17. Fifth Pentad


Seneca celebrated with her supporters and the media in the colonnade outside the Parliamentary well into the day’s final pentad.

The labor rights legislation she toiled long and hard for passage by world government swept into law, at last. But, the day’s tragic and horrific revelations, rendered at the hands of her co-author, made victory hollow.

The Parliamentary stayed violence by unanimously rejecting of the amendments Consul Edmund etaSade had sought to impose. However, she feared that in adopting the original reform package, the Parliamentary only temporarily evaded the anger and incrimination of the Aideenan people. Once the public understood the extent of House eta’s crimes, blood in the streets seemed inevitable.

The day’s historic lawmaking validated omegaMarat Seneca and her People’s Advocacy. It meant she wheeled real influence to push for the things she wanted. However, in the aftermath etaSade’s betrayal of the public’s trust, Seneca loathed that now the things she wanted would have to take a backseat to other demands.

The circumstances pleased her sister Daria. The day yielded satisfying and unexpected surprises and she too celebrated.

She managed to unseat a consul of the Guild Brotherhood. She planned to betray him to authorities all along, whether or not he succeeded in undermined his own legislation, as she’d forced him to attempt.

The younger omegaMarat delighted in the rippling effects her handiwork wrought.

A powerful House shook to its core. The world government unhinged, visibly before the entire planet, and the immutable Faith compromised. Sweetest of all, failing to elevate herself as highly on the world stage as she’d targeted, her beloved sister Seneca emerged overshadowed by a scandal. Sade's folly proved to0 devastating to bend to her sister's force of personality. Every corner of Aideena suffered the day’s damage.

"Pleasure me," she instructed Horus.

This he labored with mechanical uninspired obedience.

When done, as her affiance uneasily slept, Daria turned into herself, as only a woman could. She journeyed to that place beyond physical awareness, where women may stand outside of nature.

Daria contemplated the day’s events. The unexpected intervention of the meta-terrestrial called The Archangel disturbed her. She wondered why He’d come to Aideena and what possible threat to her designs He presented. She set her imagination to how such a creature might be used to her advantage.

"Do not concern yourself with that impotent Host," came a cold and haunting voice into Daria’s thoughts. "It is outside itself. I shall devise the means to destroy it and its race very soon now."

The presence came to her like an old familiar friend.

Daria moved toward it. She passed through and into the darkness anyone else would have responsibly ran from.


THE END OF BOOK ONE: SH'KAREE

RETURN SOON FOR BOOK TWO: THE CASANDRA PRINCIPLE

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