A/N: Wow, this took forever. Sorry for the delay! I had an awful time editing this—I actually threw the entire thing out once, and then ended up recovering it and rewriting half instead. But here it is! Thank you so, so much to the awesome people who reviewed, I love getting your feedback! (NO I WILL NEVER STAHP!) Hope you enjoy this one.

Duality

Running had been a mistake. I thought my trembling had been just a side effect of adrenaline, but when I couldn't stop shaking long after the fear had passed I realized it was from overexertion. I had to stop for rest frequently, making our journey that much slower.

Not to mention it had agitated the Calamity, who had since taken to hovering too close for comfort whenever we stopped and constantly glancing over his shoulder to make sure I was still there.

Our mad dash had taken us all the way to the edge of the Faron Grasslands, just about as far from the Great Hyrule Forest as one could get.

The Calamity wasn't happy about that, either.

I stumbled again, for the umpteenth time that day. But instead of growling at me to keep up as he had every other time, the Calamity sighed, scowling, and walked back to help me to my feet. When he didn't let go of my arm, I froze.

"I'm all right," I protested quietly.

He ignored me. His gaze was fixed on the horizon, power building behind his eyes, and his hold on me tightened just as he took a purposeful step. That step sent us spiraling over a blur of landscape that tumbled sickeningly by, and an instant later I found myself collapsed dizzily on the shores of Lake Hylia. A new wave of exhaustion washed over me as the borrowed power drained away, wracking my body with chills and aches.

"Drink," he growled, and I managed to drag myself close enough to the water's edge to reach my hands in. I drank until my throat ached from the cold.

By the time I was done he had already sparked a blazing fire and was roasting a fish skewered on a makeshift spit. With a tremor of disgust I realized it wasn't quite dead yet. Still, I moved closer, drawn by the heat.

"That was awful," I finally managed, wiping my mouth against the back of my hand.

"Your body is giving out on you," he murmured, frowning. He tousled the fire with a wave of his hand, willing it to burn brighter, and sighed once impatiently. "You're too fragile."

I was too tired to take offense. Beyond tired. I watched the pale tongues of flame lick at the dwindling light, the trembling slowly beginning to subside. "We could be at the mouth of the forest in less than a day, traveling like that."

"Yes. But you'll need your strength once we reach the Lost Woods. It saps too much power."

My skin prickled feverishly again in the silence that followed; even surrounded by the relative peace of the lake, the darkness ebbing off him in waves was going to prevent any real rest. My fingers bit into the dirt and wet rock, splaying in the short grass, feeling for the familiarity of it like an anchor. A breeze raked over the water, pulling at the fire and my hair.

"Why are you really taking me there?" I whispered, asking the wind as much as I was asking him. "What in all the realms could you possibly need me for?"

He eyed me quietly. "Do you doubt your own strength? Or my intentions?"

"Both, I suppose."

"Greater heroes than you have failed where I was concerned," he said, turning the spit once. "Don't let your failure to contain me make you question your own power, or your destiny."

I watched him, bemused, lips parting, but swallowed my inquisitive reply. Reassurance was hardly the response I'd been expecting. "And as for the other?"

"I am a demon," he said simply, the orange filament in his eyes glinting in the firelight. "You'd be a fool not to."

"So it was a lie?"

"I didn't say that. But would denying it make a difference?"

I sighed, bristling at the conclusion. There was so much at stake—too much. I didn't understand how he could expect me to operate under a veil of doubt and half-truths.

"If what you say is true, then we are working towards a common goal," I reasoned aloud. "Even you must be capable of some degree of honesty."

He glared. "What's your point?"

"We could come to an understanding. This would be so much easier if I could trust that you would at least—"

"No."

"Why?" I demanded. "I can't in good conscience follow you blindly towards some unknown end!"

"You don't have a choice," he snapped. Then he visibly checked, and I reined myself in, too, knowing it would be unwise to provoke him. "And neither do I."

I frowned, questions burning in my throat like coals. The disjointed, untethered threads of him drifted aimlessly around my head, leading me nowhere. An obsession with a Sword he could never touch; his resentment when I had asked for the truth of a misremembered legend; the obstinate, unswerving notion that any attempt to forge trust between us was unallowable; and now, a sudden admission that he felt he had no choice.

I took a chance. "Meaning?"

"Meaning I will drag you to that pedestal by your hair if I have to."

I sighed, crossing my arms. "That won't be necessary. I can't leave you to your own ends. We can make it back to the plains by nightfall."

He scoffed. "You'll be useless to me if you fall apart on the road. We spend the night here."

"But it's not even sunset—"

"Yet another inconvenience caused by your little jaunt," he sneered. Then he sighed irritably, like he was reprimanding a child. "You're in no condition to travel."

"It wouldn't have happened if you hadn't blasted that archway into oblivion," I batted back, defending myself before I could think better of it, and he growled aloud, his tolerance strained to the limit.

"Do I ask you not to sleep? Not to breathe?" he demanded. "Yet you expect me not to destroy."

I narrowed my eyes at him, disgusted. "If it wouldn't be too much trouble."

"It's a great deal of trouble, actually," he bit back, and then he turned the spit once, frustrated, and we fell into another strained spell of silence. Then he took the skewer off the fire and shoved it into my hands. "Eat."

I did as I was told without arguing for a change, picking at the crisped scales, and gingerly tasted a piece. The meat was warm, and I suddenly realized how hungry I was. I hadn't had a proper meal since before he had taken me, and I'd expended tremendous energy since then.

I watched him carefully when I was done, pressing my mouth against the back of my hand. "You aren't going to eat?"

He snorted. "I don't eat."

"You were eating an apple this morning."

His eyes slid to me again, flashing with irritation, and the sigh he let out his nose was like the one my father would loose whenever he had to pray to the goddesses for patience. "It was an experiment."

I tilted my head thoughtfully, trying to puzzle him out. "You don't eat? Not at all? You must need some kind of nourishment—"

"Yes, and I'm abstaining, for your sake," he snapped acidly. Then his eyes pierced into mine, two-toned and lustrous in the firelight, and he growled, "Now sleep."

I took a hasty breath to object, but before I could form the words he was sending me spiraling under again. As my eyes closed and my consciousness slipped out of my grasp, I felt my body give out, and his unmistakable touch, both warm and cold, cushioning my head before it could hit the ground.

In my dreams, something monstrous, full of smoke and hate, was roiling out of the sea, and the Calamity, clenching the Blade of Evil's Bane in his fist, stood between us, his silhouette ringed in darkness and light. The storm descended on him, engulfing him with deafening winds and lightning strikes. But he let it come, motionless, standing his ground even as it swallowed him whole.

The fire was out when I came to, and I shuddered gently against the chill.

There was dry, brittle grass beneath me; it smelled of mesa winds and too much sunlight. I blinked as I sat upright, trying to get my bearings. We weren't at Lake Hylia.

There was desolation as far as the eye could see—nothing but charred remains where life once was, blackened, shriveled, sapped of form and color and dusted with ash. The air smelled of fire and charcoal, and smoke rose out of the dust like so many spirits trying to ascend. My eyes darted along the devastated plain, to the crags that flanked it, to the mutilated, scorched figures breaking out of the ground that had once been the trees, and I covered my mouth, biting back a gasp or a scream. In the fog of the disorientation and the dread, I latched onto a scrap of familiarity: the disfigured, towering trees bent and broken over the valley. They could only have been the wasted remnants of the Taobab Grasslands.

A sound broke in my throat; I whispered, "What have you done?"

"It will grow back." His voice, unaffected, dispassionate, sounded from so close by that I held my breath in silent alarm. He was just at my back. I turned, very slowly, to glare at him. He took a handful of the grayed sand, watching it trickle out of his open palm. "In a hundred years or so."

My eyes burned with angry tears and ash. I couldn't even save this from him. I hated how powerless I felt, lashing out with what little I had.

"How did we get here?" I demanded, but for all the anger I infused into my voice he wasn't the least bit disturbed.

"I carried you."

My stomach roiled, and I closed my eyes, trying to quell my nerves and not picture myself in his arms, limp and helpless, as he stalked across Hyrule under a faint sliver of the moon.

"Why?" I hissed, my voice a bitter whisper. "Why would you do this?"

"Do you know what lies between us and the Woods?" he asked, quietly, and I mentally traced the route beside the Great Plateau, speckled with settlements: the Outpost, Gatepost Town, Deya Village, Kolomo Garrison, the fragile intersections of so many lives. He couldn't have known those settlements from his own era. He must have been able to sense them—smell them, like a ravenous beast can smell blood. His eyes, cobalt blue in the morning light, ringed in so many orange threads, peered curiously into mine. "If you had to walk through a lush orchard, heavy with fruit, but you weren't allowed to take any, would you trust yourself to do it hungry?"

My mouth quivered, and I had to clench my jaw to still it. "You're a monster."

"Yes," he said, so softly my brow puckered in surprise, and then he stood, leaving me in my small patch of untouched grass, and wandered into the wasteland he had made, kicking up dust and ash. He called, weaving through blackened trees towering like maimed giants, "Come along, Princess."

I quashed the unpleasant tangle of doubt stirring in my chest, moving to follow. More than once, he breathed deep of the destruction, running his hand along scorched trees and through plumes of black smoke. Luxuriating in it. It made my stomach churn. I stepped carefully through a brittle splay of old roots, tangling up out of the sand as though they had tried to escape him. Suddenly he laughed, and my eyes snapped up to his.

"The look on your face," he chided, smirking roguishly. "The crown princess of Hyrule, the blessed daughter of Hylia—so easily riled."

I glared back icily. "The Incarnation of Hate—reduced to taunting mortals."

He crossed his arms, leaning against one of the ruined trees as he watched me. "I can go back to razing continents, if you'd prefer."

"No," I admitted sourly. "I would not prefer it."

His smile widened. "Pity."

I waited in stony silence for him to do something—move, or mock me some more. But he seemed content watching me bristle.

"You're a lot like her, you know," he finally observed. "Your predecessor, I mean. Stubborn, self-righteous—that gentle flush when you're angry."

I scowled, painfully aware of the blood rushing to my cheeks. He shrugged off the tree and moved closer, his eyes narrowing as he inspected me.

"She was older than you are now, though. Wiser. And your eyes are the wrong color." He tilted my chin up gently with the edge of his finger, with ice and fire on my skin that was becoming too familiar. "Green, like the Faron Sea in the dawn."

He held me like that a moment longer, rendering me motionless while he studied them. Cold slithered down my jawline, sprawling along my bones like hoarfrost. I snapped my face aside when he slid his fingers away, trying to hide my disquiet beneath a veil of contempt.

"If my eyes don't please you, you're welcome to not look at them."

"I didn't say that."

He was grinning, and I flushed angrier, my heart stammering unevenly through my jugular. But I checked before I spoke again, knowing that another bitter retort would only serve to amuse him. Enduring his mockery was a relatively small price to pay for his sudden good mood. I walked north, breathing deeply when my nerves crackled in protest as I turned my back on him. The Great Plateau rose up like a mighty sentinel at the end of the plain, impassively overlooking the destruction. I made for the eastern ridge of the canyon, where the staggered outcroppings made the wall less impassable.

"Did you drag her all over Hyrule, too?" I muttered, doing my best to act disinterested as I tried to riddle out the past he protected so fervently. "She must have made quite the impression if you can even remember the color of her eyes."

"Does it come as a surprise that I would commit to memory the face of the entity who has imprisoned me in endless oblivion too many times to count?" I hesitated as I approached the canyon wall, fearing the conversation had turned downhill irretrievably, but he chuckled once. "I think you underestimate how much I hate you."

I braced my hands on the stone, resisting the urge to roll my eyes, and lifted myself to the first summit. The damage was becoming less apparent as we scaled, singed grass and scored rock gradually giving way to green slopes and untouched boulders. He had completely dodged the question, though, so I tried something else.

My eyes trailed the stone for a foothold as I reached a taller obstacle. "Why take me along, then?"

When I looked up he had gotten ahead, and was complacently offering me his hand. I took it begrudgingly, letting him lift me onto the lip of the path, and he gave me a small, wicked smirk. "Snack for the road."

I huffed loudly, brushing past him again. His good mood didn't make him any less elusive; if anything, it only made him more annoying. I chose my route with care, managing to reach the crest of the ridge without needing his assistance again. The slope on the other side was incredibly steep, lush with dewy grass and ribbed with dark stone, swept regularly by winds off Lake Hylia. I forced myself to take the first steps of what I knew would be a slow, treacherous descent.

It wasn't long until the slick footing got the better of me, but he caught my elbow before I could plummet down the hillside. I snatched it back irritably.

"Stop touching me," I snapped.

He complied, letting me slide roughly onto my bottom when the slope turned slippery again not ten steps later. I sighed, closing my eyes and pressing my forehead against my hands as I sat exasperatedly where I had fallen. The Calamity crouched beside me, wearing a much smaller, much less infuriating smile than I deserved, turning his hand over in offering. I stared at it, defeated and tired.

"I need answers."

"No. You need wisdom. Which you've been displaying very little of, I might add."

I had the gall to scoff. "What do you know of wisdom?"

"It's how you've always beaten me before," he said, his lip quirking up unexpectedly. "Now, are you badly bruised anywhere else besides your pride? Or can we go on?"

I growled, batting his upturned hand away from where it was still hovering.

I led the way down the snaking path along the base of the Great Plateau until the cliffside opened to the southern plains of Central Hyrule, a tumble of soft greens and outcroppings shadowed by the Eastern Abbey and flanked by the Hylia River. The air grew warmer as we left the lake behind, filling with the soft, earthy scent of prairie grass, until, finally, glinting like beacons in the sunlight, the stone of the Outpost settlements rose up over the hillside in the distance.

I tensed as we walked, imagining the lives that wandered, defenseless and oblivious to the danger, within those walls. Images of the destruction in Taobab rose behind my eyes unbidden, and I pictured mutilated, scorched bodies rising over the canyon instead of trees.

I closed my eyes, suppressing a shudder. We were flanked by settlements, making avoiding an intersection with my people impossible without significant backtracking; we would have to retreat across the Bridge of Hylia again, cross the Farosh Hills, and skirt the treacherous edge of the Dueling Peaks. It would take days—days I was sure the Calamity wouldn't give me.

Dread closed around my throat like the grip of a bony hand. My pulse quickened and my feet shuffled to a stop. I wouldn't be able to defend them, not if he turned. He drew up beside me, watching with dark, amused eyes.

"Nervous?"

My lips pressed into a thin, embittered line. "I don't expect you to understand."

"You don't give me enough credit," he tsked. "I understand perfectly. You're about to lead the Scourge of Hyrule right into the heart of civilization, knowing you couldn't save them from me if you tried. I don't envy you."

I turned my head so I wouldn't have to look at him, staring over the swathe of hillside towering over the riverbank. I didn't know if I wanted to shout, or scream, or run; my thoughts wandered to the day before, to the glazed, almost spellbound expression that had slipped over his features before he gave in to the urge to destroy the archway. Instinct, he had called it. It made my stomach knot. If destruction was so deeply ingrained in his nature, it hardly mattered what his intentions were.

He reached out, turning me back to face him again with cool, blistering fingers under my chin, searching my eyes. His touch jolted through my arms and down my spine, and his eyes, glacial, ribboned, seemed to leech whatever warmth was leftover right out of me.

"Stop thinking about it," he told me, finally, dropping his hand, and I took a soft, tremulous breath in relief. "Panicking is not helping your cause."

My teeth clicked shut. "I'm not panicking!"

"But you are afraid," he murmured, a displeased undercurrent in his voice. His gaze slid to the Outpost; he took a deep breath, like an animal scenting the air, and his mouth tugged down. "I can taste your fear."

My body reacted to his words before my mind did, hair standing on end, blood quickening, as though it knew what sort of danger that meant for it. More instincts, swelling to the fore and reinforcing my misgivings about his.

"Couldn't we jump through?" I pleaded, trying not to sound desperate. "Like we did when you brought us to Lake Hylia?"

"I'd rather not," he frowned. "That could compromise both of us. I wouldn't risk it so close to a settlement."

"Is it really so hard for you?" I glared, as revolted as I was incredulous. "To not destroy every living thing you come across?"

His eyes searched mine, just as incredulous, and arguably even more troubled. "Yes."

"All the more reason to use magic," I murmured, swallowing more doubt.

"Leaving your world intact is all about restraint. The more in control I am, the better—and exhausting myself with unnecessary teleporting every time you lose your nerve would jeopardize that. Is that what you want?"

I came dangerously close to sulking. "No."

"And this," he murmured, his hand reaching out slowly to touch my throat. His fingertips found my pulse, applying gentle pressure, and I was suddenly, acutely aware of it; the way it stammered and raced across his touch, sloshing and pounding against the pliant confines of my veins; how it must've felt to him, warm and titillating; what my fear must've tasted like. My eyelids felt weighted as I listened, as I fixated on the sensation of his touch giving under the heavy, unending throb of my artery. He whispered, "This doesn't make it any easier, either."

In that moment I was numb. If he had made to snap my neck, I wouldn't even have resisted. His touch was an anesthetic, cooling my blood, rendering me pliable and insensitive. All I knew was my pulse, throbbing in my ears and drumming against his fingers. Then he dropped his hand, and I could breathe again.

"Calm down," he insisted quietly, almost soothingly. "It will be fine."

He turned and started down the road again, leaving me trembling in his wake. I managed, before he got too far, "That's easier said than done."

He glanced back once, his lip quirking up crookedly. "Would it help if I gave you my word?"

"I don't know. I doubt it." I forced my feet forward, finally, falling in step with him, and glanced furtively at his profile. "Would you?"

"If you like."

I frowned, consumed with the arguable worth of his word, and the strangeness of his offer, and the disaster we were unflinchingly walking into.

"They won't recognize you," he said, and it was so unexpected I blinked.

"What?"

"Their princess just faced the Great Calamity in battle and went missing," he breathed. "We would draw too much attention. I've cast a glamour."

I glanced at the unchanged furl of hair draped over my shoulder, my dirty fingertips, felt at the familiar ridge of my nose. Nothing seemed different.

"It's only an illusion of obscurity," he clarified, his lip quirking in amusement. "The harder they look, the less interesting you'll seem. I couldn't bear to actually change your face; where would we be without those pretty green eyes of yours?"

I scoffed, glaring again, my fear suddenly forgotten in the rush of annoyance that followed, and he smirked. It wasn't until later on, when we were stepping over the boundary into the village, that it occurred to me that that may have been the point.

As promised, no one acknowledged us much as we skirted the edge of the settlement. Outside of the occasional polite nod, no one greeted us, and whenever someone looked long enough to discern who I was, the recognition would fade from their eyes and they abruptly lost interest. We hugged the east edge of the village; for all his talk of promises and precautions, he didn't seem eager to go through the heart of it, either.

"Why don't they feel you?" I murmured, my boots crunching on the dust and gravel as we traversed the road. "Shouldn't their instincts send them running?"

"Oh, they feel it," he mused, gesturing with his chin at the subtle frowns that would grace their expressions as we passed, the slightly wider berth they would unconsciously give him. "They just don't know enough to pinpoint it. The obscurity keeps them ignorant."

I chewed my lip, more interested than I should have been. 'Inappropriate' hardly began to describe hobnobbing with an evil tyrant over spellcraft when he was posing an imminent threat to my people. But there was so much about magic I still didn't understand, even despite my birthright, and the way he used it so easily was really quite fascinating.

"I don't understand you at all," I breathed, giving a passerby a soft smile at odds with my exasperated tone. "You're supposed to be this demon, this embodiment of evil and hatred—and I know you are. I can feel it. But you don't act on it."

He only shrugged. "I doubt you ever will."

"I might if you explained yourself, even a little."

I pursed my lips, waiting for a retort or some scrap of revelation. I sighed hotly when it became apparent he wasn't going to answer, and he smiled suddenly, a ribbon of white teeth peeking out from between his lips.

"That really eats you up, doesn't it?"

"That none of this makes any sense? That you insist on making me an accessory to whatever this is without the slightest explanation?" I snapped. "Yes, it does!"

"That's not it. You just don't like not having all the answers," he smirked. "I've already told where we're going and why. But that's not enough for you."

"That wouldn't be enough for any sane person."

"I'm helping you save your kingdom and bring about a golden age that will last an eternity. And you're put out that you can't quite pinpoint my motive."

"Greatly disturbed is more like it," I muttered, folding my arms stubbornly.

"Of all the things about me to find disturbing," he mused, smiling gently, and I couldn't find words to reply.

We reached the other side of the village without incident and headed for the river, following its winding edge north. He let me stop twice to rest on the bank, drink, and have a little to eat, and when I slipped on a slick rock as we were walking and tumbled into the shallow water, he'd laughed at me.

Before dusk, we reached the clutch of woods wedged between the Bottomless Swamp and the Hylia River. As my stamina was still relatively depleted, he chose to stop for the night there, and quickly set a fire and fixed me another dinner that he ordered me to eat.

I picked at the roasted fish and mushrooms tiredly, huddled against the warmth of the fire, and he watched me with his usual steely gaze.

"At the risk of sounding impudent, I have a request," I prompted, eyeing him over my skewer. He quirked a cynical brow, but said nothing, so I continued. "I'd like to fall asleep on my own tonight, if it's not too much trouble."

"You can try," he scoffed. "But I doubt you'll be able to. Your instincts are attuned to detect evil—to keep you alert in the presence of danger. It's hard to fall asleep when every nerve in your body is screaming at you to run."

"I've gotten pretty good at ignoring those signals recently," I pointed out. I expected him to scoff or smirk, but his mouth twisted into a frown.

"You shouldn't get complacent," he murmured. "You have those instincts for a reason."

I made a noncommittal sound in my throat, tossing my empty skewer into the flames, but when I looked back up he was gone. Then I felt his breath feathering the back of my neck and stiffened, every alarm in my body raised against his proximity.

"Don't think that because I haven't harmed you yet means that I can't, or that I won't," he murmured against my ear. The hair on the back of my neck rose at the promise in his voice, my heart thudding unevenly in my chest. "I am what I am. A monster. A demon. The Calamity. And you… you're just a girl, trying to wield a power you don't understand."

He stroked my face slowly, unexpectedly, and I shuddered away from his touch, raising my hand in a reflex to bat him away, but he grabbed my wrist, his fingers biting into my palm. I looked over my shoulder, startled, and met his eyes, sapphire and amber in the firelight.

"You cannot trust me," he echoed, running fingers that chilled and burned down the arch of my neck and watching him with unnerving interest. My eyes reflexively closed and my breath tremored out of me, the instinct to run knotting in my chest. I tried to pull my hand away, but his grip was like a vise.

"Let go," I said, my voice barely above a whisper as I tried again, but he didn't relent.

He leaned closer, his mouth hovering over my ear, and my throat went thick with salt. It felt like death itself was touching me, refusing to let me go. "Never let your guard down."

Hot tears spilled, unbidden, down my cheeks, and that seemed to satisfy him. He let my hand drop, standing and walking away from the ring of the fire into the night.

"Try to sleep, if you can," he called, growing more distant, and I didn't know if it was a taunt or not.

I pressed my mouth against my hand, swallowing a sob. I hated feeling this strange, morbid fear whenever he wanted. It didn't make sense; in some ways he was more like a knight protector than he was like an enemy, always seeing to it that I had sufficient food, water, warmth, and rest. But, like turning the earth on its axis between night and day, he could change so quickly, making my skin crawl with the tone of his voice or his gentlest touch in spite of the fact that he had never actually gone so far as to harm me—even sparing the Outpost and everyone in it. I supposed it was as he had said: it was instincts, rooted deep in my mind and my body, that made me cower, that were meant to protect me from monsters like him.

Still, the shift was so drastic it made me feel like I was dealing with two separate people.

I wiped the tears away, irritated and exhausted, and curled up beside the fire. As he had predicted, sleep seemed incredibly far away. Eventually, though, as the fire began dying down, I started to drift off.

As I slipped under, an image rose to the surface of my consciousness like flotsam. It was only a blur at first; it eased gently into focus, sharpening each of my senses in tandem until it became as real and as vivid as any waking moment. And it was the most horrific thing I had ever seen.

Fire rained from the heavens, consuming the sky in burning embers and smoke. Every breath burned, and my eyes stung from the heat and ash. Whorls of black and amethyst seeped out of the ground around me, thick and foul and full of poison. The earth and the sky shook with sounds like thunder, mingling with white light and showers of blue sparks that never seemed to end.

The Calamity stood not far from me, a beacon of life and light in the chaos, wielding a blade that glowed with holy light in the darkness.

"Zelda, now!"

I could feel it, the strain on my mind and my body as I struggled with something unseen and terrifying. I responded with a voice that was mine and yet not mine, familiar but strange, right but wrong, like something I had forgotten once.

"I can't!" I cried, my voice drowned out by the commotion.

He made his way closer, arcing his blade through plumes of malice and fireballs that seemed intent on keeping us apart. He knelt near me, his eyes clear, and full of fire, and startlingly, pristinely blue. His voice was raised over the chaos, urgent and desperate. "What do you need?"

"I don't know—a container, a vessel—"

A single, orange eye opened out of the darkness, and I screamed as something vile and viscous hurtled towards us. He shielded me with his body, but then the sound of so many chains raking over each other flew around us, and something I couldn't quite make out—blue-eyed, spindly-legged, metallic—placed itself between us and absorbed the blow, exploding in a flourish of azure lightning and harsh white light.

His eyes, so furious and blue, snapped back to mine as he shouted again over the turmoil. "What kind of container?"

"Something—something living, something I could tie it to—" I shook my head, hopelessly reaching for an answer. "Something strong enough to withstand the power of the gods—"

His eyes locked with mine, and I saw reflected in them everything he must have seen in mine: heartache; hopelessness; fear.

And determination, resolute and unstoppable, that no darkness could ever hope to smother.