Three Square Meals Ch. 126

The landing knocked the air from her lungs and Gaenna scrabbled across the tiles, desperate to grab the pistol that had skittered across the floor. Sarinia got there first, kneeling down to pick up the laser weapon, then pointed it at her mother's frightened face.

"Stop, Sarinia!" Gaenna begged between panted breaths, holding up her hands defensively. "Listen to me..."

"I think I first wished you dead when I was nine," Sarinia said, her lip curling up into a wry smile. "That was the first time you whipped me, for waking you too early in the morning. Do you remember, mother?"

Gaenna swallowed and reluctantly shook her head.

"Ah, I don't blame you for not remembering," Sarinia said with a amiable shrug. "What's one beating in 120 years of torment?" She leaned forward and added, "But just to clarify, this has nothing to do with over a century of abuse... after all that's just the game of succession, isn't it, mother? A matriarch tortures her daughters, they torment each other, and everyone picks on the youngest... then the cycle continues with the next matriarch."

"Sarinia... I'm sorry..." Gaenna muttered, doing her best to sound sincere.

Her daughter giggled, genuinely amused. "That was pathetic! Don't bother apologising, I know you enjoyed brutalising all of us... after all, that was your right as matriarch. As I said, I couldn't care less about that... it was expected."

"What then?" Gaenna asked, nursing her wounded hand and looking at her daughter in confusion.

The smile suddenly disappeared from Sarinia's face. "Did you think I wouldn't find out about your deal with Edraele? Baen'thelas restoring your youth... your hope of immortality? For 120 years I've been patiently waiting for you to die, mother. Did you think I was going to just stand by and let you rule forever?"

Gaenna gasped, her face showing real fear now. "Wait, Sarinia... I can explain!"

Her daughter calmly put down the laser pistol and drew a carving knife from the block in the kitchen. "No explanations are needed, mother. It's time you fulfilled your part in the game of succession..."

With a shriek of terror, Gaenna lurched to her feet and tried to run for the door. Sarinia ran after her and kicked out her legs, making the older woman crash to the floor. She leapt on top of her and with a manic gleam in her eyes plunged the knife into her mother's chest.

"Just fucking die, you vicious old hag!" she screamed.

A gout of blue blood splashed across Sarinia's face as Gaenna gasped in agony. The House Baelora matriarch tried to block the slashing blade, but Sarinia was younger, stronger, and quicker, making it easy for her to overpower her mother. The knife rose and fell, Sarinia stabbing her again and again in a brutal frenzy, fulfilling her century-long fondest wish.

By the time Sarinia's rage had been quelled, she was doused from head to toe in sticky blood. She panted for breath over her mother's lacerated corpse, then rose to her feet on shaky legs. Tossing aside the blood-drenched knife, she staggered into her mother's office and sat behind her desk. A swipe across the runic interface opened up the comms system and she navigated to the files stored in the computer in her quarters.

Copying everything she'd learned at Genthalas into the message, she attached the four images she'd selected of the matriarchs and Baen'thelas. Addressing the message to every noble daughter in the Maliri Protectorate, Sarinia looked directly at the holo-camera and began to record.

"This is Matriarch Sarinia Baelora," she said with a ghastly smile, blood slowly dripping from her face. "See you at the next Council meeting, Matriarchs..."