In the gutters of Commorragh.
Lyleth, only three hundred years old and looking like a human little girl, sat among the ruins.
Before her stood an Aeldari girl her own age.
Lyleth wept bitterly, kneeling on the ground in repentance.
"You were my best friend. I saved all the good food for you."
"Why, in the arena, when Vect ordered us to either die together or let one of us live, did I choose to take your hand and kill myself, while you put down your dagger after I slit my throat and watched me die?"
The girl accused Lyleth.
All Lyleth could do was cry and repeat that she was sorry.
She had nothing to defend herself with. She had wanted to survive, to live like a twisted maggot in a place like Commorragh.
For that, she had lied to her closest friend, saying they would die together. But after her friend really killed herself, she had put down the dagger.
That was the filthy thing she had done to stay alive. Now her friend stood before her, demanding answers, and Lyleth had no grounds to defend herself.
"You regarded me as family, but you betrayed me."
The girl drew a dagger from her waist and gripped it in her hand.
Lyleth recognized it as the very dagger they had used to kill themselves in the arena all those years ago.
She offered no resistance. Kneeling upright, she bared her slender neck, ready to face her friend's revenge.
But the girl placed the dagger in Lyleth's hand and whispered, "Kabal warriors are nearby. Come with me!"
In a daze, Lyleth was dragged along as the girl ran ahead.
They followed the pipes through the ruins. Kabal warriors who had slaughtered their people were hunting them, and their footsteps could