Or'do rose from the gleaming seam of glyphs, his silver mantle glittering like a cloak of mercury that shone merrily even in this foul, choked light. I looked upon him with anger still molten in my dark eyes.

"Is it done?" He asked this warily, expecting the answer.

"She would have joined us!" My fists trembled helplessly at my sides. "She would have helped us!" Shattering, stumbling, my voice all but failed, and in a cracking whisper I managed: "She did not need to die."

"It was not that she would resist us; indeed I have thrice extinguished the Flame from my past worlds. It is more that she is a tool of those who bind us; the eye through which they view us; the hand that holds us back. Whether she knew it or not, she would indeed betray our cause. Rest easy, my friend: there are a thousand thousand worlds that lie beside this one, and each host to its own Keeper."

"But not her," I growled. "Not the one I slew. She will never rise again."

"Perhaps, but is not an exact copy bearing the same memories, still her?"

"In some pale, twisted sense." I conceded. "Yet not in mine."

He exhaled softly. "Your wounds shall mend. I shan't deepen them with comforting words that achieve only the opposite. Know that she lives on within you now, if that suits you. Or moreover, that the sundering of this cycle, the extirpation of our ancient foe, is worth more than any single life."

I shook my head, seeing a shade of his wisdom, yet failing to grasp it so firmly, so devoutly as he. Gloved still in a pale white flame that retreated evermore into my flesh, my hand gestured vaguely toward the yawning threshold atop this rugged hill; the lair of the Soul of Cinder.

"We should slay him and be done with it."

"Aye, yet if slay him we do, linger here you should." This quirk of his, switching the order of select words, I had noticed previously, yet in my present state had not the patience to remark on it. "I have neglected my own worlds in our conquest of yours; would you join me in the domination of mine?"

"Of course," I said. "We've a link to establish between all worlds; to progress in yours furthers the same end as mine."

We ascended then, and as we stood before that bleak threshold where mist swirled and its liquid chaos reigned, I felt a strange sense of trepidation wash over me. Perhaps not this time, yet in the future, this place would be the death of one of us, and only time would reveal which.