Okay, y'all. I edited the last two chapters. Kel is fine, just seriously whipped. Are you happy?

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

The story is almost through. In fact, this may be the last chapter, save the epilogue. Whoot!

FOR KASSI OF PIRATE'S SWOOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe it's not as K/J as I wanted it to be…

- - - - -

Keladry blinked, once, twice, utterly confused. Who was this man? He was dressed in raven black robes that hung awfully on his thin frame, and he protectively embraced a large, egg-shaped, onyx-black gem in his arms. He wore no mask, nor did he carry a skull-topped staff, yet she knew he was the man who blew up the ship.

And he was after her.

Everybody was after her. She needed security…her gaze, however much she tried to halt it, drifted toward Arden's still, prone body. Arden had given that to her. Now he was dead.

Arden.

"Why do you seek me?" she asked clearly.

The man—Sha'sa'in, he said his name was—smiled coldly.

"You are to be our sacrifice," he said in his strange, accented voice.

"S-Sacrifice?" On this word her voice faltered.

"Yes. We need you to gain our immortality."

"'Scuse me," a man—Orgden, she thought his name was—"but I don't recall permitting you to come into ma home."

Sha'sa'in looked calmly at him. "I don't need permission. I do what I want."

The gem's inside appeared to swirl, like a gypsy's crystal ball, a cloud in a stone.

Orgden screamed, clutching his face, his dirty, broken nails leaving furrows as he dragged them across his cheeks and eyes. Smoke poured from his ears as his eyes rolled upward. As though a match lit from inside him, his chest burst into flames, all of which swiftly ate the rest of his writhing, dying body.

Frenn shuddered.

- - - - -

Hiiiiiii.

Ssshh! I'm trying to concentrate!

Joren, you're scratching your balls. Is that so time-consuming?

Joren blushed and silently cursed himself. Who ever heard of a humiliating conscience?

No…which way is it?

Do I look like Mithros to you? I'm just a conscience.

But you told me what to do with Lucas!

Think about it you imbecile. A conscience is just a part of your brain, your mind. It's a mental theory. In fact, it's hardly even real.

I don't get it.

Now I see why I'm always so warm in the winter—your big, dense, humongous head insulates me with its hard spongy skull!! I'm not even real, Joren. This whole time, it was YOU who did all this. You and you alone are responsible for endangering Kel like this…and it is you who decided to save her. Not me, Jory. You. You found out how to keep me—your conscience—at bay for years. But this traumatic event thinned your barriers. I was never dead, Joren, and neither was I alive.

So this whole time, I was arguing with myself?

Yes.

How embarrassing. My own head reprimanded me for scratching my balls.

It's okay, honey.

I hope you're a girl. Calling me "honey" and all sorts of Kennan pet names.

I'm not a girl.

…

I'm not a boy either.

?!?!

I'm sexless, you brainless blob.

It's sad when your own head says you don't have a brain.

Joren wasn't sure, but he was positive he heard a faint sigh somewhere in the back of his head.

You don't, like, plan on leaving me or anything?

Not unless you want me to. You've blocked me out for about eleven years. You can do it again.

The idea was tempting. But he wondered about how much company Conscience had been when he was lonely.

Alright. I'll keep you.

Yay.

Just…keep it down, okay? Some mind-reader may look into my head and die of a heart attack. I would, if I saw someone arguing with their own head.

Hm. Just face it. You'd miss me.

No way in hell.

Admit it.

I'd kiss Kel before I do that.

That's not too unlikely…

What's THAT supposed to mean?!

Joren never got a response, either because Conscience did not have one or because he reached the end of the tunnel and did not hear it.

What he saw left a scar on his brain forever.

Men in fluttering robes kneeled around a glowing black gem. One, armed with a skull-capped staff, rested his hands on it, and chanted under his breath.

A red-haired man—presumably Frenn, the assassin—had flattened himself up against the cave wall. He clutched a dead boy against his chest.

And Keladry…she hung from hopes behind the ring of men, the gem centered in front of her.

"What the bloody hell is going on here?" he shrieked.

The chanting stopped as the men turned toward him. Kel looked up, wide-eyed.

"Joren," she murmured.

"Kel, look," he pleaded. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm sososososososososo sorry! This is all my fault…I should never have hired that stupid assassin!"

"It's okay, Joren," she replied distantly, her face Yamani blank.

Stupid foreign savages.

"Get out of here, or join Frenn," the man touching the gem said. "Or you shall perish as they have."

He pointed to a pile of bones, much of which had skin clinging to it. Since Joren had no intention of fleeing or dying, he edged toward the emerald-eyed man against the wall.

"Who're you?" the redhead asked. His eyes never left the men, who had resumed their chanting.

"Joren of Stone Mountain."

Frenn jerked and whisked his head around to stare at him. "You're Joren? You are the one who ordered me to do this?"

Joren shifted uncomfortably.

"Um…yes?"

He sighed and ran his fingers through his carroty hair. "And you're the one who talked to me the night I took her weren't you? It was that Joren after all."

"Yes."

The assassin nodded, and stroked the dead boy's cheek softly. "This was my nephew."

Joren wriggled. He came here for Kel, not to listen to some guy get all teary over his dead nephew.

"How can we help Kel?" he asked the assassin.

"My poor nephew," Frenn murmured. "Poor, poor Arden." He looked at Joren with eyes of a madman.

Joren stared at him, and slid away. Whatever sanity this man had was lost forever. Quite obviously, it was up to him alone to save Kel.

Suddenly there was a flash of black light. He yelled and threw himself back. His head hit the wall hard. With a groan he sunk down onto the ground, his vision swimming, and passed out into a darkness as black as the Priests' robes.

- - - - -

When he came to, a man stood over him, hard eyes twinkling at him from their cold blue depths.

"Well now," he said softly. "Did you come to save my sacrifice? Tut. You came too late."

Alarmed, Joren looked around. Kel was out of the ropes, but held in place by Sha'sa'in and one other.

"Master Lesenac, she is ready," Sha'sa'in called.

Lesenac nodded and smiled, tossing his mane of ash blond hair away from his face. "Very well then."

Joren swallowed thickly as the man walked off. He was obviously neither immortal nor man. And yet he was not a god…not completely anyway.

Lesenac stopped in front of Kel. He opened his mouth…but it did not halt like normal mouths do. It kept opening and opening, expanding its height, until it was big enough to swallow Kel whole.

Oh…my…gods.

"Kel!" he shrieked.

"Shatter the gem!" Frenn hissed. "It's his life force!" He stood up. His eyes were clearer, but still not quite sane. "Let's get them. We need to break that skull staff. As soon as we do the Priests will be powerless."

At that moment something streaked past both of them. Something with black braided hair and an eye patch…

"Lucas," Frenn whispered. He balled his hands into fists. "Lucas, get out of here! It's not your battle!"

Captain Lucas Murray glared at his brother with eyes as insane as his. "It is my battle. I used to be a Priest of the Dark, I know what they think." He looked away, at Lesenac, who had closed his mouth to glower at the Black Bandit captain. "I was betrayed," he said softly, dangerously, his crazy eyes glittering dangerously. "Just not by whom I thought."

"Lucas—"

"Fight with me, brother. Let's die together."

Frenn choked.

"As touched as I am by this reunion," Lesenac sneered, "I would prefer this to wait so I can finish this rite in peace."

Lucas turned to him, his fists clenched with hate. "She's not the one you want, Dark Master," he said steadily. Frenn moved up beside him.

"She's pure of heart," the bastard-god said coolly.

"But she is not a knight," the captain said calmly.

Lesenac blinked.

"You want me," Frenn said clearly, stepping forward. "I am Sir Frenn of Tirragen, son of Alexander of Tirragen and Lady Nicholaa of Raven's Pond."

Lesenac blinked again, then turned silently to the Priests of the Dark. They stared at the assassin with confused faces.

"Master, I swear, we had no clue—"

"Shut up, Sha'sa'in, and get me that sacrifice!"

In a flurry of robes of darkness all the men but the two holding Keladry came at the twin brothers with raised spears. Sha'sa'in, in the front, let out a squeal and tumbled forward. Smoke poured out of his clothes and slowly, like melting ice, he disintegrated into dust. They halted, startled, and looked around.

Joren smiled thinly at them from over in the corner, broken skull staff in hand.

They let out shrieks of fury as they came at them, spears raised expertly. Lucas unsheathed his sword. Frenn crouched, fingering a dagger in each hand.

As the battle raged, Lesenac turned toward Joren.

"So," he said casually, "you thought you could waltz in here, take your lady, kill me off, and leave a hero." He began to pace slowly toward him. "You have much to learn. You destroyed Sha'sa'in. Good for you. He was ambitious. I'm afraid that would have been a threat to me. I am not immortal, as he would have been. I am the child of gods, but I am flawed."

He stopped a yard or two away from the trembling blond.

"Something happened to me when I was being born. That black gem you see over there, near Keladry, is my home, my life force. If you destroy that, you kill me."

His grin widened. "But that won't happen, will it?"

Joren heard a scream of pain, louder than most, and glanced over the cruel not-god's shoulder to see Lucas down, writhing, a spear through his heart. Four out of the ten, twenty-odd people, including the ones with Kel, were left.

"Don't kill the sacrifice," Lesenac called angrily. "We need him!"

Frenn looked at him. "Do I have to be alive?"

"Yes. The sacrifice must be alive, Tortallan knight, and pure of heart."

He backed away from the Priests slowly, his eyes never leaving the Dark Master. A cold smile twitched his lips, as he plunged his own dagger through his heart.

"No!"

Lesenac screamed his raging wrath and raced toward him, his mouth opening to that impossible mass.

"You're not dead yet," he hissed to the dying sacrifice.

And then, Frenn midway his mouth, the bastard-god paused as something shattered.

Shards from the gem cut the skin of the men who held her and Kel as it exploded, an arrow through its middle. Lesenac swallowed, shaking. Light exploded from his eyes and huge mouth as Frenn was dropped. It burst through his skin in little holes that expanded. Blue lightning cracked around him, binding him in place. He shook with deadly convulsion, and through the light one could see his flashing skeleton. There was an almighty scream as he turned into a whirling dust devil, the funnel reaching up toward the rocky ceiling and burst through it. The Priests screeched in terror as sandy hands reached for them.

After a final, throbbing boom, everything stilled, save the pebbles that toppled from above.

Joren panted heavily, plastered up against the wall, his eyes huge. Kel shakily got to her feet. Frenn groaned.

"W-What was th-that all about?" someone squeaked.

"Neal?!"

Kel gaped at him. "What are you doing here?"

Neal smiled nervously. "Saving you, of course."

"But how did you find me?"

"I met Daine somewhere in the forest near the palace. She had found a horse who said her master called her Hellfire. She helped me a lot, both of them, although Daine was irked with Hellfire's master."

"Who cares about that," Kel murmured. She suddenly remembered something. "Frenn!"

She was at her ex-captor's side in minutes, feeling for a pulse. It was there, weak. But it was there.

"Come on." Joren finally spoke up, breaking out of his paralysis. "I have a friend waiting outside, and if I know his father I'd say so is Lucas' crew."

So Kel, with Neal's help, got Frenn standing, and painstakingly moved toward the exit.

"Wait! Joren!"

Joren looked up from the late Captain Lucas Murray.

"Could you…get Arden's body?"

He looked over at the curly-haired boy's body and nodded, grim-mouthed. He gently picked Arden up, resting him on his shoulders, and looked around. He'd get Kris or somebody to get Lucas.

Joren left the cave, heading toward the ship. Toward home.

- - - -

::sniff sniff:: So this is the end...I'm writing the epilogue now. I hope you enjoyed this sucky story!!