Only one more chapter to go. I have no Beta, so all mistakes are mine. Also, I don't own Hellboy.

Garndel left the group when they reached the stairs, unable to proceed. He gave them the traditional Elvin farewell and Devon smiled to see it from such an unexpected source. They climbed in silence, but for their footfalls. It was an eerie experience, made all the more so because Devon could remember a time when this place had been so vitally alive. She indulged in a moment of nostalgia; sentimentality was a luxury that very soon she wouldn't have time for. Somehow, the hard decisions always came to her. But perhaps that was true of everyone, from their own perspective.

Then abruptly they arrived, almost too soon, and Devon felt the ancient royal seal under their feet. Nuala was looking pale and perfect as she took her usual position- between Nuada and Devon. The priestess allowed the irony to burn away her emotions until she could think only in cool, straight lines.

Nuada stepped around his sister, his white-blonde hair shining like a halo. "Give me what is mine," he ordered them, supremely confident.

"Why don't you ask us politely?" Hellboy responded, rolling his shoulders.

Nuada sneered at him. "I wasn't speaking to you, hellspawn. I was talking to Abraham…"

But even before he could say the man's name, Abe had seized the box roughly from Devon and was poised to throw it to the elf prince. Hellboy gave his friend a shocked, irritated look. Abe couldn't help but sound defensive. "What? You'd do the same for Liz!"

"Abraham," she said, her voice low but commanding. "That is not the way." He stared at her for one long, tense moment before throwing the box to Nuada. Then she smiled, cruelly amused. "And that is not the crown piece."

"But you said-" Abe began a Nuada snatched the box from the air.

Devon's eyes narrowed. "I said I would bring it, and I have."

Breaking the wooden sheath, it was immediately obvious that the box was empty. Nuada advanced from the throne, cool rage seemed to emanate from him in waves. "Where is it?" he hissed, his lance sliding from his sheath with a lethal hum.

Devon nudged Hellboy firmly. "You must challenge him now, but do not kill him, or you condemn the Princess as well."

"Don't worry, I'm not going to kill him. I'm just gonna kick his ass," Hellboy said confidently. "Hey, elf-boy, even if you do get the crown, you're not getting out of her without fighting me. Let's get it over with- I have things to do," Hellboy said, cracking his knuckles.

"You have no right to challenge me, demon," Nuada said calmly, keeping on hand on his sister.

"No, he is Anung un Rama," Nuala said, her voice was commanding, but tinged with desperation. "He has the right and you must answer."

Nuada gave Hellboy a disgusted sneer and Devon smiled. "When will you learn, Princling? I'm always two steps ahead of you."

"Soon we shall see, Priestess," Nuada spat. He grabbed a sword and threw it with seeming nonchalance. It flew with astounding speed towards the demon, spinning through the room. Hellboy snatched it out of the air before it could slice into his chest. "Come then, demon. Your death awaits."

Hellboy growled low in his throat and charged the elf prince, who stood, poised elegantly in a relaxed position until the last possible instant. Their swords came together with a dangerous scraping of goblin forged metal. Then Nuada was spinning and leaping through the air, dodging and rolling, his sword flickering in the light, appearing suddenly, then disappearing only to strike again from another direction. Speed and agility had always been his advantage over his opponents, but Hellboy met his blade at every junction. Though Nuada flowed around the demon like water, he couldn't break through his defense. Mesmerized, Devon found it hard to pull her attention from the battle, afraid that at any moment someone would surely make a mistake and find cold steel sliding through some vital organ. Frowning, she forced herself into motion.

As silent as a cat, she circled the lethal pair until she could ascend to the platform where Nuala stood, wholly unguarded. Devon was already weaving her spell as the oblivious elf princess stared at the combatants with breathless dismay. It required intense concentration during its casting, but Devon was used to compartmentalization. She plotted each step out as she focused her powers on the minute details that were so necessary with these sorts of spells. Mental powers were more the purview of a Priestess of the Winds, after all, and it had to include everyone in the room when it was done. Deftly she tied each of the living beings into her web of power, loosely for now, but once they were all entangled she could draw it tight in a second. She capitalized on Nuada's distraction and made him the focus of all the emotions that were bleeding out of the BPRD agents. In Devon's mind, it was already over.

She completed the spell and watched as Abe, Liz, Johan, and Hellboy froze in place, locked in the grip of her enchantment. She saw Nuada pause in his attack as the first of the unfamiliar emotions began to slip into his mind. Devon saw his stance change as he lifted his weapon for the killing blow and then abruptly froze as a thin line of blood formed across his throat. He looked almost…lost.

"Nuada!" Her voice lanced across the distance between them and struck him like a bolt of lightning. It was the first time she had used his name in centuries and it definitely got his attention. So did the sacrificial dagger that was biting into Nuala's neck. "Have I ever told you, beloved, how much I loathe your sister? If she had never been born it would have solved so many problems." She watched Nuada's expression carefully.

"Harsh words for a life-giver," Nuada replied, his face schooled into calm.

Devon increased the emotions boring into him ever so slightly. Sweat broke out on his forehead and he was gripping his lance as though it were a lifeline. "You don't know how long I've waited to say them," she replied, exultation running through her veins. Devon let it glint in her eyes, fiendishly, madly. She sighed then, pushing her victorious euphoria aside, "It feels even better than I thought it would." She skimmed Nuala's ear with her lips. "I hate you." Nuala whimpered and Devon pressed the blade into her neck again, smiling at Nuada's hiss of pain. "Even now you are between us. He can't defeat me without killing you and I can't have him unless I am willing to share every emotion- every innocent or intimate encounter." She gave an involuntary, tinkling laugh, aware that she must sound insane and not caring. "You, my dear, are very much in the way."

"You know very well that there is no way to separate us. This posturing is pointless." Nuada seemed to be recovering his composure, which would never do. She funneled more emotions into him and felt Nuala quaking under the onslaught.

"Yes, it is true; I can't kill her, but I can burrow into her mind and rip out everything that makes her alive. Maybe it won't be so bad sharing you with her if she's nothing but a husk. It would be almost like she wasn't there at all." Another mad smile stretched across her face. "I can't unlink you. Only you can do that—that is what this whole trip has been about."

"Did you really think this would work?" Nuada asked, regaining some of his arrogance now that he believed he had worked out her plan. He stepped up the platform towards the two women who had been at the center of his life for centuries. "You've already lost your advantage."

"Really?" Devon asked, her voice deadly. "I thought you were more perceptive than that. I hold in my hands everything that has ever meant anything to you, Nuada. I have your sister's life, the final piece to your crown, and the heir to your throne." She reached down and gripped Nuala's wrist, pressing her hand against her abdomen so that Nuada could feel the truth for himself. "Kill me and you lose the other two forever—and who's to say I will not be able to finish Nuala, too, before I die?"

She watched as it sank in and shock suffused his features. Suddenly vulnerable to all the emotions she was pouring into him, he began to shake- his lance clattered to the ground. "Impossible."

"Is it?" she asked. She dropped Nuala's hand and it fell limply to the elf's side. "Free your sister- it is all she has ever asked of you. Break the link and I will be your wife for all eternity. I swear to you, I will bear your children, use my power for your ends, even tell you where I have hidden the crown." She released Nuala, who stumbled back towards the wall for support. Nuada did not spare her a glance. Devon stepped forward and ran her hands up his chest, circling her arms around his neck. "You can have everything you've ever dreamt of."

She pulled him down into a scorching kiss even as she forced the last of the power she possessed into the spell and quite literally drugged the prince with emotions. If he hadn't been sharing them with his sister, he would have been a quivering mess on the floor right now. As it was he was teetering on the edge of the most momentous decision he would ever make- mentally reeling as the spell alternately sent waves of despair crashing over him before yanking him up to the heights of ecstasy.

She slid one hand back down to press her palm against him, opening her mind to his. For the first time in eons she allowed him to feel the love she had for him. It spanned her entire adult life, consumed her every waking and sleeping thought. It both tormented and comforted her- and it had never diminished in all the years they had been apart. With her spell beating at his mind from all sides, her open link was like a welcome haven. She felt him sinking into her, burrowing further into her thoughts and away from his own troubled mind.

The link, normally a thick band of energy pulsing from one twin to the other, stretched out to a very fine silver cord. Devon could almost see it threading between the two. Never before had Nuada allowed himself to be so emotionally distant from his sister, always fearing she would take advantage of the moment to sunder them. Mentally urging Nuada to break the connection, Devon feared he was much too lost in her mind to actually do anything. She struggled to find a way to warn Nuala, while maintaining her grip on her spell and not alerting Nuada to the game being played out around him.

But she had underestimated her rival. With Nuada's distance, so too came emotional distance from the BPRD agents. Nuala, limp against the wall, had an expression of terrible concentration on her beautiful face. Devon saw the thread suddenly go taut, and Nuada gave a spasmodic jerk in response, before it snapped in two, the edges crackling like broken power cables. Devon released her spell with relief and sagged against Silverlance, who was still frozen in shock. Abe, Hellboy, Liz, and Johan, finding they were able to move again, converged on the raised platform.

Abe reached Nuala first, taking her in his arms and crushing her almost desperately against him. His usual reverence was lacking, and Devon could only approve. If there was one thing that was truly not conductive to forging a lasting romance, it was worship. She had made the same mistake once. Nuala was crying, clinging to him, and her face was alight with a strange combination of happiness and fear. "It's so strange to be alone."

Abe brushed a webbed hand over her cheek. "Not alone."

Devon stared at their interaction and wondered if this was what victory felt like. If so, it would be temporary- Nuada was far from cowed. Now was not the time for idleness, not unless she wanted the BPRD agents to pack them all up and whisk them away to some 'facility.' It was a point of pride with her that she always knew when was the perfect moment to make a discreet exit. This time, she took Nuada with her. She left the crown of Bethamora behind.