Darkness pressed against us, competing for space with the glow of Rose's body as we descended into the ruins. It occurred to me that her choice of clothing had been practical in one way—it was thin enough to make her into a sort of human torch. Wherever she walked, light danced over the walls and floor. In point of fact, I had never seen her skin glow quite so fiercely. When we emerged from the narrow staircase and stepped into the first chamber, every corner was illuminated, as if by moonlight.

We were not alone.

"Ahh, the welcoming committee, I presume," I chuckled, surveying the gibbering mass of small, dark creatures pouring out of the far doorway. "How marvelous." I had always enjoyed a good soliloquy during a fight. The sound of my own voice steadied me and improved my concentration. "Shall we take the floor and open the soiree, my dear?"

Rose's face was set in a tight smile of grim determination. She drew her sword with one hand and her pistol with the other. "Let's."

The shadow beasts leaped at us, snarling and squealing. There were dozens of them. I lined up shot after shot, dropping each one that came in range. Rose darted ahead, shooting one of the beasts over her own arm while she decapitated another with her sword. She moved like a dancer, slashing, firing, and dodging as though her steps had been laid out for her in advance. No motion was wasted.

"Oh, my Queen, you dance divinely! I really ought to have invited you to one of my parties. But you are making me a bit jealous, you naughty thing. Allow me to cut in." I squinted carefully and squeezed the trigger of the Dragonstomper, knocking a screaming shadow out of the air and dashing it against the stones. The creature's body tripped several of its fellows, who promptly met their deaths at the edge of Rose's flashing blade. There seemed to be no end to their numbers, however. They began to surround us, slavering and growling in anticipation of the kill.

"Darling, I suggest that you duck."

She ducked.

I slipped the Dragonstomper back into its holster and spun, fanning the hammer of the Paramour for rapid fire, laughing madly. Oh, how wonderful it was to be alive! The roar of the gun was deafening, and the monsters collapsed in droves, felled by my bullets. The few that remained turned and ran back the way they had come.

"Tut, tut, leaving so soon?" I called out, walking swiftly after them through a cloud of gunsmoke. "But we've only just begun! Come now, at least stay for the waltz."

A hand closed over the back of my coat, dragging me backward just in time to avoid the grasping claws of a shadow I had not seen in the smoke. I quickly shot the beast and glanced back at Rose, who released me with an amused look.

"Do you always talk so much when you fight?" she asked.

"Yes. Even when I'm alone." I gave her a swift kiss. "Now come along, dearest, we must keep up!"

I caught a flicker of movement ahead and immediately shot at it, earning a guttural death-shriek for my efforts. "Hmm…I cannot see a thing, and it would be dreadfully ungentlemanly of me to ask you to take point. Fortunately, I believe our friends might be willing to oblige us."

I pulled the peculiar tube that had come with the Paramour from my pocket and screwed it onto the barrel. It was a silent killer, according to Rose, but it was so much more than that in my hands. The weapon had been made for Heroes, and it was infused with magic. Fire magic.

"Auugh!" I screamed theatrically, allowing my voice to carry through the dark corridor. "My leg! Avo have mercy, my leg!"

Predictably, the skittering of many feet filled the silence after my cries. Stupid creatures. I smirked and pointed the Paramour at the center of the corridor, waiting. At the first sign of movement, I squeezed the trigger and held it. A jet of blue flame doused the hall from the Paramour's barrel and the shadow beasts within went up like so much kindling. Screeching and howling in agony, they collided with one another, spreading the fire to those who had managed to avoid my attack. Some fell in smoldering heaps, but the rest scrambled into the next chamber.

I held out an arm to my Queen and bowed with a flourish. "Torches to light our way, Your Majesty."

"Not for nothing do they call you the Hero of Skill," she muttered with a small smile.

We stepped over the charred remains of the shadow beasts and followed the ones that still lived through the next room and down a long flight of stairs. By the time we reached the chamber at the bottom, the last of them had finally died.

"When we have children, Rose…" I began airily, pausing to put a silenced bullet into the head of each of the corpses—one could never be too careful.

"Children?"

"Yes, dear, they're like us, but smaller. They eat a great deal, defecate a great deal more, and make a lot of noise."

Rose laughed and smacked the back of my head gently. I slapped her shapely bottom rather harder, and she gasped, giving me a half-amused, half-shocked grin.

"As I was saying, when we have children, you'll want to tell them about this day. I'd tell the story myself, but it is in poor taste to boast."

"I see. And what will you tell them about me?"

"I won't need to tell them anything. They will need only to look at you to know how special you are. You do actually glow in the dark, you know. And you have wings. By the way, are you able to fly?"

"You know, I have never had the occasion to try," she answered thoughtfully.

"You must be joking! That would have been the first thing I would have sorted out."

"The wingspan is too small, I think. Logically, it would take a wingspan at least twice as long as I am tall in order to support flight."

"They are magical, my dear. Magic has almost nothing to do with logic."

"On the contrary, it has everything to do with logic." Her face brightened. "Intuition is a form of logic, you know. It is your subconscious mind making logical determinations on its own, based on the knowledge at hand. For example: we have been standing in this room for several minutes, rather than pressing on. I can deduce that we are nearing the heart of this place because of your reluctance to move. I can feel your tension."

"You're basing that on solid observations," I said dismissively. And yes, she was right. I was hesitant to move forward, because the Judges were quite near. I truly hated how right she was, sometimes. I could not help stalling a bit more, simply to hear the sound of her voice a little longer. "That is not exactly intuition, is it?"

"My subconscious and I are very well-acquainted. When I have a feeling, I deconstruct it to determine what caused it."

I frowned slightly. "You really have found a novel way of protecting yourself from all of the pain in your life."

"Well, I have never been one for drinking," she replied with a smile. "So this was really the only alternative." Her face and her voice grew serious again. "Are you with me? Are you prepared? They are close, aren't they?"

"Yes," I said quietly. Rose could decide for herself which question I was answering. "What is our plan, exactly? How do we close the door?"

"It all began with Theresa. That is where it will end. I imagine that restoring Theresa's sight will put things right. If she is made whole, the Dark Seer will cease to exist."

"Again, darling...how? Tell me the what and the where, and I will do whatever must be done. Send me in blindly, and all I can promise you is that there will be a great deal of bullet holes which we may or may not survive to see."

"Follow my lead," she said. "And bear in mind that they will try to break you before they resort to killing you. They want you alive."

"But not you."

"Not me," she confirmed. "I believe they will try to create another Dark Seal, and if we allow that, they will use it to kill me outright and strengthen you beyond anything you have ever experienced, because you will have the entirety of my essence added to yours. The Seal I brought is now vulnerable, because it belongs to both of us. If they corrupt you, they corrupt the Seal, and I will die. But that is what we want them to try to do. If they did not have this small advantage, they would simply force another Dark Seal from your body, and I do not know what it would do to you. Remember, the battle we are to fight is in the mind and the spirit, far more than the body. If you let them break you, this chance will be lost—quite possibly forever. If they try to corrupt our Seal, I will be free to make my move. You must steel yourself, and remember who you are, or they will take it all away from you."

I snorted. "How lucky that I perform so well under pressure."

"Also," Rose added, walking forward. "They probably know everything I've just said."

"Lovely." I felt myself shutting down, little by little. All that would not be necessary for the battle ahead was falling away. Fear was the first to go, and I was glad to be rid of it. Fury filled the hole it had left behind in my heart.

"Remember what Theresa said when you asked her to tell you everything you were about to see during our journey. She told you that you already knew your history, and that the knowledge itself changed nothing. Let that give you confidence, now. It also means that simply knowing our intentions is not enough to stop us. Only through action will our fate—and theirs—be decided."

She held out her hand, and I took it in grim silence.

The darkness began to lift as we neared the heart of the place. Crimson light filtered into the hall, turning our bodies faintly red as we walked.

And then…we were there. The hall opened up into an enormous well, built from the stones of hundreds of tombs. The grey sky of Wraithmarsh flew high above our heads, but its light could not penetrate the scarlet flames of the torches that never dimmed in this abominable place. Across the void of the well sat three thrones, and before them stood three figures, shrouded in darkness. The figure in the center was unmistakably Theresa. She stood in precisely the same manner, with her hands clasped before her, and she wore the cowl and robes of the immortal seer. But this Theresa existed in shadow.

"Welcome," she said, and I shuddered at the familiar sound of her terrible voice. It was the voice from the ocean. "I knew you would come, at last, Reaver, with the one whose essence will make you a god. We have waited centuries for this."

I forced a smirk. "I see. You know, I rather think 'The Temple of Reaver' has a nice ring to it, but I am quite frankly not interested in the sort of divinity you seem to be offering me. I certainly do not want to end up looking like you lot. It would be a true atrocity to rob the world of this face, don't you think?"

The Dark Seer ignored my taunts and seemed to focus her energies on Rose, instead. "Poor, misguided child. No weapon can harm me, for I do not live, and I cannot die. Everything you have done has served me. I sought to bring you to this place, to make the ultimate sacrifice. You will feed the darkness unceasingly. You slew the Crawler, my herald, and now you shall take his place. You shall become the harbinger of eternal night."

"There will be no more sacrifices," Rose said softly. "I am not here to kill you. I am here to save you. Here, more than 500 years ago, an innocent Hero lost her sight. Her blood was spilled upon this very ground by a monster from the Void. And here, you, who abhor the light because it allows us to see, have dwelled in shadow. No more."

She narrowed her eyes. With two swift movements, she opened her inner arms from elbow to wrist on the steel cutlass strapped to my back. I had no time to react. Blood rained onto the ground in thick, heavy streams from her fingertips, and she flung it over the walls and across the yawning gap of the well. The wounds closed almost immediately, leaving no traces of scarring behind, but her white dress was spattered with crimson, and so was her face. Her hair was sticky with it. She raised her bloodstained arms and her wings burst from her back with a blast of light that very nearly blinded me for an instant. The Judges cringed away from her, and despite myself, so did I.

"Here is the blood of Theresa the Seer!" she cried fiercely. Her voice echoed through the massive well, growing larger and stronger than I had ever imagined it could. "I come to you in her stead, as her champion and as yours, to make you whole once more!"