On the one hand, they were now four. On the other hand, they had no way of reaching Drautos and the emperor, and they were flying straight for the imperial fleet. The door between the passenger bay and the control room was sealed. Cor wouldn't have put it past the imperials to have built in some mechanism to permanently fuse the damn thing. Did it really matter to them that no one could get out, if all they were transporting were MTs?

Cor shoved his shoulder against it and found not even a centimeter of give.

"Can you melt this thing?" He asked Reina.

"I expect so." She released her naginata and stepping forward to lay her hands on the door. Fire burst beneath her palms as if she held napalm in her hands. It curled harmlessly against the metal. For a moment. But bit by bit it warmed; two red-orange circles appeared where she touched the door and expanded until they formed one.

The ashy white burns ate up her arms, one millimeter at a time, for every second that the ring blazed on her finger. He should never have asked her to use that damn thing. He would just have to stop her.

"Reina—" He stepped forward

She glanced at him. Her hands broke through the door; the center hole expanded until molten metal had sloughed to the floor. Beyond, they caught a glimpse of the control room; both Drautos and Aldercapt turned, the latter more slowly and more stiffly, wincing as he did so. In the light, the blistered burns that covered half his skin showed an angry red. Then he was gone from sight, as Drautos' blade plunged through the hole in the door.

Reina phased and the sword passed harmlessly through the air where her face had been an instant before. Cor lunged, catching Drautos' blade with his and forcing it up against the still-red steel.

"Is it really necessary to leave it until the last millisecond?" Cor asked her.

Drautos' armor smoked and smoldered where it touched the heat of her flame. His arm jerked back through the hole and Cor scarcely had time to release his hold or be sliced in two.

"Only when I'm trying to impress you." Reina stepped back and gathered an armful of flames.

A pair of daggers shot through the gap in the door, one after another. Metal sounded on metal like a blade sliding into a sheath.

"Consider me impressed," Cor said. "Are we through showing off, now?"

"But I didn't even get to start!" Iris said.

Reina released the flames. They spiraled in a horizontal pillar, stemming from her hands and blasting through what remained of the door. From beyond, somewhere amidst the fire and smoke, Drautos groaned in pain.

So he could feel something through that suit, after all.

"I suggest you hurry up," Ignis said. "Before Her Highness removes the opportunity."

Or before the ship ended up like the last one Cor had been on.

Even after Reina released her column of flame, the control room continued to burn. Aldercapt screamed. Sparks leapt from the console. And, from the midst of the billowing smoke, Drautos came.

He was a blur of black and magenta, his Magitek armor smoking in more places than Cor could count. In spite of that, in spite of the dents and dings in his suit, he moved like a man possessed.

The ship was falling; it rocked and stuttered, jerking in the air before an uncomfortable sensation gripped Cor's stomach. The emperor was still screaming. The imperial fleet was now fully out of reach, Aldercapt as good as dead. Drautos had nothing left to lose; if he gave in, he submitted himself to ten years of torture—if Reina's words could be trusted. Cor didn't mean to test her. It seemed Drautos didn't, either. He would die, he already knew it. It was only a matter of how many he could take along with him.

Drautos swept his sword up; the tip dragged along the ground and threw sparks from the metal. He forced Cor back and Reina as well, until they made a line with Ignis and Iris. Drautos held the door to the control room at his back. If they didn't draw him off and get someone on those flames, they were dead. They were more than high enough for that.

The ship lurched again. This time Reina lunged forward, her naginata in hand. She was a whirlwind of magic and blades and for a moment Cor forgot to do anything except watch. He could see his style in her art: the stance, the motion of her chest just before she struck, even the look of stony focus upon her face. She circled Drautos and used her polearm to its fullest, keeping him at bay when it suited her and drawing close for a show of force when it didn't.

All the while the ring of the Lucii burned brightly on her finger. Drautos struck. Reina phased, so close to him now that they nearly touched each time she stepped around him. For that split second where she was nowhere, Drautos seemed to burst with that same light of her magic and each time he did, he groaned in pain. But every time their blades met, Reina's skin burned.

Cor nudged Ignis on his way past, finding them doing much the same as he had been, himself—standing and staring. "Look alive."

He couldn't let her do this to herself. He couldn't stand by and let her burn for a traitor.

Ignis shook himself, as if coming free of a trance, and nodded. "Right."

Cor opened his mouth to send them to the control room but Ignis and Iris were already moving that direction. No need for words. They dodged past the slam of Drautos' sword and Cor stepped forward to block the way before Drautos could follow them.

"Why come back for the emperor, Titus?" Cor readied his blade. "A treasoner like you should have leapt at the chance to turn your back on another monarch."

"Your king is a coward unfit to wear the crown. It is no fault of mine that he is unworthy of loyalty." His blade came down and Cor felt a rush of air before it slammed into the wall behind him.

The ship lurched again. Reina took advantage of Drautos' distraction and struck at his back with steel and lightning both. The next moment all three of them were thrown, stumbling and struggling to stay upright as the ship dropped several feet all at once.

When Cor could stand upright again, he spat at Drautos' feet. "You wouldn't know loyalty if it cut your throat."

And Cor meant that it should.

Drautos lunged for him, but he made the fatal mistake of leaving his back open to Reina. She struck hard and fast, first with the butt of her naginata to the back of his knee, sending him bowling forward, and then with the blade to his neck. Metal clashed with metal. She shoved and twisted; lightning crackled along her skin, down her naginata, and burst against his helmet. Half of his helmet shot free in the blast and embedded itself in the wall.

"Death is too good for you, traitor." Reina lifted her hand. The light of the ring burned red instead of white as she did to Drautos what she had first done to the daemons in the crystal chamber. Red light blazed in Drautos' chest. He clutched at his breastplate, as if trying to contain it. Then he screamed and convulsed as she pulled life from his veins like poison from a wound.

The light leapt to the ring.

Drautos fell, face first and motionless.

Reina crumbled after.

"REINA—!"

Cor's sword vanished. Reina hit the ground before he could leap over Drautos and reach her. She was still smoldering—violet under white, now, with burns creeping all over. He groped for a pulse in her neck. Her skin was hot to the touch—not warm like it should have been—but beneath burning skin he felt an unsteady thrumming. Weaker than he would have liked. But there.

"We are coming down, Marshal! Prepare for a rough landing," Ignis called from the control room.

He wasn't worried about himself. But he gathered Reina up to his chest and braced her. He wedged himself up in a corner to keep her from the worst of it and dragged her into his lap, cradling her against his chest. Tonight he would be her shield, even if never again.

The ship lurched and trembled. Smoke continued to billow out of the control room and the wall at Cor's back was burning hot against his shirt, but the flames were gone.

They dropped.

And pulled up and dropped again. The engine stuttered, then caught, providing just enough intermittent lift to keep them from plummeting unrestrained toward the ground. Cor tightened his hold on Reina and gritted his teeth. He couldn't see a thing outside; his only warning on the proximity of the ground was Ignis shouting from the control room:

"Brace yourselves!"

And then they hit.

With a terrible crunch of metal against pavement, the whole world careened around him. Cor was thrown away from the wall, in spite of the pains he had taken to hold himself in securely, and both he and Reina went tumbling. He kept her against his chest and took the brunt of the impact with his back. He added a few more broken ribs to his collection. They hit the ground hard and Reina rolled out of his arms; she was across the passenger bay before the world stopped moving.

A dry cough from the control room told him that Ignis, at least, was still breathing. Cor dragged himself up and across to Reina.

"Reina?"

Her skin was still too hot and she was unresponsive, in spite of the fall. More importantly, she was still breathing.

"Marshal?" Ignis called from the front of the ship.

"Fine," Cor called back. "You two?"

"A few bruises." Ignis appeared in the doorway, unsteady on the slanted ground and helping Iris along behind him. They were both smudged with soot and their clothes were burned in multiple places, but at least they were upright.

They stopped in the melted doorway, watching as Cor gathered Reina gingerly into his arms once more. The pulse beat more steadily in her neck, now, in spite of the tumble.

"Is she…?" Ignis asked.

"She'll be fine." Cor climbed to his feet, ignoring the shooting pain in his knee, which objected to any weight, let alone the added weight that Reina presented. "Let's get her somewhere safe."

He had no concept of what sort of toll the ring took on people who used too much in too short a time, but at a glance, it seemed she would survive.

She had to survive.

He would never forgive himself, otherwise.

AN: He's dead! (Raucous cheering)

On Monday you all get the final chapter of Restored and the first chapter of Reckoning. As Ignis would say: brace yourselves. The end is nigh.