The trip through the dungeons is thankfully quick. Given the sheer variety of prisoners and the tortures for them that the guards made sure to introduce me to every day, I've come to suspect that most of this is illusion. I could check, but I honestly don't care.

Illusion or real, the message doesn't change. The Burner is creative enough to come up with all these ways to make somebody suffer, and any one of them could be me. All I have to do is disappoint the Lord of Summer.

Which lets face it, is exactly what I'm doing right now. And I'm not even going to be fleeing. I'm going to hang around to see his reaction up close and personal.

...Who the hell came up with this plan?

Oh right, me.

Cait strolls down the darkened passage without issue, and I follow along behind her keeping a gentle grip on her slightly twitching tail. The light level begins to rise as we reach the end of the single passage that I'm always led down to reach Cait's cell. The transition from bare stone, abandon hope, torture tour, to tasteful understated wealth continues until we reach the top of the stairs.

Waiting for us there are two large cats. One, a midnight black with luminescent green eyes, not too different from what mine looked like right after Asia healed them. The other is a tortoiseshell with equally luminescent blue eyes. The both of them are huge. Their heads come up to my hips, which given how tall I am means they're something like three feet tall counting the ears.

The both of them stand as we make the top of the staircase and take turns winding around both of our legs, and headbutting us, purring. Purring that once again I could swear have the words 'Princess' and 'Queen' hidden in it. Cait has the good grace to cringe slightly at the look I shoot her, but gets over it so quickly that I think she might just be humoring me. I glare at her harder, but don't get another reaction, save her mouthing 'later'. I sigh and nod, we'd already had this conversation after all.

"Fine. I'll meet you in Kuoh. It shouldn't be hard to find my address. Once we've done that I'm taking you to Hawaii to get looked over." I hold up a hand to stop her objections that she'd be fine, "I know you heal quickly, and that without iron being a problem there's not much you can't get over. But 'not much' isn't nothing, and I'll feel better once you've been checked out by somebody who actually knows what they're doing." Cait still looks hesitant so I try a different tack, "Besides, Vivain stomped off looking for you mad as hell when she heard you were missing. Hawaii is where she'll look to get in touch with me if she learns anything. Or if I do."

The Queen of Cats sighs and glares at me like a grumpy kitten, "Fine." Then she hugs me and buses my cheeks with hers, "I'll see you in Japan."

With that she follows the tortie down one hallway, and I follow the black cat down a different one. For a while we walk in silence as I try as hard as I can to not think about all the ways this could go horribly wrong. In our haste to get out of here as quickly as possible we'd rushed the plan as much as we dared. There's so much we don't know about the guards, the castle, and so many other things.

Eventually, I can't keep quiet any more and look down at my black furred guide, "So what does count as 'crossing my path' for the bad luck thing? Would following behind you like this work? Or would you need to be moving more perpendicularly to me? Hypothetically?"

The cat pauses and looks over his shoulder at me like I'm nuts.

###

Something has clearly gone wrong.

Every time I've been led through the castle it's been a maze. Corridors branching off at irregular intervals, doors and rooms, windows that each show a different fantastic landscape or scene. Sometimes right next to each other. Tapestries hung on walls, paintings, statues, and carpet.

Now though there's nothing. No turns, no doors, no windows. Just a pale stone corridor going in a straight line. My guide getting increasingly nervous over the last few minutes isn't really a good sign either.

"We're in trouble aren't we?" I try to whisper, but my voice echoes down the corridor anyway. My feline guide looks at me over his shoulder and makes a deep mrrrrr sound in his chest. I can't pick a word out of the noise, but it sounds like an affirmative to me.

Really, it hardly matters though. There are only two choices, backwards and forwards. The way the castle has shifted around makes me think that I don't really have even that much of a choice.

It's almost as much of a philosophical choice in the end as a practical one.

So we keep moving forward.

It doesn't take much longer to actually reach something. In this case, a right angled turn around which came the unmistakable sounds of close quarters combat. I approach the corner carefully, listening hard to map out what's happening via my bat granted sonar.

There are several irregularities on the floor which I think are bodies, but it's hard to tell. There are only two people still upright, both armed with swords, and one wearing something that sounds like armor. The smell of faerie blood is thick in the air making it hard to pick anything out over it, but just faintly I can detect Cait's scent under everything else.

Which does not fill me with joy.

I step around the corner and lay eyes on what's happening. The knights that had been my escort during my time in the Burner's castle lie on the floor. Their full plate armor hadn't helped them much. It's mostly intact, mostly, though they appear to have been brought down the same way Cait had dropped the first knight in her cell. Their armor turned against them and used as leverage to break, tear, and rip apart the bodies inside. Several of them hadn't even gotten the chance to draw a weapon.

Behind the combat zone is another right angled turn heading back the same way I had come from. Placed precisely between the two turns on the left wall is a large set of double doors that were doing a remarkable impression of the gates to the front courtyard of the castle.

Really there's nothing I can detect to say that they're not, but at this point I don't trust anything in this place. I'm just operating on the assumption that if it looks innocent, or like good news, then it's not.

After all, Cait and I left going in opposite directions, I proceeded down a corridor with no turns, and now here we both are. I don't know for a fact that Cait had a similar experience, but I wouldn't bet against it.

Speaking of Cait, she's currently engaged in a furiously fast paced duel, right in front of the aforementioned supposed exit doors, with the last remaining knight. I'm not sure but I think that's Malfael, the knight in charge of my little escort.

Again, no proof, but that's the way things seem to be going.

The sword Cait's stolen from somewhere clashes against the knight's blade with a staccato rhythm. Cait is good, but it's clear that the sword isn't her preferred weapon. She knows how to use it, certainly, but the knight is clearly more comfortable. It's the degree that, even weakened, her strength and speed outclasses her opponent though, that's making up the difference in skill between them.

I'd love to join in and help her out, but at the moment my protection granted by guest right is still intact. Something that would be painfully ripped from me if I attacked anybody. So I'm reduced to a spectator.

Not something that bothers me really. Cait isn't winning quickly, but she is winning. And it isn't like I'm not getting anything out of watching. My tendency to absorb martial techniques, any pattern of physical movement really, just from watching them and practicing a couple of times seems to work even better when the technique isn't being done to me.

Cait is certainly skilled, and the other might be an example of the vaguely defined 'master of the blade'. Getting to watch two people so good with my preferred kind of sword go at each other instead of me is teaching me a lot.

Which is probably good, because I have a sinking sensation that I'll need every bit of advantage I can scrape up very soon. So I just sit back and watch.

Cait pulls up into a hanging block, her hands by her head and the point of her sword aimed down, to catch a swing from the knight. Then lets go of her sword with her back hand and grabs the wrist of the knight's sword arm. Forcing his arm, thus sword, to the outside she drives the cross-guard of her own sword into the side of the knight's head, ringing his helmet like a bell.

Instead of letting go of him as he staggers, Cait yanks him back towards her, driving her heel into the side of his knee. His leg rotates outwards at an angle that it really shouldn't with a sickening pop.

With a cry that... sounds a little too feminine to be Malfael.

Huh.

Genre savvy has failed me.

The knight, whoever they are, drops to their knees with a cry. A follow up kick disarms the knight. Grabbing their helmet and wrenching their head to the side, Cait drives her sword downwards through the gap in the armor's neck. Most of the sword blade vanishes into the knight, death is certain and most likely quick. Instead of reclaiming the sword Cait tips the knight over backwards with a tap of her toe, then turns to look at me with a grimace.

I look around at the carnage before turning my gaze back to Cait, "I would have thought Malfael would be the last knight standing?"

"The guy in charge?" I answer her query with a nod, "I think he's that one then." She waves her hand at a body lying face down with his head at an angle that makes my neck hurt just looking at it, "He seemed like the most competent one so I made sure to take him out quickly."

I nod again, that does make sense. Just not the kind of sense I'd come to expect from supernaturals. On the other hand, maybe I've just been spending too much time around overly dramatic devils.

As interesting as contemplating various supernatural species tendencies to act like they live in an action movie is, we do have more immediate concerns, "Did the geometry of your trip to get here make sense?" I ask with a certain amount of cynicism.

Cait snorted, "Straight line all the way to that corner." She waved a hand at the way I hadn't come.

"Yeah, me too." I sigh and we both turn to look at the door, "You know that no matter what it looks like, that's not the way out. Right?"

She snorts again, derisively, "Of course it's not. That would be too easy."

"It's probably going to be our dear host's throne room." I point out again.

"Honestly, I'm hoping it is." Cait says with a tone in her voice I can't quite place. I turn to her with an incredulous look, which she must catch out of the corner of her eye because she keeps going, "He, or somebody like him, has been hunting me for as long as I can remember. It's why as a member of Sidhe royalty, even if not very important royalty as the Sidhe measure things, I was made a changeling. The best idea anybody had was to hide me in the human world. Honestly I'm tired of it. I'm tired of running and hiding. I want to settle this."

I heave a sigh, "Yeah, well I'd like to get out of here without fighting a Lord of Summer if we can manage that. So just... stay behind me." Now it's her turn to look at me like I've lost my mind. I just roll my eyes, "I'm still protected by guest right. He can't attack you if he has to go through me to do it."

Cait nods, and we both stare at the door for another moment, "Are we sure that there isn't another way to do this?" I pretend really, really hard that I don't sound desperate, "It's just that my entire plan centered around never confronting this guy." Cait just looks back the way we came then to me with a raised eyebrow, "Yeah." I sigh, "Yeah, let's do this, I'm just stalling at this point."

###

The moment we approach the large doors they swing open on their own. The room on the other side is dark, too dark to see much of anything inside. It's dramatic as hell, and just as suspicious. Given that the outside of these doors are disguised to look like the exit and the courtyard outside the main doors is decorated in fire, this much darkness just proves that this isn't the way out. It seems like a bad idea to spring a trap while we still have the choice of not entering it.

Then again we still don't have anywhere else to go, so it hardly matters.

We walk through the doors side by side, which is not the plan, so I grab Cait by the arm and drag her behind me before we get more than a step into the room. Only moments later the doors swing shut behind us with an ominous boom. I might have jumped if I hadn't been expecting it.

For a moment we're plunged into darkness so complete that even my night vision can't make anything out, but the sound of our footsteps paints me a picture of a very large box. There's an edifice that sounds like the same material as the walls at the far end of the room with something softer perched on it. Something soft that comes with the sounds of breathing. Breathing that caught on the deepest part of the inhale.

I have just enough time to register all of this when the voice of the Burner fills the room, "I am... disappointed." The troughs that I had seen filled with fire the first time I'd been in Áillen's throne room flare to life making the map of stars leading from the door to the throne glow. On the throne itself lounges Áillen. He's wearing a loose robe that hangs open, displaying his chest and stomach. Unlike previously he's also wearing what looks like leather pants... no shoes though. "I was prepared to offer you much. Riches. Knowledge. Anything you could want, for the service I asked of you. The gratitude of a Lord of Summer is no small thing. It is something you could still have. I know not what the cat has offered you to make you take this course of action, but I assure you I can offer more and greater. Simply name your desire."

Honestly there was a point in time where his offer would have tempted me. Back before I'd hit on my path forward, and I was still desperate for any way to protect myself. Perhaps more importantly, back when I'd still been determined to hold myself separate from everyone and everything.

Now though, nothing he can offer is at all interesting. Even if it were, nothing he has is worth Cait.

Now how to put this...

"I'd like..." Cait tensed slightly behind me even as Áillen leaned forward slightly, looking eager, "My safe passage out of your realm. I've procured my own guide though, so out of your castle and unpursued will be fine."

"Unfortunate." Áillen sighed and stood slowly from his throne. He moves slowly, gingerly as though he's in pain, "There's nothing that will change your mind?"

I mutely shake my head. He replies with a tired nod.

The next thing I know he's in my face and backhanding me in the head. My ears are ringing as I fly across the room, clearing the fire troughs with ease and hitting the ground more than a dozen yards away. I hit the ground with a crash, and slide for a few more feet. My vision is trembling, all I can hear is a high pitched whine. Although my thinking is remarkably clear, I can't get myself to move at all, my limbs just aren't responding.

I can feel my armor having deployed it's vents, wings of destructive energy arching from my back. My entire mana system overloaded from a single hit. Hell, I think he actually managed to deform my hood with that blow.

Mostly though I'm just confused. Hitting me like that is a blatant violation of guest right. I can tell because the hook in my soul which was my promise to behave is gone. Which means he just voluntarily tore a chunk out of his soul.

Having not so long ago had a few large chunks of my own soul torn out, I remember quite clearly what that's like. Why would he do that? It makes no sense.

Gradually I start feeling a tingling in my... everything. Like my whole body had fallen asleep, and is only now waking up. The ringing in my ears and the trembling in my vision begin to settle. I can feel a cut on the side of my head pulling closed. After a few more moments I've recovered enough to pull myself to my feet.

I stagger to my knees, and take in the room. Áillen is in the midst of circling with... a giant two tailed cat. It's clearly a house cat in build, with sleek short black fur, but it's taller at the shoulder than I am. This thing would make a good playmate for Yasaka in her nine tail form.

Given that I can't find her anywhere else, I assume that the giant feline is Cait.

She's crouched low to the ground, her tails lashing. Her jaw jatters as she eyes Áillen, whose hair has been replaced with fire. Cait's jattering becomes a groan low in her throat, a sound that rises in volume until the noise sounds like every cat in the world is furious and decided to give voice to it at once. At the crescendo of her anger, Cait lunges with a speed I can barely follow, her paws slashing, claws as long as my arm extended.

She strikes him once, twice, then he strikes her in the chest launching her backwards. Before he can follow after her my wings extend, fitting neatly between the panes of destructive energy of my armor's venting. With a single wing beat, I launch myself forward at a speed even better than I managed with TK. I draw Sclamhaire as I fly, and bring it down on the Burner with a two handed over head swing. Áillen barely sidesteps my blade, a look of surprise clear on his face. Apparently he didn't expect me to get up again that quickly, or at all maybe. He tries to back hand me again, but it's easy to duck under since I'm headed in that direction anyway. The follow up kick, though, catches me across the chest and flings me backwards again.

I land on my back and nearly scream from the unexpected pain of landing on my wings, something to keep in mind in the future, and perform the most awkward roll I've ever done in my life. Really something that I should have practiced as a part of getting used to my wings. It had just never occurred to me.

I scramble back to my feet as quickly as I can, raising Sclamhaire to take whatever follow up attack Áillen has in mind...

Only to find him standing in exactly the same spot, not having moved at all. He's standing very upright, stiffly almost. One of the most fundamental principles of any sort of combat is to keep the pressure on your opponent. So what the hell is he doing?

Whatever he's doing, it keeps him in place long enough for Cait to tackle him to the ground, her giant cat form multiple tons of flashing claws and teeth.

It's a question I continue to ponder as I flap my wings once and rush forward again.

Just in time as Áillen kicks Cait off of him and away again.

I swing at him, keeping my movements short, sharp and rapid. He doesn't have armor, so the only defense he has is dodging. I have to keep him doing that and hope I can lay blade on him.

It works for a few breaths. Then he grabs one of my wrists, darting around Sclamhaire, and flings me away from himself again. There's a moment of weightlessness, then I hit something soft that squeaks with the impact. Fortunately my armor had stopped venting pretty quickly as I spent the energy surplus on the expensive task of healing. I don't know what those energy vents would have done to Cait, but I'm glad I'm not finding out.

Cait and I hit the ground in a heap, pulling my wings in almost as a flinch reaction to keep from landing on them again. I manage to keep my eyes on Áillen the entire time I'm in the air though, so I get a better look at what he's doing. Or not doing, as once again he's standing still instead of pressing the attack. This time I catch a faint grimace passing across his features, and one of his hands rising for just a moment. His upper arm doesn't move, just the lower, the arm bending at the elbow. It's only a moment of movement, but I want to say he was about to clutch at his chest.

He's not weakened, but he is in pain. So much that when he makes a large or fast movement, waiting for whatever's paining him to settle is a better option than keeping after us and maybe ending the fight.

"This isn't working." I mutter, Cait doesn't respond except to twitch an ear in my direction as both of us struggle to our feet. Áillen seems to have recovered and is now strolling in our direction, "I'm not fast enough to hit him, and you're not doing enough damage when you do. Has he got a magic shield or something?" A short nod, "Well neither of us is doing this alone, we need to hit him together. Hold him still, and I'll carve a piece off of him."

Another short nod, and then the both of us charge again. I reach him first and attempt to skewer him on Sclamhaire, deliberately aiming just slightly off center. He sidesteps my thrust with the same insulting ease he'd used every time I've tried to hit him so far, only for Cait to land on him, all pointy ends forward.

They go down in a heap, only for Cait to almost immediately get tossed away again. Áillen rolling with the throw comes back to his feet between the two of us, his back towards me. Not one to pass up such an invitation I try to cut him in half horizontally.

Fucker must have eyes in the back of his head or something. He steps forward evading me but getting closer to Cait. She takes advantage to try and swat him with the swords she calls claws. Only for him to turn into the blow, and stop block the giant cat with both of his forearms.

His hips twist along with his feet shifting slightly, and that's all the warning I get before he grabs Cait and tries to bludgeon me with her. It's all the warning I need though. I close as fast as my wings will let me, and duck under the flying feline. Áillen finishes his movement by slamming Cait into the ground spine first, hard enough that I can hear something crack.

Cait accomplished her part of our bare bones plan though. He sees me coming, I'm looking him right in the eye as I come up from under Cait. Given the speed he's moved previously he has all the time he needs to dart backwards, or just duck, and evade me. His lips are pressed together though, the muscles around his eyes tight.

All the signs of pain.

Enough pain that even seeing me coming he can't get out of the way.

Sclamhaire catches him at his hip, and carves upwards through his rib cage, exiting his body through his collarbone near the opposite shoulder. An enormous amount of mana surges through my system, my armor starting to vent again.

I plant my boot in his chest to kick him away, only to catch another backhand to the side of the head as I do. It turns my kick into more of a shove with my foot, but it's enough to send him staggering backwards...

And tear his new chest wound wide open.

This backhand doesn't have the same power as the first one, but it's more than enough to send me spinning to the floor with my ears ringing again. My armor stops venting almost as quickly as it starts as my body tries to heal my new concussion as fast as possible.

I hit the ground facing Cait and away from Áillen, which turns out to be a good thing. As soon as the Burner's wound opens, an impossibly bright light, and a heat that makes the air burn in my lungs, sweeps the throne room.

Cait has reverted to a human shape and is curled up around one side. The side that I assume has the bones I heard break. Slowly I pull myself to my feet again, and squinting turn to face the Summer Lord.

I end up having to raise a hand to partially block the glare shining from his chest wound. I knew that this fight had moved us all around the throne room, and I had been keeping track of where we were with my ears. But I hadn't really consciously processed any of it aside from knowing that if I got thrown in a given direction it would hurt more because I'd hit a wall. So I'm only slightly surprised to see that I'm standing almost right in front of the throne.

Áillen has staggered backwards to collapse in his seat, his posture eerily similar to how he'd lounged in it when we'd arrived. Only now his chest cavity is wide open, 'fae bullshit' the only possible explanation to how he's still alive, and seated in his chest, right where his heart should be, is a god damned star.

A shining point of blue white light that I can't look at directly without feeling my eyes cooking in my skull. I've abused them enough that I quickly look away. It explains the light, the heat, and how fucking powerful greater fae are though, if all of Summer is powered by stars.

It kind of makes me wonder what Winter runs on...

On second thought, I probably don't want to know.

With my raised hand blocking the worst of the glare I get a look at Áillen's face. He's clearly in a lot of pain, but through that he almost looks amused, and relieved?

Slightly too pale fae blood dribbles from his lips as he grins up at me. It's not a nice expression.

"I've been in pain for so long." Áillen wheezes with a bloody grin, "I am glad it will finally stop. Centuries of this burning in my chest..." I blink confused. I had assumed that the star was supposed to be there, but maybe...

No, as I look something occludes the star for just a moment. Something dark, and cool, and intact despite being right next to that source of impossible heat. If that star is faerie bullshit, then the only thing that could survive near it would be iron. This poor bastard has had a chunk of iron in his chest cavity for how long?

No wonder he wanted Cait so bad.

"The pain will finally end. Not how I would have chosen, but at least it will stop." The grin he's been pointing at me grows more evil and savage, "And I will take those who killed me with me." A pulse of light and heat rushes out of his chest in a visible wave causing the temperature in the throne room to jump upwards, "Have you ever seen a star die, Witch?"

Oh...

Fuck...

It's actually a star!

Another pulse of light and heat rushes through the room. The temperature in the throne room skyrockets, as the Burner decides to live up to his name one last time, and detonate a star with nothing but spite.

Breathing is rapidly growing difficult as the temperature continues to climb. The stone of the room is beginning to change color ever so slightly. I'm still standing only because my armor deals with heat remarkably well, and Cait is still alive only because of, again, faerie bullshit.

That wouldn't last though.

We're going to cook in this room, and we can't even run. Because as I look down the length of the now well lit throne room, I notice that the doors we came in through aren't just closed, they're gone.

I'm trapped in a stone box with an exploding star.

Great!

My breath is coming short and I'm starting to feel light headed. Sweat is pouring off of me and evaporating, or more like boiling off my skin, as fast as it appears accomplishing pretty much nothing.

My vision is beginning to grey out at the edges, I have maybe seconds left before I pass out from the heat.

And the god damned faerie doing all of this won't. Stop. Laughing!

I turn back to glare at Áillen mostly from a lack of any better ideas. How the fuck is he still alive? His chest is open, and he's got to be hotter than the rest of us...

I blink and look more carefully at the dying fae. The heat doesn't seem to be affecting him at all. He's not charring, blistering, turning red, or even sweating.

Which makes sense really. What kind of fire fae is vulnerable to fire? Hell just having that star in his chest means that he can't be affected by pretty much any sort of heat.

That gives me an idea...

Now what are the chances that his star will detonate the moment he dies?

Another rush of light and heat that makes the temperature spike even higher.

Yeah it doesn't matter much at this point.

Sclamhaire goes back in her sheath, my athame comes out, and I lunge for Áillen. He laughs right up to the moment the knife crunches through his skull.

Immunity to the star.

The athame's hung ritual trips, the trait is ripped free, runs up my tattoos, and settles into my soul.

I immediately feel better. I can tell it's hot, but that doesn't bother me any more. I can breathe easily, think clearly...

And none of this matters at the moment.

I flap my wings once, spinning in the air, and dive onto Cait, wrapping her in my wings. Not eve a second later there's a sound that I only feel because my eardrums are blown out immediately.

The blast lifts Cait and I, flinging us through the air and into the far wall.

I clutch Cait close with arms and wings protecting her as much as I can as the castle starts to collapse around us.