The first woman Gakoria paused by was starkly different from the others. She was almost entirely composed of crystalline structures. Her skin was a translucent, icy blue, and her organs—visible as faint, swirling clouds of light within her ribcage—were her only opaque parts. Her head was a series of overlapping, faceted lenses, giving her compound vision that seemed to focus on an infinite number of points at once.
'Guess that's a woman in their species.'
"DeathMark, this is Zylara Vex," Gakoria announced. "She is the Strategos of the Outer Marches, one of the women who ensures the entire Faction's resource engine runs on time. Zylara can calculate the optimal trajectory for a planetary siege, the caloric needs of a million soldiers, and the exact moment a star will collapse, all before breakfast."
Zylara didn't offer a hand. Her gaze, shifting across multiple lenses, finally seemed to settle on the fabric of Azrail's simple tunic, as if trying to discern its weave density.
