Sometimes defeating evil requires one only to ask the simplest questions of it.

-Dwarven Proverb

Sheala dashed up the remaining slabs of the staircase, each held together only by their weight and snug proximity to the next. Struggling towards the brightness like daylight itself, she was propelled on legs that burned from the climb up the spiraling stones. Clutched in her hand was the rock they had retrieved from below with its blue veins of crystal.

"Come on!" she called to Brentai and Sayra, who were both lagging behind and dropping further back.

Her thoughts were singular in focus, dedicated to seeing Cass again and hoping they weren't too late. Believing that together, they would defeat Lord Hedric. Once and for all.

A few scant strides from the top, the light began fading like a lantern being put out. Dimming with each new purposeful step she took, soon the dim orange glow of the magical flames contained in the urns was all she could see above her.

Sheala crested out of the pit like a whale upon the sea seeking a breath of fresh air. But what she saw forced both her eagerness and her progress to a crashing halt.

Lingering on the final step instead of entering the antechamber, piles of rubble surrounded the rim of the hole down into the mountain from which she was now emerging. The obvious and shattered remnants of the otaur statues lay in ruins.

"Cass?" she called out to her sister. "Cass?"

While Sheala searched for any sign of her twin, for the briefest of moments, out of the corner of her eye, she swore she saw Reane standing among the rubble.

"Reane?" But when she turned back to look again, there was nothing. "Cass?" Once more Sheala tried to get a response from her sister. Once more she was disappointed.

Frustrated, a forbidding coldness inside her grew. The sense was compounded by the fear she was alone now more than before.

Stepping into the destruction all around her, the silence was eerie. Broken only by Brentai's exclamation upon seeing the sight. "Whoa!" he exclaimed. "What in the name of Earoni happened here? Who broke all the statues? Where's your sister?"

"That's what I am trying to find out," Sheala snapped, and then called out yet again. "Cass!"

Sayra, surrounded by the blue fairy lights, proceeded to join in studying the wreckage that had been wrought in their absence.

"Your sister," Lars replied, a voice in the darkness. "Is dead. I'm sorry."

Everyone turned to the sound as the Blood Lord stood atop a mound of rubble with the lifeless red-haired woman, Sheala's twin, draped in his arms. The orange light of the heatless flames deepened the color of his former general's pale body, making her seem as though perhaps she was not dead.

Sheala's fingered grappled for the hilt for her sword, forgetting until she couldn't find it at her side that she'd given it to Cassandra earlier. Brentai and Sayra, however, braced against the menace among them. Reane's first mate readied for a confrontation with a pair of his daggers, and the silver-haired elf did the same with her long, thin silversteel blade.

Eyes darting back and forth from her sister to the vampiric lord, Sheala struggled to find a response to the sight that struck her like a lance through the heart. "I'll kill you for this," she screeched in the otherwise silence of the room. "I'll avenge my sister!"

Lars, calmly and reverently, climbed down an uneven staircase of rubble to the floor. There he laid the body down with an uncharacteristic care that none expected. It stunned everyone into inaction.

"She sacrificed herself," he said, down on one knee and pulling her open and vacant eyes closed. "To put an end to the curse we Blood Lords have wrought upon this land. Now there is but only me who remains."

Sheala wailed at his comment. "Then she didn't finish the job!"

"No," Lars admitted. "But I will see that it is done." He leveled his red hued blue eyes upon the jagged stone in Sheala's hand. "Just give me the Tear, and I will see to it."

"No!"

Upon being rebuffed, Lars reflexively overrode Sheala's self-control of her own will with his stare. The strength he derived from consuming her sister's blood made the feat so very easy and instinctual. "Yes," he said. "Yes, you will."

She didn't want to obey him. But the force behind his request was too strong to resist. Sheala took an entranced step around the rim of the pit and towards the Blood Lord.

"Let her go!" Brentai ordered.

Holding out a warning hand, Lars halted any attempt to interfere with that singular motion. "I do not want to hurt her. Or any of you. Please, don't make me. All I want to do is lift my curse. That is all. I don't want to rule this world. I don't want to be immortal at the cost of the souls of the living."

"How can we trust what you say?" Sayra asked, finding the claim hard to believe on its face. But also sensing a deep sincerity in his words which caused her to have so many doubts about what she and so many others had believed before now. "You have reigned in blood and destroyed the lives of so many."

"Trust me," he said. "For once, someone needs to trust me."

Sheala continued her unwilling trek towards Lars, circling the edge of the stone stairs and pulled by powerful and unseen forces born from darkness. She wanted to protest—tell Sayra and Brentai not to trust him. But she could not do any such thing while under his spell.

Drawing upon something deep within her, Sheala did gain her senses long enough to plant her feet and lock her knees. Her progress halted even as the unspoken command in the Blood Lord's eyes beckoned her onward.

"No." The former thief struggled, but lifted her arm, holding the Tear out over the spiraling pit still protected by elven magic. Sheala's muscles twitched, not knowing who they should obey. "If I let this go, it will remain beyond your reach. Thanks to Sayra's spell."

"You really want your sister to continue to suffer?"

"What?"

The Blood Lord, his expression pained, nodded. "She is suffering right now. Inside me."

"C—Cass?" Sheala stammered out her sister's name. "She's still alive?"

"No. But what remains of her spirit resides in here." He pointed to his heart. "My body is consuming her. Slowly and painfully. If you deny me the means to lift this curse, your sister's suffering will continue until she is no more. Withered down to nothingness." He held out an urgent hand. "But give me the Tear. Allow me to end the curse, and her soul will be released to go wherever it is destined to go."

"You mean to the heavens?" Sheala asked.

"I cannot promise you that. Cassandra may very well be pulled down into The Dark. A cursed soul for all she's done. That decision is not mine. Though I do lament my role in putting her on that path."

Sheala drew the stone back from over the precipice. "Sayra?" she asked. "Is what he says true? Is my sister still inside him and suffering?"

The silver-haired elf closed her eyes and communed with those fairies hovering around her. "The fairies say she is." A heavy sigh followed the realization. "They confirm that if the curse of the Crimson Plague is broken, she will be freed and allowed to go wherever her soul is called."

"Can I trust him?"

Sayra shook her head. "I do not know."

"Do you have a choice?" Lars stared down Cassandra's twin.

Sheala began to walk towards the blond-haired vampire again. Not under compulsion from his stare, which she felt trying to control her. But that of his words and Sayra's reassurance that they were genuine. The former thief stopped when she stood close enough that the chilled presence of the Blood Lord caused her body to react with goosebumps and raised hairs.

"It's asleep. Or something," she said of the Tear.

Brentai yelled to her. "What are you doing?"

"Saving my sister," she rotated her head partially to reply to him. Then she turned back and stared into the glowing red of Lord Hedric's eyes. "Or at least what's left of her."

Holding out his hand, Lars waited for her to place the stone within his grasp.

"I still hate you," the former thief announced. "Once my sister is freed, I will kill you."

"I have no doubt that you will. And such would be justice for me." His fingers stretched ever closer, begging her to give him the Tear.

Sheala, however, hesitated. "I have you word?"

"Trust me," Lars spoke with an impatient and fanged snarl that he tried to conceal.

"Sayra says that only a cleric can wake the Tear and unleash it's power." With that statement, she placed the artifact in his grasp. "Our friend Daphney can—"

"I do not require her help," Lars chided. Putting his other hand over the stone, he was quiet. Deeply breathing in, he woke the Tear with a long dormant part of himself and only a simple and silent request.

The veins of blue crystal began to illuminate. Like a heart pumping divine blood, they pulsed.

Sheala stepped back in surprise.

"Now," Lars approached her and put the Tear back into Sheala's hand. "You must lift the curse."

"Me?"

"I cannot do it myself. While I could wake the Tear, I cannot wield it." He kneeled on the ground before her and pointed to his heart. "Make your strike true."

"I have to stab you?" Sheala found what appeared to be the sharper of the two ends.

"It's the only way to draw the poison coursing within me out. It resides in the heart. The Tear of Earoni will take it from me and end this curse once and for all."

"I could just cut your head off?" Sheala smiled. "I read somewhere that works too."

"Killing me in that way would end me," Lars admitted. "But it will not cure any that I have afflicted."

"Wait, are you saying? There are more like you?"

"I am saying that if you want this cycle to end, in order for that to happen, you must do what I say, Child of the Storm."

A deep breath in and then exhaled like a gale forced wind was Sheala's response.

Lars dropped any pretense of being inclined to stop her from what he had asked her to do. Leaning his head back, he bared his chest outward for a clean strike.

The shock at Lord Hedric, a monster who had committed so many evils, willingly placing himself before her caused Sheala to pause.

"What are you waiting for?" He barked. "Do it!"

"All right. I'm sure this is going to hurt, but you asked for it." Both hands on the stone, Sheala raised it and plunged it down.

Flesh tore. The bone of ribs cracked. And Lord Hedric screamed.

A pulse of energy erupted and tossed Sheala back. The ground beneath her feet was lost, as the former thief found herself toppling over the edge of the stone pit and heading downward. With a deft hand, she grabbed the ledge and, as her grip was about to fail, brought her second up and secured her hold.

Her arms burning, she lifted herself back up, resting on her forearms with the rest of her body still over the edge, Sheala watched as Lord Hedric writhed. The sound like angry spirits howling consumed the chamber.

Brentai rushed to aid the woman he loved back up onto solid ground while the Blood Lord continued to flail. The Tear glowing and protruding from his ribcage.

As the tumult ended, Lars slumped forward and ripped the blood covered stone from his chest with an agonized groan. The pain was deep and excessive, causing Lars to see stars and teeter on the edge of consciousness. He stared at the gaping wound pouring blood from every heartbeat. It didn't heal, not like it would have only a few moments before.

"How are you still alive?" Sheala scratched her head in genuine curiosity. "Unless you're still a Blood Lord?" She noticed, however, the red hue of blood was gone from his eyes. Now they were bright blue, like the veins in the crystal.

"I think it worked," he wheezed.

"Now what? I mean, you're not just going to be allowed to walk out of here. I won't let you."

Lars rose and stumbled over to a large bolder, one that had once been the horned head of an otaur statue. He leaned there, heavy and allowing it to accept and support his weight. "I didn't plan on it." Hand before his eyes that saw without a lust for blood, Lars witnessed the fading color from the skin.

It grew taught and gray, aging rapidly while flaking like dried parchment. His hair quickly lost its gold hue and faded to a white like bleached straw. He collapsed to the ground, laughing.

It was joyous laughter, as the others watched his body begin to decay. Having lost his unnatural strength, the former Blood Lord began reverting to his true age. One older than any human would naturally live to. "Thank you," he said to Sheala. "I owe you so much, Child of the Storm. You've given me back my humanity. If even only for a moment."

Eyes clouded and sank into his skull, while skin began to pull away from bone.

"And what do I get?" Sheala grumbled, feeling cheated and watching him wither to a corpse.

"You saved the world." And with those final words, Lars Hedric's body collapsed and drifted into a heap of dust and bone.

Sheala balled her fist. Anger swelled inside her. "That's not what I wanted." She punched a nearby boulder, the remains of one of the statue's legs.

"Sheala?" Brentai reached for her, seeking to envelop and comfort her in his arms.

"Don't touch me!"

"Sheala!"

"No!" She struck the stone again, tearing open her knuckles and bearing the bone under the muscle. "How many times do I have to say it? I didn't want to save the world. I wanted my sister back. I wanted my family. I never get anything I want."

"Perhaps," Sayra said, bringing with her out of the rubble the silversteel sword once presented to Sheala as a gift. "Maybe it is not what you wanted that you have received, but rather what you needed?"

"I swear, Sayra, by the Fates, I am not in the mood for your elven mumbo-jumbo."

Allowing the Child of the Storm to fume in silence for a moment, Sayra recovered the Tear from where it laid discarded near the corpse of Lord Hedric. She rested the sword in an area free of debris and set the divine stone still coated with Lord Hedric's blood atop it. "I believe there are two people who wish to speak with you." The elf stepped back, ushering Brentai to do the same as the stone's glow intensified.

"Daughter." Sheala jumped as the single word came simultaneously from a female and male voice. Despite not having heard either for many years, Sheala recognized them both. Each burned indelibly into her mind.

A pair of white mists floated upwards from the blade of the weapon.

"Father?" she asked. Then followed up with, "Mother?"

Bringing themselves together into fantom forms, the mists gathered into representations of the parents Sheala hadn't seen in what seemed to be an eternity. "We are here," both answered in unison as before.

Their child's initial shock wilted into a pensive joy, but then transformed quickly and slid into a disappointed melancholy. Sheala looked off into the distance and away from them.

"Are you not happy to see us?" her mother asked.

"Yes," Sheala admitted. "But not happy for it to be like this."

"How so?" her father inquired.

"You're dead."

"That we are, Daughter."

The bluntness of the statement stung Sheala's heart. "Cass is dead too."

"We know."

Tears began to fall from Sheala's eyes as she realized how empty she felt. "I have no one now. I have been alone for a long time. But I always held out hope that one day I'd have my family again."

"We are both sorry," her mother said, "that we cannot fulfill that deepest wish of yours. And believe us when I say that it pains us more deeply than it pains you."

Sheala wiped her eyes. She looked at the Tear, it's blue veins of crystal pulsing. "The Tear can't bring you back, can it?"

"Alas, no. This is as close as we can come back to you." Reaching out, her mother's fingers were like mirages and dissipated as they would have just touched her daughter's cheek.

There was no sensation that Sheala felt as contact was made. Staring into her mother's eyes, Sheala had a question she wanted an answer to. "Is Cass with you?"

Her mother and father's spirits exchanged a sobering look before her father replied. "No. She is not. We are bound to this sword, and she has gone beyond this world."

"I feel like she would have wanted to see you before she died."

"Rest your thoughts, Daughter. Your mother and I spoke with Cass before she left this world. Know that she was at peace with her decisions. And that those decisions and her sacrifice help deliver this world."

Sheala frowned. "So I wasn't needed at all. Cass was always the one destined to save us all."

"That's not the way it works, Sheala," her father scolded with the gentlest of care to his words. "You were both necessary. And only by working together did everything turn out as it should have."

Her mother then continued. "Things do not always happen the way we want them to. Your father and I did not desire to die and have our spirits bound to a piece of silversteel by elven mages. But, because we were, we got to see both our daughters again. Even if one was only for a very brief time. However, as long as you keep this sword by your side, we will always be with you."

"I've sensed you both since the day Sayra gave me this weapon. I didn't know what it was. But I always felt as though something—someone—was guiding me."

The specter of her father nodded. "We wanted to tell you sooner. But we could not. It was best for us to remain hidden."

Sheala glanced at Sayra standing next to Brentai, who was himself in shock at the scene before him. "I think we could find a way to release you from this prison. If you wanted," Sheala added.

"We would prefer to stay." There was no hesitation in her Mother's answer as she drifted in the air above the sword.

"Will I be able to speak to them?" the former thief asked Sayra. "Whenever I want?"

There was a moment of the silver-haired elf speaking with the fairies before she responded. "Perhaps in your dreams. But not while your mind is alert. Although, you will always know their presence."

Sheala nodded. "I'd like that." Then she added, "At least it's something."

"Your Mother and I both love you," Sheala's father said with a smile. "And being with you, even in this way, will make us happy."

For the briefest of instances, Sheala smiled. Then it left her. "I'm just glad that this whole ordeal is over."

"Life goes on, Daughter," her mother said. "While this journey in your life is indeed over, there will be new ones for you to follow. Some will be joyous. Others will be painful."

"I've had enough pain." Sheala sneered at the thought of all she'd endured. "But I don't think what the future holds could be any worse."

Brentai stepped towards Sheala. As she stood there, looking at her feet, he took her hand in his. She didn't resist or pull away.

Her father's spirit smiled at the show of comforting affection. "If you open your heart, and let those who want in inside, you will find the joy you seek in between the tough times. When you feel unwilling to carry on, that light will carry you on to the end of your days."

Sheala lost herself in Brentai's eyes as the two of them stood there.

"I love you," he said to her with all the sincerity of a heartfelt pledge.

"I know you do. And, I think—" She hesitated. "I love you too."

"You are in good hands, Daughter." Her mother beamed at the exchange before her and her Father's spirit dissipated. Leaving all those in the room to sort out what they would do now that their quest had ended.