...Um, yeah, so I didn't think this chapter was going to get this long...

Oh well, this is how it turned out, so this is how it's going to stay. I leave it up to you as to how you want to go about tackling this massive chapter. Read it all at once if you want, or pause at one of the breaks. You decide.

Let's see how Spyro's hanging in there...


Chapter 27:

The scene that greeted anyone that dared to venture into Warfang's infirmary was one of absolute chaos. Though the structure itself was of impressive size and was usually more than large enough to accommodate all the patients that might have need of it on any given day when the city was fully populated, that night it was packed to bursting with the bodies of moles and dragons, countless voices layered on top of each other until they were almost deafening.

"Someone get me some fresh cloths over here!"

"Where is this bleeding still coming from?"

"Aagh, I can't feel my wing!"

"Hurry up with those red gems! We're losing him!"

"Someone hold him down! The bone isn't set yet!"

To one dragoness that sat huddled in a back corner of the building's foyer, however, the commotion barely even registered in her thoughts. Everything around her seemed to be nothing more than an indistinct blur, faded and far away. She didn't even notice when a familiar, rose-red dragoness approached her cautiously.

"Cynder?" Faren said in a quiet, hesitant tone as she slowly lowered herself into a seated position a foot or so to the black dragoness's left.

Cynder didn't even hear her. She was sitting as rigid as a statue, unmoving as she stared down at the forepaw that she was holding up in front of her. It was almost completely red, her scales and talons coated in the blood that had flowed out of the gashes in Spyro's flank when she had drawn the poison out of his body. The sight filled her with a swell of guilt, pain, horror and self-loathing so powerful that she felt like she might simply shatter under its weight at any moment.

Spyro's blood.

On her paws.

In a way it seemed cruelly appropriate. After all, her whole life her paws had been tainted by the blood of innocent dragons, and now Spyro was another that could be added to the despicably long list.

It was more than she could bear to think about.

Her paw began to tremble, only slightly at first, but rapidly the shaking grew stronger as her feelings of shame and guilt expanded, practically smothering her. All at once she felt the sting of tears at the corners of her eyes, and her throat grew tight when she simply couldn't bear the sight of her blood-stained paws any longer.

With a weak gasp she slammed her paw against the infirmary's hard stone floor before beginning to rub clumsily at it with her other forepaw, wanting nothing more in that moment than to no longer have to see the incriminating shade of red on her scales. But no matter how hard she rubbed or how raw she made her scales from the relentless pressure, the blood wouldn't come off, and a feeling of desperation claimed her as a tight, pathetic-sounding sob broke free from her chest.

A soft touch caused her to jolt with a startled gasp, but when she saw that it was only Faren resting a soothing paw on her shoulder she slowly felt herself relaxing. Just then she caught a glimpse of white out of the corner of her vision, and she looked down to see that the red dragoness was holding a damp white cloth in her other paw, holding it out for Cynder to take.

For a moment Cynder felt caught in a mild daze, but at length she reached out with an unsteady paw and took the cloth from Faren, forcing a weak smile of gratitude before dropping her gaze quickly. Shakily, she began rubbing her paws slowly against the soft damp fabric, trying not to notice the way Faren was watching her with sad, concerned eyes and feeling deeply embarrassed by state she was in. She had always been one who hated showing weakness in front of others, but now here she was, a pathetic wreck for all to see...

A violent surge of emotion flooded through her, and with a strained cry halfway between an enraged shriek and a hysterical sob Cynder hurled the blood-stained cloth as hard as she could against the wall beside her, struggling in vain to hold back the tears that rushed unbidden to her eyes. A rattling whimper escaped her before she clamped her jaws shut, squeezing her eyes closed to try and stop the flow of tears as a painful lump grew in her throat. Faren's paw gripped her shoulder more firmly, but Cynder immediately turned her head away from the other dragoness.

"What have I done?" she said at length in a strained whisper, her voice made unsteady as her entire body shook from the weight of her emotion.

"Cynder," Faren said softly, uncertainly, "It's okay."

"No it's not!" the black dragoness exclaimed angrily, rounding suddenly on her companion and making her jump. "It's not okay! Spyro might be dying right now, and it's all my fault!"

"It's not your fault," Faren tried to assure her, but there wasn't much strength in her protest, and Cynder merely gave a loud, bitter snort and turned away again.

"Why didn't I just listen to him? He was trying to tell me, but I never gave him a chance!"

"You were just doing what anyone would have. You saw Spyro leading the grublins into the city. There was no way you could have known it wasn't really him—"

"But I should have known!" Cynder said frantically. "I should have known that something was wrong! The whole time that...that piece of...filth was pretending to be him, I should have been able to tell, and instead I let myself believe that Spyro was turning into a monster! How could I do that?"

This time Faren didn't have an answer, and in dejection Cynder turned her gaze away toward the opening to the main hall of the infirmary, at the very end of which was the room where Spyro was being treated. Cynder herself hadn't been able to enter with Spyro, no matter how much she had pleaded; with the sheer number of injured being brought in from the city after the battle, there was no room to spare in the hallway as dragons and moles squeezed past each other incessantly, bringing in wounded, leaving to gather supplies, or, in some grim cases, carrying out a covered litter bearing the body of someone that had been too severely hurt to be saved.

The only one out of their group that had been able to enter was Terrador, who had been the one to carry Spyro in and who had insisted upon being present for the entire time that he was being treated, both out of concern for the young dragon and for reasons of protection. Most of the city still didn't know that the Spyro that had led the attack against them had in fact been an imposter, and so Terrador had, justifiably, felt that it was far too dangerous to leave Spyro unprotected, and that it was far more likely that he would actually be treated and not left to die if he was there to ensure the healers did their jobs.

Sparx and his parents had at least been able to wait in the hall outside the purple dragon's room, their tiny size allowing them to wait where anyone else would have just been in the way, though Cynder doubted that they had been let into the room itself while the healers worked. The rest of the guardians and Sirius were waiting outside, meanwhile. Faren had been with them, until just a short while ago when she had come in to check on Cynder.

"He's never going to forgive me," Cynder whimpered after an extended silence. "How could he, after what I did to him?" She gave a despairing sigh. "Maybe it's better for him if he doesn't. I only ever end up hurting him..."

"Cynder, what are you talking about?" Faren gasped. "He probably wouldn't be alive at all if it wasn't for you. Without you, he would have died in the world's core, but you saved him."

"A lot of difference that makes if he dies now!"

"I'm sure he's going to be alright, Cynder," Faren said hesitantly, obviously desperate to comfort her friend but unsettled by her raging emotion. "You got the poison out of him, after all."

But she faltered when Cynder shook her head, sniffing as a number of fresh tears spilled down her cheek.

"I couldn't get it all," she choked. "I tried, Faren. I really did. But it was already so deep in his blood, and it was so hard to pull it back..."

Her voice trailed off as her throat became too tight to speak, and she curled in on herself as a fresh wave of sorrow washed over her. Faren, meanwhile, appeared helpless beside her, looking as if she was trying with all her might to think of some way to comfort the other dragoness and feeling dismayed by her complete inability to do so.

Just then, the sound of heavy footfalls on the stone floor carried out over the background clamour, and through blurred vision Cynder thought she saw a familiar form appearing from the hallway. When she looked up she felt her eyes widen slightly when she saw Terrador slowly plodding into the main foyer, an unknown dragoness of a startlingly pale yellow colouring by his side.

The earth guardian paused when he entered the foyer and looked around until his gaze fell on Cynder and Faren in the corner, at which he paused in an almost hesitant manner. Then, with a sigh, he turned and began slowly pacing over to the two young dragonesses, and Cynder suddenly felt like her heart had stopped beating when she thought she saw a strained, sorrowful look in his normally strong eyes.

Oh no..., she thought weakly, fear constricting her chest.

Terrador and the other dragoness drew to a halt a couple of feet away from them. A heavy silence hung in the air between them for a moment, and each second that passed without a word filled Cynder with more and more dread.

"Is he...?" she managed to choke out at length.

Terrador seemed to hesitate for just a second, and in that second Cynder thought she felt her last glimmer of hope shattering, but then, to her surprise, he shook his head.

"No," he said in a weary-sounding voice. "He's stabilized..."

Almost immediately Cynder became overwhelmed by a massive tidal-wave of pure relief, and with a shaky groan she let out the breath she had been holding, sagging and feeling like she might collapse, to the point that Faren actually had to grab her by the shoulder again to steady her. Just then, however, Terrador spoke again.

"He's stabilized, but the outlook is still uncertain," he said reluctantly. "He is in dire condition.

Though Cynder hadn't actually been expecting any differently, to hear those words was still devastating to her. A feeling of dismay and rapidly-mounting fear took hold of her, and she looked up at the elder dragon with panicked eyes.

"How bad?"

Terrador sighed, and he shifted his gaze to the dragoness who had accompanied him into the foyer. Cynder assumed that this dragon was one of the infirmary's healers, and it was only then that she noticed the specs of blood on her forepaws. The sight caused a sick feeling to swell up inside her.

"From the looks of it, he's suffered massive internal damage," the dragoness said finally. "The blood loss, as well, is a great concern, and the fact that he wasn't in top condition to begin with only lessens his chances."

"He wasn't in..." Cynder stammered weakly. "What do you mean?"

"There were several wounds on his body that were only partially healed. From the looks of it, he was involved in at least one serious battle before tonight, and he hadn't fully recovered from it. This means he has even less strength now to fight these new injuries."

"But...but can't you do something to help him?" Cynder asked, the tone of her voice rising sharply as desperation began to sweep over her. "What about red gems?"

"We've been trying," the healer replied immediately. "But their effects are being dulled. It would seem that whatever venom is still in his system is counteracting the gems' healing properties. Barely any energy from them will enter his body at a time. As it is, it's barely enough to keep him alive for the moment."

Cynder found this news incredibly alarming. To hear that red spirit gems were proving ineffective was unsettling at the best of times, but in this case Cynder found it nothing short of terrifying. It was only on rare occasions that a dragon's body would refuse the healing energy that the red gems provided.

It was common enough knowledge amongst dragons that drawing energy from a red gem was the most certain method available to a dragon to recover from almost any injury. In severe cases there was no guarantee that the gems would heal a wound enough to prevent it from being fatal, but at the same time it was nearly unheard of for the gems to have no effect at all. In the very least they would ease a dragon's pain.

Unlike their green counterparts, red spirit gems—which in essence were simply much more potent versions of the green gems—didn't even require the user to be conscious to heal a wound, either. The energy contained within the red gems would naturally seep from the gem into the injured dragon's body as soon as it was placed close enough.

"But isn't there something more that you can do?" Cynder pleaded as she struggled to take in the news that the gems weren't helping Spyro. "You can't just...force the gems' energy into his body?"

The healer gave a snort of grim amusement. "And how are we supposed to do that? There is no way of accelerating the natural transfer of energy from a gem, no matter what variety."

"I did it when I was bringing Spyro out of the core of the world."

Both Terrador and the healer dragoness faltered at this revelation, and they turned wide-eyed gazes upon her with surprise heavy in their expressions.

"You what?" the healer said at length.

Cynder gave a puzzled frown when she saw the older dragons' strange reactions, and she turned to glance at Faren only to see that the other dragoness looked just as confused as she felt.

"I was able to give Spyro energy from a green gem while he was unconscious by channelling the energy through me," she said slowly, gazing suspiciously back up at the other dragons.

Her confusion only mounted when Terrador and the other dragoness gave gasps of what almost sounded like horror, both of them recoiling slightly as she spoke those words.

"You used your own body as a conduit for the gem?" the healer said quietly.

"Yeah..." Cynder replied slowly, narrowing her eyes quizzically at the dragoness. "I wasn't sure if it was even going to work, but I was getting desperate, and..." She trailed off, unsettled by the stares she was receiving from the two larger dragons. "I'm sorry, I don't understand. What's the big deal?"

"Cynder, what you did is unbelievably dangerous," Terrador told her in a deeply worried tone that in itself was unnerving just because of how uncharacteristic it was.

"Dangerous?" Cynder repeated, jolting back in surprise. "What do you mean, dangerous? I didn't notice anything bad about it." She paused, her gaze drifting off as she suddenly recalled the event. "I mean, yeah, it didn't feel all that great, but nothing happened."

"How many times did you do this?" the healer demanded suddenly, startling Cynder again.

"I...I don't know," Cynder replied uncertainly, trying to remember how many times she had transferred energy from the spirit gem fragment she had brought out of the tunnel into Spyro's body. "Maybe...five or six times?"

The dragoness gasped again, and this time Cynder had no doubt that it was horror she heard in her voice and saw in her expression, which only made her even more confused than before.

"What?" she demanded. "What's so bad about it? I was just doing it to keep Spyro alive!"

"Yes, and risking your own life in doing so!" the dragoness retorted, causing Cynder to falter. "Do you have any idea the strain it puts on a dragon's body to do what you did? There's a reason dragons aren't told this is even possible until they have been deemed without a doubt to be mature enough to appreciate the seriousness and the terrible risks involved!"

"I still don't see why you're making this out to be such a horrible thing. I never felt any kind of negative effect from doing it."

"Which either means you had the sense to not try and transfer too much energy at once, or, more likely, you just got lucky," the healer said reproachfully.

"Cynder, when a dragon uses their body as a conduit for the energy of spirit gems, it's not the gem's energy that gets transferred into the other dragon," Terrador told her gravely. "It's your own life force that gets pulled away and afterward gets replaced by the gem."

Cynder froze, stunned, and weakly she managed to say, "What? But when I did it, I could feel the energy going through me and into Spyro from the gem!"

"You felt the flow of energy, but in such a process there is no longer any distinction between the energy from the gem and that from you," the healer explained. "But rest assured, it's the truth. When you were transferring that energy into Spyro, it was coming from you, and weakening you more than you probably even realize."

"Cynder, there have been terrible things that have happened when dragons have tried to do what you did," Terrador said ominously. "All it takes is one small slip up or lapse in concentration while the energy is being transferred, and the dragon attempting to transfer the gem's energy could suffer disastrous consequences."

"You mean, die?" Cynder asked, feeling cold fear gripping at her chest.

"In some cases," the dragoness nodded. "But it's far more likely that you would be left crippled in some fashion, whether in the form of severely decreased stamina, health complications, seizures, permanent weakness, lingering physical pain, the loss of the ability to control your element, or countless other harmful effects.

"In the case of red gems, which are far more potent and therefore more dangerous, there have been reported cases of what has been deemed as 'reversed recovery', where instead of healing them, the energy from the red gem will cause wounds to open up almost spontaneously all across a dragon's body, and from that point on in their lives their bodies are no longer able to recover properly from physical injuries.

"As well, in almost all cases, regardless of what kind of gem was involved, the dragon loses the ability to draw energy from spirit gems ever again. And believe me, there are far worse potential effects than just the ones I've mentioned. That is why it is a process that should never be attempted."

Cold, numbing horror spread steadily throughout Cynder's being as she listened to the seemingly endless list of debilitating side-effects that could very well have befallen her while trying to help Spyro after escaping the core of the world. She still didn't regret doing it, for she was all but certain that the purple dragon would have died long before she could get him to Bayside if she hadn't, but to hear what might have happened to her in the process was still greatly disturbing, and she felt a small tremor run through her as she imagined herself unable to use the crystals which were such an integral part of a dragon's life.

"But what about Spyro?" she protested. "He might die if he doesn't get any more energy from the red gems!"

"It's far too dangerous," the healer said with a firm shake of her head, though her tone had grown somewhat softer. "Maybe, maybe if it was absolutely certain that he would die if he didn't receive any more energy from the gems immediately, and if we had a team of the most highly trained dragon healers available in the city to share in the demands of the process, and if they had the time necessary and a place where there was absolutely no chance of disturbance, then it could be done, but even then the risks would be tremendous, and we simply cannot afford to risk our best healers. Spyro isn't the only one in grave condition at the moment, I'm afraid, and we can't spare anyone from tending to them."

"But...But there has to be something...," Cynder pressed desperately.

But the healer dragoness only shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry. Everything that can be done has been done already. All that we can do now is wait and keep trying every once in a while with the red gems. If that doesn't work, then..."

She trailed off, and the bleak tone of her voice caused a renewed wave of fear to grip Cynder's heart.

That can't be it! she thought despairingly. They can't just let Spyro die!

"Thank you for all your efforts," Terrador told the dragoness a moment later in a solemn tone. "If you could keep us informed of any developments..."

"Of course," the dragoness nodded without delay. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have other patients I must be getting to."

"Indeed," Terrador rumbled grimly, glancing around at the chaos within the expansive structure. "I wish you luck in your efforts."

"We'll need it. This is going to be one long night."

"It already has been."

The healer nodded once more before she turned about and waded back into the flow of bodies heading into and out of the main corridor. When she had gone, Terrador turned back to the two younger dragonesses.

"I'm going to go and inform the others outside of Spyro's progress," he told them. "You are welcome to continue to wait here, or you are welcome to come wait with us if you would like."

"Can I go see him?" Cynder asked pleadingly.

Terrador shook his head apologetically. "The healers are still at work, I'm afraid. I'm sure they will inform you as soon as it is possible to visit him, but for now, all we can do is wait."

Cynder sighed dejectedly, her gaze dropping to the floor, and a twinge of sympathetic pain flashed through the earth guardian's eyes before he turned and cautiously made his way back out through the crowded foyer to the building's main entranceway. Once he had gone, Cynder was left feeling utterly useless and afraid.

"This is all my fault," she said forlornly again.

"Cynder...," Faren began to protest, but she was cut short when the black dragoness motioned with a paw to stop her.

She seemed to realize then that Cynder wasn't going to accept any more attempts at comfort, not when all she felt was terrible shame at what she had done to a dragon who hadn't even known what he was being attacked for. The fire dragoness gave a mournful sigh before falling silent, simply trying to offer companionship by her presence in that difficult time.

After a minute passed, Cynder let out a long, resigned breath before reaching over and picking up the cloth again. Then she resumed working at trying to clean her paws. For the next hour it was all she did, not stopping even after the last flecks of dried blood had long since been stripped from her scales and claws. Inside, she felt like no matter how much she rubbed them, the blood would never truly be gone from her paws, and so she never stopped.

It wasn't until she caught a bright glint of colour at the corner of her vision that didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the background commotion that she finally paused, and when she looked up she jerked up slightly in surprise—though the feeling was dulled and lacked the strength it normally would have carried. She immediately recognized the white dragon that had just entered into the foyer of the building, looking extremely hesitant as he glanced around at the frenzied activity all around him.

When he caught sight of Cynder and Faren sitting in the back corner of the room, a look of conflict and uncertainty swept over his expression, and for a long moment he just stood frozen in place within the doorway as he apparently debated what he was going to do next. At length, and appearing greatly anxious, he began making his way over toward the two dragonesses. Cynder watched his approach with a feeling of curiosity, still having no idea who this dragon was or how he had come to be in the city.

A few seconds later the mysterious white dragon drew to a nervous halt a few paces away from the pair of dragonesses, both of whom were gazing straight back at him with puzzled expressions. The white dragon glanced at Faren for a short moment before his anxious gaze settled firmly on her black-scaled companion.

"Um...," he said in a halting, quiet voice. "It's...It's Cynder, right?"

After a brief pause Cynder simply nodded. She noticed quickly that there were clear signs of tension in the younger dragon's body as he gazed at her, as if he was deeply wary of her. Though this caused a twinge of pain to shoot through her, she couldn't say that she blamed him at all.

"Flash, isn't it?" she said in a strained tone. "That's what Spyro called you?"

Just like Cynder, Flash's response was a quick nod of his head before he hesitantly lowered himself into a seated position, glancing toward the entrance to the infirmary's hallway.

"Do you know how he's doing?" he asked finally. "Is he going to be okay?"

The level of worry in his voice caught Cynder slightly by surprise, and it suddenly became clear to her that even if she had no idea who this dragon was, it was obvious that Spyro was important to him. Eventually, she gave a heavy sigh.

"I don't know," she told him. "They're doing everything they can for him, but..."

She saw his expression cloud with even more worry as she trailed off, and again his gaze drifted to the hallway. For a long moment she just sat there studying him, taking in his unusual colouring. Her eyes lingered especially on his chest scales and his wings, which bore the most unusual colouring she had ever seen, iridescent and seeming to shimmer every time he moved. While it was certainly uncommon, Cynder had to admit there was something almost mesmerizing about the gleaming yet subtle effect, but she quickly turned her gaze away when he noticed her staring. Embarrassed and slightly uncomfortable, she cleared her throat tensely before she broke the awkward silence.

"Thanks," she told him quietly.

Confusion flashed across his features, and he turned a quizzical look in her direction.

"For what?" he said finally.

"For...stopping me," she replied at length with a great deal of difficulty, cringing as she tried to suppress an image of the painful scene that flared up in her memory. "You saved me from making a horrible mistake."

The white dragon's own expression became tense almost immediately, and his gaze drifted away as his body became slightly more rigid.

"I just...couldn't let him get hurt," he muttered, his gaze still distant.

Again, Cynder was struck by how much Flash seemed to care about Spyro, although he seemed strangely conflicted about it at the same time, as if Spyro meant a great deal to him but he was almost ashamed to admit it.

"If you don't mind me asking," she began hesitantly, "how did you end up coming to Warfang with him?"

He didn't answer for almost a minute, looking as though he was having a difficult time deciding how to answer the question. When he finally did speak, it was with an uncertain shrug.

"I don't really know," he admitted. "It just...seemed like the only thing I could do, after..."

He trailed off suddenly, and Cynder frowned in confusion when she thought she saw a twinge of unfathomable sadness cross his expression for just the briefest of moments before he turned his head away, preventing her from seeing his face any more. Then he continued speaking, though in a considerably more strained voice.

"I don't even really know what I'm doing here," he said. "I just...I had nowhere else to go. And Spyro...It sounds weird, but he's the only thing I've really got left."

Cynder blinked several times in surprise at those words, for just a brief moment her guilt and sorrow were forgotten as she leaned her head forward inquisitively. "What do you mean? Don't you have a home, or a family somewhere?"

Flash immediately cringed, and all at once Cynder realized that it probably hadn't been so wise to ask such a question. A small twinge of guilt returned, but before she could try and say something to correct her mistake Flash spoke again.

"Not anymore," he sighed. "Not since my village was attacked."

Cynder drew back slightly in surprise, and beside her she heard Faren utter a weak gasp.

"Your village?" the black dragoness repeated. Then, as a guess, she offered, "The mountain village?"

Flash nodded, which wasn't entirely a surprise—where else would he have met Spyro?

"Over three weeks ago, my village was almost destroyed, and..." His voice faltered for a moment, and Cynder thought she caught the glistening of tears in the smaller dragon's bright blue eyes before he shut them tightly. "And my brother was taken by the grublins."

This time Cynder gasped as well, and a swell of sympathy surged through her.

"What happened?"

Flash let out a long, shaky breath before slowly turning to meet the gaze of the two dragonesses again, his expression grim and his jaw tense.

"I thought it was Spyro that did it," he admitted finally in a voice filled with sadness and regret as well. "There were hundreds of grublins, maybe thousands, and they all just came out of nowhere. We got trapped. My brother and me, and some of his friends. I tried to hide us, but the grublins wouldn't leave, so Claymore..."

His voice caught again, but much more forcibly this time, and a tremor shot through his body as it seemed like he was trying to force himself not to give in to tears. When he resumed speaking after a minute, it was in a shaky voice, and he didn't open his eyes this time.

"I told him not to go, but he didn't listen. He led the grublins away so that the rest of us could escape. And that's when I saw him. Spyro..." He opened his eyes again, and when he did Cynder saw a sudden hardness in them that hadn't been there before, like a bottled-up hatred. "He was right there in front of me. I didn't know it was an imposter, obviously, and when the real Spyro showed up at the village everyone was convinced that it was him that had attacked us, so they took him prisoner."

"Prisoner?" Cynder gasped weakly. "How?"

Flash shook his head quickly. "I don't know."

Cynder felt a thrill of dismay run through her body, and she shivered as she imagined Spyro locked helplessly in some prison cell.

No wonder he was gone for so long, she thought mournfully. Then she cringed when she thought about how he must have felt, left completely alone in an unfamiliar village, treated like a criminal and probably wondering why no one had come looking for him. Oh, Spyro, I'm so sorry...

Then she realized that Flash was speaking again, and she forced herself back into reality.

"When he got out of the village three weeks later, I followed him," the white dragon said. "And when he was weak, I...attacked him. I forced him to help me look for my brother, because he had never come back to the village after the attack. He agreed." He paused, deep in thought, then continued, "Even though I still thought he was an enemy, he kept me from giving up, and he wouldn't let me stop looking until we found Claymore. Almost everyone else in my village told me that I should just let Claymore go, but not Spyro. I think...I think that's when I started to realize that I was starting to feel...attached to him, I guess."

"And did you find him?" Cynder asked quietly. "Your brother?"

Flash nodded, but at the same time another tremor ran through him, and his expression became pinched with a profound sorrow that immediately filled Cynder with a feeling of foreboding.

"He didn't make it," the white dragon croaked finally, his gaze falling to the floor.

Cynder gasped in horror, and beside her Faren did the same. A deep sadness and pity took hold of her, and for a moment she was unable to find any words to say. Finally, she forced out, "I'm sorry."

Flash nodded weakly before sniffing loudly and reaching up with a paw to wipe his eyes.

"When Spyro offered for me to come with him back here after that, I didn't really have anything to hold me back any more. Without Claymore, there was nothing in that village for me. Spyro was the only one I could really think of as a friend, even though I hated him at first." His gaze then shifted over to the crowded hallway again. "If I lose that now too..."

"You won't," Faren said quickly, speaking for the first time since the white dragon had arrived. "I'm sure he'll pull through. I mean, he's the purple dragon. He's stronger than others..."

Flash nodded mutely, and on Faren's other side Cynder did the same, deep in her own worried thoughts, but a part of her wasn't fully convinced. In her mind, it seemed impossible that any dragon, purple or not, could make it through everything that Spyro had suffered. What did he have left to draw strength from? After spending weeks in a prison for something he hadn't done, he came back to Warfang only for the dragons that were supposed to be his friends to try and kill him. That would be more than enough to break anyone...

A number of minutes later, when the flow of injured being brought to the infirmary finally began to subside, the healer dragoness from before came back out of the hall and approached the group of now three young dragons. She had told them that the treatments of red gems were finally beginning to have more effect, which had come as an enormous relief to Cynder, but it wasn't all good news.

For a reason that the dragoness couldn't understand, while most of his physical injuries were beginning to heal, his overall condition didn't appear to be improving. His vitals should have at least begun to strengthen, but if anything they almost seemed to be declining slowly. As the dragoness put it, it seemed almost as if he had somehow lost the will to recover.

To make matters worse, the healers had discovered something alarming about the wound on Spyro's foreleg. From what they could tell, the concentrated poison had done enormous damage to the limb that likely couldn't all be healed by red gems. Specifically, the nerves in his leg had suffered damage, but the healer's weren't able to determine the extent. They weren't sure if the effects would only last for a couple of days before healing, or whether the limb would be crippled for life.

Hearing this news had been the hardest out of everything for Cynder to bear. To think that Spyro might suffer for the rest of his life for her mistake...It was too much. Right then, she became certain that the purple dragon would never forgive her for what she had done. How could he? After such a betrayal, it was unfathomable that he would ever be able to look at her the same again, and this realization filled her with a deep feeling of grief and loss.

Her message delivered, the healer dragoness departed to repeat the same news to the guardians waiting outside. With her gone, the three young dragons were left with nothing to do but wait, filled with worry and fear. For hours their vigil drew on until the city outside the infirmary's doorway began to brighten in the dull, grey light of a thickly overcast morning, the sky still yet to clear after the storm from the previous night.

Then, just when Cynder was starting to lose her grasp on whatever frail glimmer of hope remained to her, the sound of tiny, rapidly-fluttering wings caught her attention, and she looked up toward the hallway just as Sparx zipped out into the foyer with startling speed.

"Sparx?" Cynder gasped as the dragonfly shot through the air toward them, flying as if Malefor himself was right on his tail. "What is it?"

"You have to come," Sparx panted, sounding out of breath from his sprint through the infirmary. "Come on, quickly!"

"What?" Cynder demanded, trepidation rising up within her at the insistence in the dragonfly's voice. She immediately began to fear the worst. "Is something happening? What, Sparx!"

"It's Spyro!" Sparx replied insistently. "He's awake!"

*.*.*

Time seemed to have no meaning. Teetering on the very verge of awareness, not truly awake but not completely unconscious either, he could make out only an indistinct, confused jumble of sensations. It was like he was lost in a dream world with no structure and no reason within it, passively absorbing what information he could from his surroundings.

He heard voices, many of them, and he thought he detected an air of urgency in them, but what it was they were saying or what the cause of their alarm was, he hadn't the slightest idea. Aside from the voices, the only thing he was truly aware of was a terrible, throbbing ache that threatened to smother his consciousness completely at any moment, its weight almost unbearable.

Then everything seemed to fade, and he could feel himself slipping, falling without the will or the strength to resist.

Another bout of alertness, but this time there were far fewer voices. The jumbled murmur had faded from a flurry of activity to barely anything, perhaps only a couple of individuals engaged in hushed conversation. However, while the franticness was gone, the note of unease and worry remained. This time he thought the voices seemed exceedingly familiar and strangely comforting, though he couldn't place their owners.

The pain was less as well, though still far, far more intense than he would have liked.

Then everything faded into darkness once again.

Finally, the third time he regained awareness of his surroundings, it came with a sense of clarity that had been missing from the times before. It was a slow process, made all the more difficult because with the clarity came a much more acute awareness of the pain in his body, and as a hundred different twinges, jolts and aches crashed over him at once he wished that he had never regained consciousness at all. How much easier it would have been, to simply slip into the void and not have to deal with this pain and suffering any longer...

His memory was all a haze, and he couldn't remember where he was or how he had gotten there. Because of this, he didn't know the cause of the terrible ache in his heart that seemed to have sucked all warmth from the world. His will was gone. All he knew was pain, and he didn't want to know it anymore. He didn't want to wake up.

But he found that he didn't have a choice in the matter. He felt a new trickle of energy within him, energy that didn't seem to be his own, and it was driving the crushing weight of unconsciousness off of his mind and spirit, rousing him when he didn't want to be roused. Had he been more lucid before, he might have realized that it was the effects of the spirit gem treatments he had been receiving, but as it was this was something he couldn't know.

The first action the purple dragon attempted was to take in a breath of air, for in his prolonged unconsciousness it seemed as though his breathing had faded until it was almost nonexistent, his body too weak and battered to fill his lungs on its own. As soon as he tried to inhale, though, he became aware of a horrible blocked feeling in his throat, and almost immediately his chest clenched and he gave a weak, feeble cough. The cough brought with it the taste of blood at the back of his throat, but it didn't seem fresh, merely the remains of a past trauma. Still, the simple motion of his chest was enough to send a fresh wave of pain through his body, especially his right flank, and he groaned weakly.

A sudden, quiet gasp from somewhere nearby reached him, and a moment later a familiar voice pierced the absolute silence around him.

"Hey," the voice said. "Hey! I think he's waking up!"

"Really?" another voice that was just as familiar as the first said in a tone of jolted surprise. There was a buzz of tiny wings as an unseen figure darted over to him. "Spyro?"

"Can you hear us?" the first voice asked in little more than a hopeful whisper.

Spyro groaned again, more loudly than before, and with a tremendous effort he cracked one eyelid open. The sudden light caused a stab of pain in his head, however, and he immediately snapped the eye closed again, wincing, before trying again to open his eyes much more slowly than before. At first all he could see was a blurred mass of indistinct colours all around him; brown, green, red, flickering orange—a torch or lantern, maybe? There were three brighter colours, as well, though they appeared to be little more than glowing dots at first; one pink, one blue, and one gold.

"Spyro," came the first voice again, sounding strained but comforting at the same time. "Come on, honey. That's it. Wake up."

Spyro blinked slowly a number of times in an attempt to force his vision to fall into focus, and ever so slowly the world around him resolved itself into something recognizable. Eventually, he was able to recognize the three glowing lights hovering above him as dragonflies. Not long afterwards, their faces became distinguishable.

"M...Mom?" Spyro croaked, his voice coming out so strained and quiet that he wasn't sure it was even audible. "Dad?"

"Hey," Nina said gently, a broad smile spreading across her face and her eyes beginning to glisten from tears of relief as she hovered down to rest a hand comfortingly on the side of the purple dragon's snout.

"Good to see you back among the living, son," Flash told him with a tight chuckle, an expression similar to the pink dragonfly's on his own face.

"Mom, Dad!" Spyro choked with a surge of surprise and unimaginable joy, and while his voice was still hoarse and weak the emotion within it was stronger than it had ever been in his life. "It's really you!"

"Yes, Spyro, it's us," Nina laughed, her voice catching slightly from the weight of her own emotions. In one swift motion she and Flash both darted down to Spyro and grabbed hold of his neck and cheek in the tightest embrace they could manage. "We're here. It's alright now. We're here."

Spyro made a weak sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and for a long moment he just lay there, eyes closed as he revelled in the presence of his family, their comforting touch helping to instantly chase away some of the terrible ache and grief that had been filling his soul. Finally, he was with someone that wasn't accusing him of some terrible crime that he hadn't committed. The touch of his parents now and the simple knowledge that they were there to support him bolstered his spirits in a way he had thought nothing would, and he quickly felt tears brimming in his eyes from the flood of sheer relief that swept over him after weeks of fear and uncertainty.

Just then he felt a soft pat on his right horn, and he opened his eyes and looked up to see Sparx hovering just above him, gazing down at his brother with a tight smile on his face.

"Good to see you, big guy," the golden dragonfly said in a slightly quavering voice. "Glad to have you back with us."

Spyro felt his smile stretching wider across his muzzle, but his throat had become too tight to make any kind of reply. It seemed as though Sparx could tell what he was feeling without him having to speak, though, and with a small chuckle he patted his brother's horn again. Then, a moment later Flash and Nina released their hold on their son and pulled back slightly so that Spyro could see them more clearly.

"I'll go tell everyone he's awake," Sparx said suddenly with a note of eagerness in his voice, and as quick as a flash he was off, disappearing through the open doorway to Spyro's infirmary room and down the hall.

Spyro chuckled quietly as he watched his brother go. After that a moment passed in silence between the purple dragon and his dragonfly parents, all of them simply savouring each other's company now that Spyro was finally awake. However, even though Spyro had regained consciousness, it was clear his parents still felt greatly worried about him.

"How are you feeling?" Nina asked anxiously after another minute had passed.

Spyro's expression immediately clouded, and he winced sharply when he tried to shift on the padded nest of cushions he found himself lying upon only to cause a bolt of pain to lance through his entire body.

"I've been better," he groaned finally in a strained voice.

"How bad is it?" Flash inquired, worry clear in his expression and tone.

Spyro winced again before gasping, "It...feels like everything's burning..."

Neither of the dragonflies were able to reply, and they exchanged pained glances with each other before looking back at Spyro again, a look of sorrow creeping into their expressions. Feeling unsettled by the looks they were giving him, Spyro fought through the pain in his body and rolled onto his stomach, which elicited several worried exclamations from his parents that he ignored. Then, with gritted fangs, he lifted his head unsteadily off the cushions and turned it to examine his condition.

"Spyro, you really shouldn't be moving around so much..." Nina protested anxiously, but she trailed off when she saw the look that had come over her son's expression.

Cold, numb shock and dismay seeped throughout him when he got a look at himself for the first time. Tight strips of bandage wrapping covered him almost from head to tail, most of them bearing red stains from the wounds they covered, especially the ones that covered his right flank. Even though bound, the scrapes and gashes all across his body still stung bitterly on top of the constant, terrible aching burn that filled his entire being.

On the inside, meanwhile, he was aware of a throbbing, strangely sick-feeling sensation that spread through his entire body, leaving him weaker than he had ever felt before. Just then he tried to shift again, and suddenly he noticed something wrong. His gaze dropped to his left foreleg, which was so heavily wrapped in bandages that none of his scales showed through.

"Why...," he stammered unsteadily as fear and dismay shot through him. "Why can't I feel my leg?"

Flash and Nina's expressions became pinched with sympathy and sadness, and Spyro faltered when he saw them exchange another tense glance.

"You don't remember what happened?" Flash asked hesitantly, as if he were almost afraid of the answer.

"I...," Spyro began, only to trail off with a confused frown. "I don't know. Everything is all hazy..."

He scowled, feeling a mix of panic and bewilderment as he tried to clear his clouded memory, attempting to make whatever scattered images and sensations presented themselves fall into order but having little success. Everything felt scrambled, jumbled, his recollections all mixed together as if by some great trauma so that nothing made sense any longer.

All the while, he was aware of his parents watching him with expressions that bordered on wariness, and the tension in their bodies was impossible to miss. This only caused his confusion to mount. They almost seemed like they were afraid of him, but why?

The sound of a paw brushing against the stone floor in the hallway distracted him from those thoughts, and Spyro looked up just in time to see a black-scaled figure appear in his doorway, a look of extreme anxiety in her emerald eyes.

The sight of Cynder sent a surge of images and emotions charging through Spyro's mind, threatening to overwhelm him with their intensity. He felt pain as he was knocked out of the sky by the black dragoness. He saw her charging at him with claws outstretched. He felt an indescribable agony as her venom splashed across his now-bandaged foreleg, and he recalled his enormous terror when he saw her standing over him, poised to drive her glinting tail blade into his flesh.

Fear and desperation exploded through him, and instinctually he began trying to scramble back away from the dragoness, uttering a panicked gasp as he tried and failed to move his body back from the door. The instant he placed pressure on his left foreleg, however, the numbness that had seized hold of the entire limb was replaced by a jolt of agony that tore through his body, and with a sharp cry he collapsed back down onto the cushions. But even then, he didn't cease struggling.

"Spyro, easy!" his mother exclaimed in a panicked tone, flying down and placing both hands on his shoulder as if to try and hold him down. "You have to relax!"

"Stay away from me!" Spyro shouted desperately, not even hearing her. Or at least, he tried to shout; his voice was still too weak for anything more than a croaked gasp to escape him.

"No, Spyro, it's okay!" the black dragoness said pleadingly as she took a number of steps forward. In his panic, he didn't notice the hurt in her eyes and her voice at seeing his terrified reaction to her presence. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Spyro faltered, and he turned a wary, doubtful look toward her, though he didn't dare to relax as fear still coursed through him.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Spyro," she told him again, taking another cautious step forward but stopping quickly when he curled his body defensively once more.

This time he did notice the pain-filled tone of her voice and the glint of shameful tears in her eyes, and this caused him to hesitate. Then he turned his gaze down toward his own scarred and battered form once more, his eyes tracing the bandages that covered the wounds marking his body. Most of them had been made by her, and his expression hardened almost immediately.

"Why?" he asked in scarcely more than a whisper, turning his head slowly to look at her with hard, accusing eyes.

Cynder seemed unable to respond for a moment, a fresh twinge of pain causing her to wince and look away.

"Why?" Spyro asked again, his tone darkening. "I thought you cared about me."

"I do!" Cynder exclaimed immediately, turning back to look at him again with panicked, desperate eyes. "I do, Spyro! More than anything! I—"

"Then how could you do this to me?" he demanded, cutting her off and causing her to jolt badly, his cracking voice filled with sudden rage and grief.

Everyone else in the room was silent, startled by the purple dragon's anger. Flash and Nina had retreated a couple of feet from their son, while Sparx had gone so far as to hide behind the corner of the doorway behind Cynder, with only one of his eyes peeking out past the wall. Spyro, meanwhile, wasn't aware of any of this as he glared at the black dragoness.

"Spyro, I'm sorry," she said weakly, tears welling up in her eyes as she struggled to hold his burning gaze. "I—"

"Sorry?" Spyro blurted in disbelief. "You're sorry? You were trying to kill me! You think saying you're sorry makes it better?"

"No, I know it doesn't," she choked, shaking her head quickly. "And I know I can't expect you to forgive me. I probably wouldn't either. Please, Spyro, I just—"

"Just what?" Spyro snapped. "What, Cynder? What kind of explanation could you possibly have for this?"

"I thought you were trying to overrun the city!" Cynder exclaimed despairingly. "I didn't know what else to do!"

Spyro was stunned for a short moment, but then a swell of hurt and anger claimed him in their crushing grip. His gaze hardened even more, while his voice took on a slightly more desperate tone.

"You could have listened to me!" he said. "You could have let me explain, but you never even gave me a chance!"

"Spyro, I'm sorry!" Cynder cried, her voice growing hoarse and sounding more like a sob with every moment that passed. "You have no idea how scared and confused we all were! We thought we were losing you to greed for power! We didn't think we had a choice!"

"How could you even think I would do something like that?" Spyro demanded, grief colouring his tone. "How could you trust me so little that you could think I would ever do something like attack the city?"

"Because we saw you do it!"

Spyro faltered as another surge of memories fell into place: a purple dragon who looked exactly like him, leading the grublins as he tried to flee the city; Cynder, moving out to meet his copy instead of him beyond the wall of the city. A swell of pain unlike any other tore through him.

"How could you not tell that it wasn't really me?" he asked in a quiet, broken voice. "I thought you knew me. I thought you cared more than that."

Cynder gasped weakly, recoiling, and only a second later a look of terrible shame and grief flooded into her eyes. A strained sob broke free from her chest, and she closed her eyes tightly as fresh tears poured free from her, unable to bear meeting Spyro's shattered gaze any longer.

"You can't blame her, son," Flash said quietly in an attempt to intervene. "She wasn't the only one. Whoever this dragon was, he fooled all of us."

"It was all a terrible mistake," Nina added, trying to sound soothing. "But it's over now."

But their words had the opposite effect that they had been hoping they would have, and they seemed to realize this when Spyro turned to look up at them with eyes full of terrible shock and dismay, a feeling almost akin to horror surging through him. A torrent of emotion more powerful and more painful than any he had ever experienced in his life broke free within him in that moment, threatening to consume him in its raging depths.

"So, you're saying that nobody can tell me apart from some fake?" he cried in anguish, betrayal filling his soul. "That all it takes is for some dragon who can somehow make himself look like me to say a few lies, and everyone I though cared about me will believe him without any doubts? Is there no one that believes in me at all anymore? Doesn't anyone have any faith in me? Or am I just something that everyone secretly fears because they're afraid I might suddenly turn into another Malefor!"

"Spyro, that's not true!" Nina exclaimed, panicked by her son's despair.

"Then why wouldn't anyone believe me?" Spyro roared desperately. "Why didn't any of you realize something was wrong? I spent three weeks locked in a prison cell, waiting for someone to come for me and tell everyone that I wasn't a monster and that I was innocent! But you were all too busy buying the lies of some...fraud to realize that I needed help, and plotting how to kill me when I came back!"

Flash and Nina drew back with weak gasps, and in the doorway Sparx retreated even farther behind the corner. Cynder, meanwhile, let out a broken sob and turned her gaze away again, curling in on herself and shuddering under the weight of her shame. Spyro, however, was too overwhelmed by his own feelings of grief and betrayal to be moved by the sight of her pain.

"How could you?" he cried, his voice cracking from despair. "How could you all turn on me? My family? My friends? You?" His last word was directed at Cynder, but she was still unable to open her eyes to look at him. "I needed you, and you never came! Why didn't you come for me? Where were you?"

No reply came, only the sound of her whimpering.

"What is going on in here?" a new voice demanded suddenly, and a pale yellow-scaled healer dragoness burst through the doorway of the room with a look of shock and bewilderment on her face, apparently having heard Spyro's despairing cries from down the hall.

"None of you really care about me!" Spyro shouted, completely ignoring the newcomer, bitter tears streaming down his face. "If I mattered at all to you, you wouldn't have let any of this happen! You don't care!"

"All of you, out!" the healer snapped immediately, turning a stern glare on the dragonflies in the room and Cynder when she saw the state Spyro was in. "Right now! I don't know what's going here, but he'll never recover if he's this worked up! Out! Move!"

They complied in an instant, retreating from the room with extreme haste and soon disappearing down the hall, shooting remorseful glances over their shoulders as they left, except for Cynder whose gaze never left the floor, her strained whimpering fading quickly into the distance. Once she was sure they had gone, the healer turned a worried gaze down toward the sobbing purple dragon sprawled limply out on his cushions, utterly shattered.

"Is there anything you need?" she asked softly.

"Just leave me alone!" Spyro cried hoarsely.

With a sad look in her eyes, the dragon healer gave a quiet sigh before turning about and pacing quietly out of the room, leaving Spyro whimpering brokenly atop his cushions, the pain in his body paling in comparison to the pain inside him, feeling utterly alone in the world and wishing once again that he had simply never woken up...

*.*.*

The rest of the day passed at an agonizingly sluggish rate for the purple dragon as he retreated deeper and deeper into himself in his depression and despair. After the healer had ordered everyone out of his room, he had simply wept uncontrollably for what felt like hours until his eyes were puffy and his throat was raw, feeling heartbroken and betrayed by everyone he used to be close to. Had he been allowed to, he might have simply given up and allowed his injuries to claim him, but thanks to the healers he had no say in the matter.

There were two more red gem treatments over the course of the day, each one having slightly more effect than the one that had preceded it, although that still wasn't saying much. Spyro's wounds were healing much slower than the healers would have liked to see and what they were expecting. The theory still was that it was because Spyro still had no will to recover. The energy from the gems could help him, but they were only truly effective when a dragon accepted them willingly instead of having them forced upon him.

After the incident with Cynder and his family, the healers decided that they weren't going to let anyone else into his room for the remainder of the day, fearing that if he were to become that upset again the strain would undo all the work the spirit gems had achieved already. However, their restriction proved futile, for there was one dragon who could enter unnoticed wherever and whenever he wanted, and you couldn't stop what you couldn't see.

Flash's visit was the only welcome thing in Spyro's day, and when he had seen the young white dragon slowly appearing out of the air like a ghost the purple dragon had felt a tremendous wave of relief and the closest thing to joy he had experienced since waking up and first seeing his parents. At first Flash had looked dazed by Spyro's battered appearance, his eyes wandering over the obscene amount of bandage wrapping being used to cover his wounds and the stains of blood that dyed the otherwise pristine white fabric a deep red in several places. Then, after shaking off his stupor, he had slowly sat down a couple of feet in front of his companion, glancing regularly toward the door for any signs of anyone coming that might catch him.

Not much had been said between them, but Spyro was still unbelievably glad that the light dragon had come to him. His presence was the only one that he could find comfort in now, and it seemed as though a similar situation were true for Flash as well. Flash told Spyro about how the guardians had welcomed him graciously into the city, but it seemed as though the young dragon was still greatly uncomfortable in the presence of strangers, and with nothing else familiar he clung to Spyro with all his strength.

Eventually, though, Flash had been forced to leave when he grew too fearful that his presence in the room might be discovered. Spyro had nearly begged him not to go, but deep inside he knew that it was unavoidable as well. Flash had promised him that he would come back soon, but he also said that if he was missing for too long the guardians, who had taken it upon themselves to ensure that Flash was accommodated within the city, would become suspicious and he didn't want to get Spyro in trouble. Without a sound, he had bent the light around his body and vanished from sight, leaving Spyro alone once again.

Hours crawled by without rest and without relief, and as the day wore on Spyro found himself slipping further and further into a depression whose depth seemed to have no end. Nothing felt like it had meaning anymore, and while the gem treatments were slowly erasing the pain from his body, the burning ache was still more than he thought he could bear. He wanted escape, he wanted release, but it never came.

By the time evening fell, the depth of Spyro's depression and misery was so great that he was almost completely oblivious to the world around him, simply lying perfectly still on top of his cushions—both so that he didn't cause any more pain in his injuries and because he simply didn't have the will or the energy to move—and staring listlessly at a pattern of cracks on the floor a short distance away. He didn't even notice when Sparx anxiously edged in through the doorway.

"Spyro?" the dragonfly said hesitantly.

At the sound of his brother's voice, the purple dragon shifted his head just enough to glance at him out of the corner of his eye before letting out a low huff and turning his head the other way, his gaze dropping to the floor once again. He heard Sparx sigh sadly, but he was too numb and hurt inside to care.

"Listen, buddy," Sparx said tensely, floating over closer to him. "I get it, alright? I don't blame you for feeling like this. I know we hurt you." He sighed, his voice growing tight. "I know we let you down."

Spyro glanced toward him for just a split-second, and when he saw the dejected and shameful look on his brother's face he felt a twinge of sympathy for the first time since waking, but it was gone quickly and with a quiet snort he turned away again.

"I'm not expecting you to say anything," Sparx told him a moment later, with slightly more firmness in his voice. "I just want you to listen, alright? I'm not even going to try and say that I understand what you're feeling right now, but is being angry at everyone going to make it any better? We know that we failed you, and not just last night. And we all hate ourselves for it. But we want to be here for you now."

"There's nothing you can do to make this better," Spyro muttered with a swell of bitterness without turning his head.

"Because you won't let us!" Sparx protested immediately, a note of desperation entering his tone. "Do you think this is any easier for the rest of us? We have to live with what we've done every day for the rest of our lives. We have to deal with the shame of knowing that you were innocent all along, but we doubted you! I doubted you! My own brother! And I hate myself for that!"

He gave a loud sigh, and Spyro heard him beginning to pace back and forth through the air with an air of great tension about his motions, but even then he didn't turn to look at him.

"Don't you see, Spyro? The only way any of us are going to heal from this is if we do it together, not by isolating ourselves. Lying here on your own isn't going to make anything better."

"Heal?" Spyro said, his voice tight, turning at last to face Sparx. "How can you expect me to heal from this? You have no idea what I've gone through, Sparx. No one can ever understand. There is no healing from this! I don't know if I want to heal from this! I just want the hurting to end!"

Sparx looked horrified. Spyro, meanwhile, turned his head quickly away again and blinked hard when he felt a tear forming in his eye, his pain rising anew.

"There's more than one way for that to happen, you know," Sparx said softly after a minute had passed in utter silence. "And you're not the only one who wants that."

"Who else could possibly feel like I do right now?" Spyro said harshly.

"Cynder, for one."

Spyro's body immediately went rigid at the sound of that name, and his talons slowly clenched against his cushions as a low growl rumbled from his throat, filled with equal parts hatred and anguish. The very thought of the dragoness that had put him in that room in the first place filled him with a conflicting storm of fury and pain.

Part of him wanted to repay every scar she had left on him, and make her feel the suffering she had put him through. To a part of him, she was as good as dead to him. But there was another part of him, small and beneath the surface but not by any means weak, that longed for the comfort that he had only ever known with her by his side, for it seemed like nothing else would drive his agonizing heartache away.

He despised that part of him, for it was weak, and he didn't want to feel that way.

"I know, I know," Sparx said quickly at the sound of his pained growl. "I know it's not something that you want to talk about, but it's the truth Spyro. I'd be tempted to say that she's even more miserable than you are."

Spyro growled again, but louder this time, and this time it was only anger he felt. But Sparx persisted.

"Spyro, you're not the only one that's had to struggle through these last few weeks. You have no idea how terrifying, how sickening it felt to think that you were pulling away from us for power, especially for Cynder. When that...that...scum attacked the guardians and trashed the city, making us think you were doing it, it killed her inside. And it killed her inside knowing that she had no choice but to fight you."

"She had a choice!" Spyro snapped. "She made it! She chose to abandon me and give me up as lost when I didn't even do anything!"

"Whoa, okay," Sparx said quickly, raising his hands defensively in an attempt to calm Spyro's anger before he became too agitated again. "I get it. Like I said, I can't imagine how you feel. But ask yourself this: what would you have done if the roles were reversed?"

"I would have tried to stop her!" Spyro replied without any hesitation, anger and betrayal surging within him.

But Sparx's reply caught him completely off guard.

"So did she. And she was left with a scar that almost killed her. Sorta like you now."

Spyro faltered, and he turned a startled gaze up at his brother only to see the dragonfly turn about with a grim air about his motions and depart the room.

Alone once again, Spyro was left reeling as a surge of confused and conflicting thoughts tore through his mind, leaving him dizzy and uncertain of everything around him. In an attempt to escape the raging storm, he shut his eyes tightly and buried his head in his cushions, willing everything to just go away. He longed for peace. He wanted escape. But it didn't come.

When a new visitor came to his room, Spyro was too drained and numb from his confused thoughts to notice. He had tried for what felt like hours to try and get Sparx's words out of his head, but they kept echoing within his mind. As he kept hearing them over and over, they filled him with a terrible feeling of doubt, a doubt that he wished more than anything he didn't have to bear. He wanted to be angry about everything that had happened to him, for it was so much simpler, even if it was painful. Now he was only confused. What was right? Who was right?

Finally, several minutes later, he realized that he was no longer alone. Slowly, numbly, he turned his head to see the intruder, but when he did he was immediately overcome by a feeling of shock. However, it was quickly replaced by a simmering anger and pain, and his eyes hardened into a glare.

"What are you doing here?" he asked icily.

The black dragoness standing just within the doorway didn't reply for a long moment. Cynder seemed extremely uncertain, as if she didn't know the answer to that question herself. Spyro noticed that as she stood there she seemed to sag as if from the weight of extreme weariness, and her eyes were red, no doubt from crying.

"I don't know," she said finally in a weak voice, her gaze falling shamefully to the floor. "I know I'm probably the last person you want to see right now..."

Spyro snorted bitterly before turning his head away from her, setting it down on the cushions and facing the back wall of the room, brooding in hurt and betrayal. Cynder uttered a sad sigh behind him, but instead of leaving he heard her slowly settle into a seated position on the floor. An oppressive silence fell between them, lasting for several minutes before Cynder finally broke it.

"I...I understand if you hate me," she said weakly, he voice tight, and Spyro imagined that she was fighting back tears as she spoke but didn't move in the slightest to look. "I would too. I just...I wanted you to understand."

Spyro didn't make the slightest reply, though it seemed as if Cynder was waiting for some kind of reaction to judge how he was feeling. When none came, she resigned herself to just keep speaking.

"I never wanted to hurt you, Spyro," she said sadly. "Even...even when I was fighting you, I hated myself every second of it. I just..." Her voice caught, becoming tight, and it was a moment before she could continue. "Just, after what that imposter made it look like you were doing, I was so scared of losing everything we had both fought for. I couldn't let that happen, not after all we went through..."

She trailed off, a pleading note in her voice, as if she were desperate to know what he was thinking. Spyro, meanwhile, felt only numbness within him. Still, as her words slowly sunk in, he couldn't help but feel Sparx's words echoing in his head again.

What would I have done?

He smothered the thought before it was allowed to grow stronger. He was confused and hurting enough as it was without adding more doubts now.

A long, grieved sigh sounded from where Cynder was sitting when another minute passed in which Spyro said nothing, nor moved to look at her.

"I'm so, so sorry, Spyro," she said with an unbearable shame in her quavering voice. "I truly am. I'm sorry that I wasn't there when you needed me. I'm sorry that I failed you. I just wish that you could forgive me." She sighed once more before rising listlessly to her feet. "I'll just leave you alone..."

There was a pause, as if the black dragoness were holding out on a final, faint hope that Spyro would stop her from leaving, but when the purple dragon remained motionless it seemed that her last hope shattered, and with a quiet sniff she began plodding slowly for the door.

Spyro wasn't quite as cold to her pleas as he seemed, however. Though most of him wanted nothing more than to hate the dragoness for the rest of his days, there was still a part of him, a small but growing part, that didn't. Conflicted emotions raged within him, and amongst them was a terrible fear; a fear of her leaving, a fear of losing her in this time where he had nothing to draw strength from, nothing to give him a reason to keep living. And as much as he was loath to admit it, there still existed a part of him—a weak, pathetic, heartbroken part—that needed her just as much as he always had.

As he heard her footsteps fading as she approached the door of his room, the desperate fear inside him surged in strength, and though he wanted nothing more than to remain silent he found it was impossible to do so any longer.

"You should have just let me die," he muttered hoarsely.

A weak gasp came from just within the doorway as Cynder quickly spun around.

"Spyro, you can't mean that," she protested in a horrified voice.

"Can't I? Just try being where I am now, and see if you can still say that."

"You don't think I've been where you are?" she demanded. "Three nights ago I was exactly where you are, Spyro!"

"No you weren't!" Spyro growled bitterly, rounding on her suddenly. "You haven't been through what I have!"

"No, I haven't," Cynder replied with a sharp shake of her head, anger in her voice. "I went through an entirely different hell!"

Spyro faltered at the sudden surge of emotion in her voice, and he glared at her quizzically. For several seconds she simply stood there, her body rigid as small tremors ran through her, fuelled by grief and anger.

"I thought I had lost you forever, Spyro," she said in scarcely more than a whisper. "I thought you had let darkness take you. You have no idea how horrible, and sickening, and devastating that felt! You can't even begin to understand! I felt like I had nothing left to comfort me, nothing to strengthen me. Maybe you feel the same, but then you're still not seeing something, Spyro. We're still here! We haven't abandoned you. All you have to do is let us back in, and we can help you! We want to help you! I want to help you! Why won't you let us?"

"How can I let you back in?" Spyro demanded, his tone becoming desperate. "How do I open up when I can't trust anyone? How do I know you won't let yourselves get tricked again as soon as I let you near me again?"

"What can I say that will make you believe we would never let that happen again?" Cynder said desperately. "What do you want from us?"

"I don't know!"

A heavy silence descended over the infirmary room. A look of stunned surprise had settled over Cynder's expression as she stared at the broken purple dragon. Spyro, meanwhile, was struggling against a torrent of helplessness, fear and pain that was raging within him. He could feel his resolve fraying, as if he were standing alone in a barren, open plain with a hurricane bearing down on him, trying to resist its force. It was a battle he couldn't win.

"I can't go through this again," he choked at length, his expression pinched with pain and conflict, his voice becoming strained. "I can't let myself care, because when everything gets torn away again I would never be able to stand it. It would break me."

A surprised look flashed through Cynder's expression, but quickly her gaze softened and she took a cautious step forward.

"You make it sound like you have to go through this all on your own," she said softly. "But you don't, Spyro. You don't have to fight all this alone. You know that we can do so much more together than we can apart. I can help you."

"How can I be sure, though?" he asked, almost pleadingly as his emotions continued to build, outweighing his anger. "When I counted on you before I was left on my own! You didn't help me then!"

"I know," Cynder said, her eyes shining with guilt. "I know, Spyro, and I'm sorry. And I swear to you, I won't ever fail you like that again. Just give me a chance to earn your trust again. Please."

For a long time, Spyro held her gaze and in her eyes he could see the desperate longing she felt to prove herself to him again. His anger toward her hadn't abated, but neither could he doubt anymore that she truly was sorry for what she had done. The part of him that wanted to accept her again burned more powerfully, but the pain she had caused him was something that simply couldn't be ignored or erased.

With a heavy sigh, he broke his gaze away from her and turned his head down to the ground.

"I can't."

He saw the pain that shot through her at those words, and an identical twinge swept through his own being at the same time, but that couldn't change the way he felt. He sighed tensely again before laying his head back down on his cushions. Still, out of the corner of his eye he could see Cynder obviously struggling with a terrible feeling of hurt at being so flatly rejected. Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes and her expression was strained, but eventually she forced a small nod.

"Okay," she said, though her throat was so tight that the word was barely audible, and it was more by the motion of her mouth than anything that Spyro knew what she said.

Spyro expected her to leave then, but he didn't know whether he felt relieved or saddened by that knowledge—in actuality, he felt a little bit of both at the same time, but mostly he just felt empty. However, to his surprise, she did the exact opposite.

With slow, slightly unsteady movements, Cynder padded further into the room until she was standing a few feet ahead of Spyro and slightly to his left before sitting down facing him. When he saw this, Spyro turned a quizzical look at her, feeling shaken and uncertain.

"What are you doing?" he asked at length. While his voice was hard, there was no true hostility in it—he was too caught off guard for that.

"You've been alone in this room almost all day," the black dragoness replied, though her voice was still unsteady as she grappled with her emotions. "I thought a bit of company might do you good."

Spyro was a bit startled by this, and for a long moment he fixed her with a studying, almost suspicious gaze. He found that he was actually slightly disappointed that she hadn't left, for he found her presence to be terribly confusing and would much rather just be left in peace. Eventually, though, he just gave a resigned sigh and set his head down again, staring blankly past Cynder at the floor.

Nothing was said between them for almost an hour as the evening slowly wore on into night. Spyro hardly so much as moved a muscle, simply trying to release the tension from his pained, aching body, but with Cynder there this was an almost impossible thing for him to accomplish. Cynder, meanwhile, eventually settled into more comfortable position lying on her stomach in the same place she had been sitting, and while it was obvious that she felt uncomfortable with the oppressive silence she didn't try to break it. Instead she just waited the purple dragon out, trying not to look at Spyro too much to avoid making him feel uncomfortable.

At first Spyro tried to simply ignore her presence, feeling too weary and emotionally drained to bother trying to make her leave, but as time wore on this became more and more difficult to do, and he found himself glancing more and more often in her direction. He always snapped his gaze away as soon as he caught himself doing this, though, and as far as he could tell Cynder never noticed. Still, each time it happened Spyro grew slightly more irritated with himself.

What's wrong with me? he wondered angrily after he once again felt his gaze drifting toward the dragoness. Why can't I just get her out of my head?

He had no answer, and no matter how he tried he couldn't keep his gaze from being drawn toward her.

A short while later Cynder shifted slightly on the stone floor, rustling her wings against her back, and when she settled again Spyro's gaze suddenly caught on her right flank, which had become exposed when she shifted her wing. This time when he tried to look away he found that he couldn't. His eyes had become locked on the pale strip of scarred scales that ran all the way around her flank, and as he looked at it he felt surprised by the appearance of it. He had seen it already when Cynder had been fighting him, but now that he really had a chance to look at it he was struck by the realization of just what the extent of the injury had been. It must have been agonizing it its size was anything to go by.

For just a brief, fleeting instant he felt a pang of sympathy, but he immediately subdued the feeling and forced it from his mind.

Just then Cynder seemed to notice him staring at her scar, and a look surprise darted across her expression. Spyro didn't see this, for his attention was still fixed on the scar, but then she spoke and snapped him roughly out of his daze.

"He did that," she said softly in a tight, guarded tone. "On the night that he attacked the guardians."

Spyro whipped his gaze up to meet hers, startled, and almost immediately he averted his eyes with an embarrassed scowl when he saw the way she was looking at him. Now that he had been caught, though, he couldn't pretend to just ignore her, and at length he gave a heavy sigh before finally meeting her gaze again.

"And you didn't suspect anything was wrong when he did that?" he asked in a hard voice.

Cynder faltered as another twinge of hurt and guilt crossed her face, and with a sad sigh she lowered her eyes to the floor.

"I should have," she muttered finally. "Looking back on it, I can see so many times that I should have realized that it couldn't really have been you doing or saying those things..." She trailed off with a look of great tension about her bearing, but then she forced herself to continue. "He was so cunning about how he did it though. Really, Spyro, you have to have seen it to understand just how good his deception really was. I don't know how it's possible, but in the beginning it was like he knew exactly how you would act in any situation, and from there the changes in behaviour were so subtle and calculated that we didn't even really notice them at first."

Spyro's scowl deepened as he listened to her speaking, feeling bitter anger rising within him hearing Cynder saying what almost sounded like a compliment to the dragon that had destroyed everything he used to hold dear to him. But then his mind flashed back to the confrontation outside of the city's wall, and he realized that he didn't have a choice but to agree with what she was saying. He could remember his feeling of dismay vividly as he witnessed the unknown dragon mimicking his every move and expression with a precision and accuracy that shouldn't have been possible.

He found those thoughts deeply unsettling, and the more he thought about the dragon that had impersonated him the more his feeling of anxiety and confusion deepened. Slowly he allowed his gaze to drift off into the distance as his thoughts lingered on that dragon.

"How can there be another purple dragon?" he muttered distantly when his confusion and curiosity grew to be too strong for him to hold back any longer.

"I don't know," Cynder replied with a helpless shake of her head. "I thought just like everyone else that you and Malefor were the only ones."

"It shouldn't be possible. How could Ignitus have been wrong? How could the Chronicler be wrong?"

"I don't think anyone knows that answer, Spyro. No one but him."

Spyro nodded distractedly as he tried to sift through his memories of the final confrontation with his imposter—memories which were strangely hazy and muddled, though at that time he couldn't recall why this was. Suddenly, though, one memory surged back to him and it caused him to falter, his entire body going rigid as shock, confusion, and even a touch of fear ran through him.

"He called me..." he murmured weakly.

Cynder cringed slightly from her own fear and worry for how Spyro would react next, but Spyro was too distracted and stunned to notice it. He only stared blankly out into space, the other purple dragon's final words ringing in his ears.

Nexus, he thought dazedly, the dragon's name returning to him through the haze. But...how can that...? He can't really be my brother, can he?

Who is he?

"But...why is he doing this?" he asked finally, almost in a pleading tone, his surprise and confusion leading him to almost forget his pain and anger for a brief moment. "What can he gain by turning two dragon cities against me?"

Again, Cynder only shook her head with no answers to give. For a long moment a heavy silence dominated in the room until Cynder finally seemed like she couldn't bear it any longer and spoke.

"Flash told me about what happened in the mountain village," she said softly.

The mention of the only dragon that Spyro felt he could consider a friend anymore caught the purple dragon off guard, and when his guard slipped so did the shield of anger and bitterness that he had been so desperately trying to shelter himself behind. All at once he felt a swell of pain surge within him when his mind went back to those horrible three weeks in the village's dungeon, and he cringed forcibly.

"No he didn't," he muttered darkly at length, his voice cracking. "He doesn't know what really happened."

Cynder shot him a startled, fearful look when she heard those words, and with mounting concern she pushed herself back up to a seated position and edged slightly closer to him.

"What do you mean?" she asked quietly.

Spyro didn't respond. Instead his gaze dropped slowly to his forelegs, where he could still see the faded, twisted marks that the shackles had left on his scales when they had sent their evil, torturous energy tearing into his body.

Immediately a surge of memories flooded through his mind; sights, sounds and sensations that he had tried to block out in the time that had ensued from those terrible days, most prominent of these being the agony of his torture and the haunting sound of his own screams. A large tremor shot through his body, and though he tried to suppress it he could feel the horrible pain and despair he had experienced growing rapidly within him, pushing him to the very limit of what he could endure in his present state and threatening to overwhelm him.

Cynder followed his gaze downward, and it seemed that she noticed the scars on his legs for the first time then. She gave a weak, horrified gasp and instantly shifted even closer to him until she was less than a foot away. Struggling against the turmoil within him, Spyro couldn't even find it in himself to feel angered or upset about her proximity.

With slow, uncertain motions, Cynder cautiously reached out with a forepaw and took hold of Spyro's right foreleg, gently lifting it so that she could examine the scars more closely. Though he stiffened considerably at her touch, Spyro didn't have the energy to resist and simply waited with a scowl on his features as she examined the marks. He frowned in confusion, however, when the look of horror in her eyes only increased in intensity at the same time as a look of what appeared to be recognition flashed across her face.

Her eyes quickly swept over the rest of his body, taking in the similar shackle scars on his back legs, his tail and his neck. Then, finally, her gaze fell upon his left flank, and she let out a strained gasp before leaning her head in closer, lifting a paw and resting it over the large stab scar on his side. He winced and grunted as soon as the contact was made, for while the gem treatments had finished sealing the wound it was still incredibly tender. Then Cynder looked up and met his gaze, and he was surprised by the look of confusion and, most of all, dread and a deep sadness in her eyes.

"What did they do to you?"

Spyro's eyes widened in surprise at the sheer level of worry in her voice. Then, somewhere deep inside of him, he felt something snap. It was as though the only way he had been able to cope with what had occurred in the mountain village was to remain in a sort of denial about it, not truly accepting that it had happened to him. Now, though, Cynder's simple question brought it surging to the forefront of his consciousness, and he was no longer able to ignore it.

All at once an unfathomable surge of grief and despair swept through him, and though he tried desperately to fight it, to subdue it by sheer force of his will, it was too much for him to bear. While he despised himself for it, he broke.

A look of shock and dismay crossed Cynder's features as a forceful, ragged whimper burst out from his jaws, and before she knew it Spyro had completely broken down in front of her. Like a wounded animal he curled in on himself, tears brimming at the corners of his eyes and soon spilling down his cheeks as sobs of increasingly violent strength shook his battered frame. He hated himself for showing such weakness and despair, but he was helpless to stop himself as the weeks of pain, grief, fear and helplessness came crashing down on him, a weight that he stood no chance of holding back any longer. It even outweighed the anger and betrayal from the night before, smothering them as if they had never held any power at all.

He jolted when he felt a sudden touch against his scales, and before he even knew what was happening Cynder had pulled him close to her and had wrapped him securely in her wings, supporting him and sheltering him as his pain poured out of him. At first he was shocked and wanted desperately to break away from her, but as his sorrow continued to build he found that he no longer had any resistance left in him, and so he simply surrendered to her embrace and let his tears and sobs flow out of him.

It almost felt welcome.

How long he stayed like that, he had no idea. While he still wanted to resist the contact with the black dragoness, he simply couldn't fight any more. The pain that he had tried to bottle inside himself for so long couldn't be contained any longer.

With no strength left in either his body or his will, he simply gave in to his torrential emotions and to Cynder's protective hold, the sounds of his sorrow filling the air as night descended over the battered dragon city.

*.*.*

Only when darkness fell did Nexus finally give in to his weariness and brought his army's retreat to a halt. Breathless, he flopped down on his haunches with his head hanging low to the ground, panting from the rapid pace he had forced himself and his army to uphold for the entire day as they tried to get as much distance between them and the dragon city as possible for fear that the amassed army of dragons might see fit to retaliate against him.

What happened back there? he demanded in his mind. What was that power that took over Spyro?

Those thoughts had been swirling about in his mind ever since the failed attack. The surprise, shock, and even fear that he had felt when Spyro had transformed into that dark, demonic beast was still fresh in his memory, and he cringed as he felt them sweep through him again. How was it possible that he could know so much about Spyro and his life, and still get caught unprepared for something like that?

As if out of nowhere, Nexus suddenly felt something pressing against the back of his mind, and he hardly had time to even recognize the touch before a bolt of pain tore through his skull, causing him to groan and go rigid all over. The pain didn't subside, and soon afterward a horrible voice filled with indescribable anger spoke within his mind.

"You have failed me, Nexus," his master's voice rumbled, sending a fresh tremor through his body. "Despite all your assurances, your 'perfect' plan has been demolished."

"It's not my fault," Nexus gasped through gritted fangs. "I—"

But his protest only seemed to fuel his master's rage, and before he could utter another word the pain in his skull increased sharply, causing a searing agony to tear through his being. He screamed weakly and collapsed to the ground, clutching at his head with his forepaws and twitching on the ground as he struggled with all his might to keep his sanity from tearing itself to pieces from the pain.

"I do not tolerate failure!" his master roared. "I was of the belief that you knew this, and that you would plan accordingly, but it seems as though I was wrong. This mistake is the last that you will make, Nexus."

"It wasn't my fault!" Nexus cried frantically as terror flooded through him. "How was I supposed to know Spyro was back in the city already? And what was that darkness I saw inside of him? You never told me about that!"

There was a long pause, the silence broken only by Nexus's continuing moans as the pain in his head persisted without any signs of abating. Then, suddenly, he could feel the crushing pressure on his mind subsiding ever so slowly, and he uttered a sharp gasp as it once again became bearable, leaving him panting weakly on the ground for several long seconds.

"Indeed, that was a most unfortunate time for his true form to manifest," his master rumbled thoughtfully after another prolonged silence, and the pain faded until it was hardly perceptible any longer. "And I cannot deny that, had it not happened, there is a distinct possibility that your plan would have still succeeded." A low growl that almost sounded like a sigh filtered through their connection.

"What do you mean, his true form?" Nexus asked weakly. "What was that? Why didn't I know about it?"

"What it is is not important for you to know at this time, except that it is the form in which his full power is allowed to surface, and in which he is the most dangerous. As to why you didn't know about it, it may seem unlikely, but I believe that it is simply a matter of bad luck."

"Bad luck?" Nexus blurted incredulously. "Are you kidding me?"

"I am not. While you were able to observe Spyro extensively over the years, the fact still remains that you only spent a minority of your time doing so, and there were much larger stretches of time where you were focussed on your training. As I recall, you were quite disappointed when one such training session overlapped with Spyro's journey to the Well of Souls."

Nexus nodded, his mind travelling back to that day. "Yeah, I was really looking forward to seeing that..."

"Well, that was when his power first manifested, during Malefor's release. Then there was the Belt of Fire."

When I was training again, Nexus thought to himself, a bitter scowl forming on his face. He remembered how he had returned to the vision pool after the gruelling training session, looking into it to see Spyro and Cynder already beginning their journey into the Burned Lands, with Ignitus mysteriously absent from their group.

"So it happened again then?" he asked.

"It did, but only briefly, so it is not surprising that you missed it that time."

Nexus gave a small growl and his gaze dropped.

I can't believe my whole plan was ruined by something so stupid!

Just then the pressure in his mind spiked slightly in strength, and a low rumble from his master sounded in his mind and cut off all thoughts.

"However, none of this changes the fact that you have failed me, Nexus. You did not succeed in separating Spyro from his friends, and you know that I do not like it when my servants fail."

"What? No, wait!" Nexus protested immediately, fear mounting in his voice. "I can still get to him! I know I can still bring him back! Just give me another chance! I know I can do it!"

"You seem eager."

"Yes!" Nexus exclaimed with the first hints of desperation creeping into his voice. "I can still make this work!"

His very skull seemed to vibrate as his master gave a thoughtful growl. Then, finally, the pain subsided and Nexus heaved a sigh of relief, rubbing his temple gingerly with a forepaw.

"Very well. If you are so certain that you can still recover this situation, then prove it. You will have another chance, but be aware that in the event that you fail again I will not be so lenient. You can count. On. That."

Nexus shuddered violently at the malice veiled in his master's tone, but he nodded quickly nonetheless. With a final low rumble, his master severed the connection with him. Wondrous quiet returned to his mind, the pain and chilling pressure leaving without any trace remaining, and Nexus sagged as he blew out an enormous breath of relief, feeling more shaken than he ever had in his life.

I thought for sure I was done for, he thought shakily.

For just a split second, he wondered what it would be like if he didn't have to live in constant wariness of his master's anger, and he found himself longing indescribably for such a peace.

Then he shook his head roughly and smothered the thought before it could take root.

It was at that moment at he noticed the way the grublins behind him were watching him with extremely unsettled expressions, as if they feared he had succumbed to some sort of insanity as he writhed on the ground and shouted into the air for no reason that they could see. A surge of anger and embarrassment filled him, and he gave a sharp snarl that caused all the grublins to jump back in alarm.

"Hurry up," he snapped. "We've got work to do. I think it's about time I paid another visit to a certain village in the mountains."

The grublins all nodded their heads vigorously. With another distasteful growl and with his army following behind him, Nexus turned to the north-west and began the long march for the mountains.


Boy, Spyro is not making it easy for anyone to make things up to him, is he? Poor guy...

Well, there you have it. Obscenely long chapter is finished. Hope you liked it.

Until next time...