze, but it must have been nothing. She couldn't quite shake the feeling that she'd missed something, though, as the door hissed shut.

When she turned around, she was confronted with an image out of her nightmares. The Red Dragon herself, her face encased in black, her covered eye glowing with a blazing red as shocking and wild as fire. The Dragon whipped forward, kicked Morinth's knee out from under her, and then, somehow, Morinth's arms were behind her back and her wrists were shackled. The Dragon effortlessly picked Morinth up and dragged her over to the bed. The fear and worry that Morinth had felt until now evaporated, replaced by a strange sensation that she would have called calm if she didn't feel like an ice cube was bouncing around in her chest. The Dragon drew a pistol about the size of a person's head and pointed it between Morinth's eyes.

"Talk."

It took Morinth a few seconds to realize what she'd said.

"What do you want me to talk about?" Morinth's voice was scratchy and tired from disuse. She realized she hadn't spoken to anyone since the night Rachel had—had died.

My fault. That's why she's here.

"Your victims. Why do you do it?" The Red-Dragon, covered in her mask and armour, seemed as implacable and remorseless as a Thessian firestorm. That was almost a relief, somehow.

"I never mean to," Morinth said. "Not after the first. The first time I thought I could control it—"

"And after the first?" The gun didn't move.

"Do you know how hard it is? To love someone, and to feel like you can't even touch them? To want with everything in you to be close to them, to make love to them, but to know that you can't? You have no idea what it's like to live with that." Morinth felt hollow even as she laid bare her soul to her final tormentor. She couldn't even tell herself that this was unjust, or unfair. "But then, look at you. You've never loved, I'm sure."

"Wrong in two," the Dragon whispered. "I'm sorry. But we both know you're not going to stop."

"I know."

XXX

Almost there.

Once Samara had made it to the Brundskin district, it hadn't been hard to find someone who would tell her where the Red Dragon had been going. Apparently, she hadn't bothered to hide her movements.

Almost there.

It was a rare sight to see a Justicar running. To see a Justicar desperate. So the people of the Brundskin district got out of her way. They momentarily paused whatever depravity they were engaged in as a Justicar rampaged through their district. In another time and place she would have welcomed the freedom from having to always see the grime that clung to life.

But not now.

As she rounded the last corner approaching the Dragon's last-known location, she heard the furious roar of a gunshot, one that must have come from an extraordinarily powerful gun.

No.

Samara finally slowed to a walk. She realized she was out of breath. She'd come here late, following Shepard. Of course she'd been a step behind. Shepard practically lived in the shadows. Samara didn't have that luxury.

She walked towards the apartment door, hand outstretched for the entrance hologram, her universe reduced to that one, small feature. As she approached, it swung open.

Shepard was standing in the room, holstering her pistol. Morinth was lying on the bed, her skull burst like a ripe melon, blood and brain and bone blasted onto the bed and wall behind her. Shepard turned very calmly towards Samara as she entered.

"It was quick."

Samara took a brief, halting step towards Shepard. Towards the corpse of her daughter. Her brain was buzzing, and she found herself unable to process her thoughts. Or her feelings.

"You killed her," Samara whispered. Through her Justicar's mask, her voice came out harsh, and accusatory. Shepard nodded.

"Yeah. I did."

Samara took another step forward and Shepard went stiff, as though about to go to her weapon. Samara would have scoffed if she hadn't earned that reaction.

"I am not such a beast," Samara whispered, "That I would seek pointless revenge. Please." Shepard, apparently sensing the truth in her statement, stepped back. Samara approached her daughter's corpse, but could not bring herself to lay a hand on her body. She had seen so much blood and viscera in her time that the thought of seeing her daughter's corpse did not repulse her as it should have. Somehow, it was that fact which repulsed her.

I was too late.

"Would you like to be alone with her?" Shepard asked. She tapped the side of her eyepatch so that her mask retracted and the hologram obscuring her other eye disappeared. As ever, Shepard's face revealed nothing.

"I can do her no good now," Samara said. "If I ever did. I loved her most, you know. That's a horrible thing for a mother to say."

"I can think of worse things," Shepard said darkly, in a way that Samara intuited spoke from personal experience. Samara nodded, looking at the ruin of her daughter.

"Since Ria died—since I became a Justicar, I told myself that I did not choose this. That my life was thrust upon me." Samara shook her head, the tusklike appendages of her mask swaying as she did so. The black band of light was still projected across her eyes. "I became the koriat. The beast that hunts the scourge of civilization. It was cowardice to blame my child for that. I chose my path. She did not." Samara reached out and touched Morinth's hand. She could not feel it through her armour. "You have become the dragon, Nicole Shepard. Do you know much about Earth's mythology?"

"I can't say I do, to be honest."

"Dragons are creatures without pity, from what I understand. Once, they represented greed, but in their purest form, they were avatars of power. And destruction." Samara looked directly at Nicole Shepard, and disabled her black visor before she re-enabled the gold. Without the visor hologram enhancing her vision, she could barely make out the color in Shepard's face. Her hair was a dull, greyish red, and her the green of her eyes was nearly black. "What I regret most is not what was done to me. What I regret is what I became." Samara turned from Shepard as she began to leave. "For your sake, I beseech the Goddess that you are not reduced to an avatar of vengeance. As I have been."

"The Collectors still need to be taken care of," Shepard said, almost petulantly. That was very unlike her. Samara did not turn back as she left.

"And I have no doubt that the Red Dragon will destroy them."