"No." Glowing eyes bored into blue ones. "Though I am intrigued as to how you know that name. But that question is for another time. No, I do not refer to Ulrezaj, but to Sarah Kerrigan. The Queen of Blades. She who had once been human and is now the leader of the zerg."
Jake grimaced slightly. "Zamara and I were once discussing her. From what I understand, the zerg turned her into one of them."
Zeratul nodded. "They infested her, but somehow did not destroy her individuality. Kerrigan came to us seemingly in good faith, proposing a plan that would aid the protoss and Kerrigan both. But even before she arrived on our world, Kerrigan had gotten to Raszagal and perverted her to her will."
The words were flooding out of Zeratul now, as if a dam of some sort had been broken. Jake listened intently.
"It was all a trick. A ploy. Kerrigan planned to turn on us the moment she had gotten what she needed. We would never have listened to her at all, no matter how reasonable she sounded, had not our own matriarch urged us to do so. Kerrigan knew that was the only way to get what she wanted from us. She kidnapped Raszagal, and I managed to rescue her."
He looked away for a moment. Protoss facial muscles did not reveal much. It was through their thoughts, so much more nuanced and subtle than human thoughts, and the movements of their graceful and powerful bodies, that they communicated. While Zeratul's expression did not change, the pain and outrage of his thoughts and the slight hunching of his powerful form told Jake as much as—more than—if he had been a human speaking. Zeratul was in torment.
"It was only my matriarch's powerful will that enabled her to speak as herself in that moment," Zeratul continued. "In that moment...as she died. Kerrigan knew that I believed I could free her from the zerg queen's influence. And...so I had hoped, too."
He turned back to Jake. "But in the end, I was mistaken. I could not liberate her—at least, not that way. Death was the only freedom I could grant to one I respected with all my heart. And in that moment, she thanked me."
He bowed his head and shuttered his thoughts from Jake. But not, it would seem, from Zamara.
"’You have freed me from her vile control at last,'" Zamara said softly, gently, and Jake knew she was quoting the ill-fated Raszagal's last words. '"You have always served me with honor... Thus I must ask you—"'
"No!" Zeratul cried violently, spinning around to face Jake and Zamara. "You will not say those words!"
Oh crap, what the hell did Raszagal say? Jake thought, panicked that in his outrage and hurt Zeratul might forget that he wasn't supposed to kill preservers and throttle Jake right on the spot.
Zamara ignored him and implacably continued. "Thus I must ask you to watch over my tribe.. .Zeratul. ..into your hands I give the future.' That's what she asked of you."
The anger seemed to bleed out of Zeratul and he turned away again, hunching over, looking much smaller and more vulnerable.
"I thought Kerrigan would kill me. I expected it. I., .planned on it. Instead, she praised me, calling me a worthy warrior." His eyes narrowed, and the anger—no, not anger, it was deeper, larger than that—the offense returned to him. "She said she had already taken my honor. She was going to let me live because my every waking moment would be torture. Because she knew that I would never be able to forgive myself for what she forced me to do. That, Kerrigan said, would be the best revenge she could imagine."
"You shouldn't let her win like that," Jake said softly.
The lambent eyes focused their full outrage on him. "Watch what you say, human."
"Kerrigan was wrong. She didn't take your honor," Jake continued, wondering where in the world this sudden rather reckless courage was coming from. "You let her take it."
Jacob—
Zamara was warning him to back off. Jake ignored her. "Kerrigan didn't force you to do what you did. Sure, she set up the situation, and it was a horrible one. But you decided what to do about it. You chose to kill Raszagal. Don't blame Kerrigan for that."
Jacob, I would advise you to cease this line of conversation.
Zamara, I don't have a lot of time left to me if we don't convince Zeratul to get off his ass and help us. He's wallowing in self-pity right now.
"You didn't lose your honor. You kept it. Raszagal was at peace with what you did."
Zeratul had been stunned into mental silence at Jake's words, but the mention of Raszagal startled him into erupting. "You did not know my matriarch! How dare you speak for her!"
"But I did know her, in a way." The words were spilling out of him now, as they earlier had from Zeratul himself. "I was Vetraas, and Vetraas knew Raszagal, and that girl, that gutsy little spitfire, was proud of who she was and what she believed in. I bet that didn't change when she got older and became the leader of the dark templar. I bet she just got smarter and wiser and stronger, developed a rational head to go along with that passionate heart. I bet she was a terrific matriarch and loathed every nanosecond of being under Kerrigan's control. You didn't kill your matriarch, Zeratul. Kerrigan did that the minute she forced her way into Raszagal's brain and used her as a puppet to betray her own people. All you did was cut the strings. Raszagal died free. If you don't think there's honor in helping her do that, then I gotta say, you are not the protoss Raszagal thought you were."
Zeratul jerked as if slapped.
"Her last words were a duty you're failing to discharge. You're letting her down, big time. She asked you to watch over her tribe. She put the future in your hands, and right now, you're just sitting on them. My individual future and that of your people—hell, if Zamara's hints are right, the entire universe—is ticking past while you sit here on this out-of-the-way planet and feel sorry for yourself. You want that to be Raszagal's legacy?"
Zeratul moved so fast that Jake didn't realize he'd gone just that extra smidge too far until he was flat on his back with the protoss's hands on his throat. Zamara took over at once, forcing herself into Jake's body and fighting back, flipping Zeratul over, wriggling free, and dropping into a crouching stance.
When she had done this before, Jake's body had been able to defeat a master assassin in hand-to-hand combat. He didn't underestimate Zamara's prowess—she knew every fighting technique every protoss had ever known, after all—but he knew the limits of his own body, and there was no way a human could win this particular fight. Not even a human with a protoss at the wheel.
After all this, I didn 't think I'd die at the hands of a protoss, Jake sent wildly to Zamara.
But he didn't.
Exerting a mental control Jake could only marvel at, Zeratul regained his composure. Calm draped him like a cloak. That stillness, so profound as to be almost unreal, settled over him and he rose to his full intimidating height.
"Leave. Now. And do not return."
Rosemary whistled, soft and low. "Wow. So a human woman warped the matriarch of all the dark templar into serving her will and ultimately forced a loyal subject to kill her. Okay, I see your point. I'm surprised that this Hierarchy of yours is even willing to talk to me after that. I'd heard some about Kerrigan. But not that."
"You do have a great prejudice to overcome," Selendis agreed. "The amount of pain Kerrigan has caused my people cannot be underestimated. Bear in mind also that protoss are unfamiliar with your culture. It may well have been that all females of your species are untrustworthy, and only the males are capable of actions of merit and compassion."