Jessos Rains lay spread-eagle on her bed. Soaked in sweat. Staring up at the ceiling of her room. Wishing to fight a formless foe. Wishing to die a righteous death.
Deep in the Niraya district of Reajh, a large textile mill. Underneath the seamstresses that worked the looms of the ground floor, a hidden facility: the Pit. A haven of drugs and illegal activity. And Jessos Rains' home.
After arriving back in Reajh from Cerenis, she spent most of her mornings in her personal room in the Pit. A small room, lit by a white-light lantern hanging from the ceiling. The sheets on her bed a chaotic mess. A large wooden trunk in one corner by the bed, a small table in the other. Pairs of pants and cloth chestwraps were strewn about the floor. Her boots and socks, aligned neatly against the wall, were the only thing in order inside the room.
A routine. To push herself to her physical limits. Wearing solely her underwear, she did push-ups in front of her bed. Up. Down. Up. Down. Until sweat dripped from her forehead to the floor. Until her arms quivered and burned and refused to lift her body back up. And she collapsed.
Then to the foot of the bed, hooking her feet under it. Sit-ups. Her fingers entwined behind her head. Up. Down. Up. Down. Until her abdomen burned. Until she started up and got halfway and her body shuddered and she grit her teeth and her muscles could do no more. And she collapsed.
She stared up at the lantern. Breathed heavy. Ignored the fire in her arms and in her stomach.
This was not her fate.
And yet here she was.
Rains carefully pushed herself back up onto her feet and sat down cross-legged on her bed. She closed her eyes and rested her hands on her knees. Relaxed her aching body. Allowed her breathing to slow. Paid close attention to the pain in her muscles, to the simple sensation of air flowing in and out of her nose, in and out of her chest. Thoughts intruded, bubbling up in consciousness, as they always did. Back to the breath. The steady flow of it. The old, stuffy, humid, underground air of the Pit. The faint smell of her perfume, lingering around the table near her bed. And the thoughts came for her again.
Rains' nameless daughter. Her bones. In that cell. In the ground.
The dungeon. The blackness. Deegan. Coming down the stairs. Undoing his belt. Touching Rains. Smelling her. Licking her. Dominating her. Over and over.
Deegan. The old and frail man. In bed.
Sharon. The smoking pistol pointed at him. His death by her hands.
Rains' meditation brought her to a simple and terrifying conclusion: she was wrong. This
was her fate. This was not the life in which she would get her revenge on Deegan.
It was the Darkening of Samsara. The worsening of each successive life, the progressive increase of suffering until the worst possible misery. Such was the fate of all who lived and died.
And some day, in the next life, and the next, and all the others to follow, Rains would be back in that dungeon. With Deegan.
And some day, in a life far away and yet to come, she would never escape that dungeon. Trapped there. With him.
And in that life—that awful, awful life—Monarch's gaze would truly be upon her.
Rains shook her head. Failing now to even notice that she was still breathing. Still living this life.
Her thoughts. Of the dungeon. Of Deegan. Of their daughter. Of him murdering her.
Rage flowed into her burning muscles. Tensing them. Her hands clamped down hard on her knees, seeking to strangle the life out of a foe who was already dead. Her teeth clenched, driven into each other by a fury unguided. Such a wellspring of anger, directed at naught but ghosts and apparitions in the darkness of her mind, the faceless and imagined men of Deegan's ilk. If she could not destroy Deegan in this life, then perhaps she could destroy them. Surely, they were out there. In Reajh. Haunting her thoughts as surely as they ravaged the innocent in the dead of night. Somewhere. Just out of reach. Another man, another Deegan, waited for her hands, her hatchets, to slay him.
She allowed herself to flop back onto her bed. Lay there, spread-eagle. Soaked in sweat. Staring up at the ceiling of her room. Wishing. Wishing.
* * * * *
Rains got dressed and left Sergio, her second-in-command, in charge of the Pit and headed out.
She walked out of the Niraya district and all the way to a tavern called
The Tipped Hand. Not a very lively atmosphere this early in the morning. Sparsely populated, only five patrons. All quiet. All drinking to themselves. Not even the usual haze of smoke.
The bartender's look soured when he saw her. He didn't like her, mostly because she never drank. If not for the good word of Jorge Vrouge, a regular here, he probably would have just asked her to leave.
Rains sat down at the bar. Hunched over some. Her hands entwined and rested on the wood. Staring down at them.
"You gonna have anything while you wait, today?" the bartender asked.
Rains said nothing.
"Live a little, why don't ya?"
Rains said nothing.
The bartender snickered. Walked away. Refilled another patron's mug with ale.
And Rains waited for Jorge to show. He would, in due time. He had convinced her to visit the new brothel behind Market Street, the one he had told her about in Cerenis. And she needed it. The stress of leading her men and the drug operations in the Pit by herself. The stress of anticipating an eventual betrayal by Mr. Winters, of an attack and final stand in the Pit. The stress of living in a nightmare when she could have died in a dream.
A clatter. Glass on wood. Bone on wood.
"Hey, give me all your coin, you fuckin' cunt."
Rains glanced over. A heavy-set man had a patron's head pinned against the bar. Her heart swelled. Finally.
Finally. Just as she was about to stand and unholster her hatchets from her belt, the pinned man got a look at his attacker.
And laughed.
"Jon! You asshole! You scared the shit outta me!"
Jon laughed as well. "Ah! Got you good, didn't I, Lonergan? How you been?"
Lonergan stood. And the two men embraced. Clapping each other on the back as they did. Let each other go.
Rains glared at Jon. Her muscles tensing. Her hands balling into fists. Her nostrils flaring. Her lips curling back to expose grinding teeth.
She stood and walked toward him and pushed Lonergan out of the way.
And punched Jon as hard as she could in the face.
The man yelped in surprise, stumbled back, holding his nose with both hands. The entire tavern seemed to freeze. All eyes on Rains and Jon.
"Strike this body," Rains said.
Jon looked back to her. His eyes full of shock and fear. "W-What?"
Rains grabbed him by the back of his head and slammed his skull down onto the bar. A glass of ale tumbled and rolled and fell and shattered on the floor. Lonergan yelled out and jumped back from Rains.
But no one did anything. No one tried to stop her when she pounced down on Jon and straddled him and started pounding his face with furious punches. Her knuckles smashed his eyes. His nose. His mouth. Her fingers wet and warm with his blood. Her own blood as her skin broke against the bone of his skull and the enamel of his teeth.
He wasn't Jon. He wasn't an innocent man.
He was Deegan.
And he was raping those little girls again. Over and over. All seventeen of them. Defiled. Used. Dominated. Murdered and discarded when they were old enough to bear children.
And Rains beat him. She beat him for them. She beat him for herself. She beat him for her murdered daughter.
She beat him until his entire face was red with blood.
Rains stopped. Panting as a victorious grin spread across her face. Her bloody hands quivering with excitement.
Jon shivered. Gagged. Coughed hard enough for his whole body to jerk. Droplets of blood erupted from his mouth. An oozing river of blood and broken teeth leaking from his lips.
Rains slowly looked back. Over her shoulder at the other patrons and the bartender.
They all took a cautious step away from her.