Never Hide Your Heart
"There is something inside me"
The Northstar broke through the upper atmosphere in a wash of fire and turbulence. Katarine barely noticed.
She sat rigid in the pilot's seat, one leg bouncing restlessly beneath the console while her fingers drummed an uneven rhythm against the armrest. Sleep had become something of a distant memory. Dark circles shadowed the skin beneath her green eyes, and the woman staring back at her from the faint reflection in the viewport looked exhausted in a way no amount of rest could have fixed.
She had resisted this for too long. Longer than she should have.
Kat leaned forward and dragged both hands over her face before letting them fall into her lap.
"Stupid," she muttered to herself. She didn't want to be here. Every part of her that still felt remotely rational wanted to turn the Northstar around, punch the engines, and disappear back into the stars. She wanted Ellion. She wanted the strange, impossible comfort of having him near again after centuries of believing him gone. She wanted to crawl into his arms, shut out the rest of the galaxy, and pretend that somehow finding him had fixed everything that had gone wrong with her.
But Ellion couldn't fix this. That realization had become painfully clear over the last several days.
The cravings were getting worse. So were the mood swings.
Anger came without warning, burning through her so violently that sometimes she hardly recognized herself. Then came guilt. Despair. Irritation. Hunger. Moments of almost euphoric affection followed by the sudden urge to put her fist through a bulkhead because someone had breathed too loudly.
Beneath all of it was the thirst. That terrible, gnawing emptiness inside her that never truly went away anymore.
Her jaw tightened.
The Northstar descended through heavy clouds, and the world below slowly emerged from the darkness.
Then she felt Him.
Kat froze. The restless movement of her leg stopped instantly.
It wasn't a sound. It wasn't a voice. Nothing so simple.
It was a presence. Darkness stretched beneath her like something alive, vast and ancient and hideously familiar. Her fingers curled slowly around the edge of the pilot's chair as the sensation crawled over her skin.
Carnifex.
He was down there. Waiting. Her stomach twisted with equal measures of resentment and relief. That alone made her hate herself a little.
The ship continued its descent, but Katarine no longer bothered pretending there was still a decision to make. She had made it the moment she'd set the coordinates. Just like he knew she would. Just like he had warned her.
Her eyes remained fixed upon the structure growing larger through the viewport.
The Black Pyramid.
The closer she came, the stronger his presence became, until she could almost imagine it wrapping around the ship itself.
Kat swallowed.
There was no possibility that her arrival had gone unnoticed. The devil knew she was coming. Of course he knew.
For one fleeting moment her hand hovered over the controls, tempted to pull back on the yoke and run.
Her fingers trembled.
Then another wave of hunger twisted through her, sharp enough that she sucked in a breath through clenched teeth.
Kat shut her eyes.
"Damn you."
Whether she meant Carnifex, herself, or whatever had been done to her, even she wasn't entirely certain.
When her eyes opened again, the hesitation was gone. The Northstar descended toward the Black Pyramid.
Somewhere far below, Katarine knew the darkness was already expecting her.
Darth Carnifex