We left off with Spyro having just met Pleasure and Darkmire/Pain; a harrowing and creepy experience with even worse still to come. Writing these chapters is a bit slow, but I think they'll be worth the wait.

Enjoy.

"Why?"

Spyro jumped, the voice almost felt like it had come from behind him. It was quieter, softer. This was not how Hope normally spoke.

"Spyro. You could say I did it. Live or die, I would take the responsibility and never tell a soul it was you."

"You seem much more amicable than normal. Are we on speaking terms again?" Spyro asked.

"Don't waste your breath. You can't pretend to me. You mean to kill me, and I mean to kill you. I just want to know… why? Why can't you protect Cynder by killing this dragon? Nobody will blame you, I will claim full responsibility for the act if you wish."

Spyro shook his head. He didn't even glance down at the wounded and sleeping figure of Pleasure, still on the floor where she had fallen after Darkmire controlled her, but with a blanket now tucked around her and bandages on her broken paw and wrapped around her chest. "I would know I did it. I just can't."

"You remember the image she showed us. She showed us her killing Cynder."

"I remember." Spyro said stiffly. The darkness of the cave seemed to grow tighter around him.

"Isn't Cynder's safety worth more than your honour? Surely this is something we can agree on."

Spyro sighed softly. "It's complicated. Would I save Cynder over Pleasure? If there was no other choice then yes. But I haven't given up hope yet."

Hope growled at Spyro's choice of words.

"The best solution is rarely the easiest one" Spyro said.

"Platitudes. Clichés. Throw together a few pretty words and you can justify anything. How justified will you feel if you're wrong?"

"I don't know."

"Let me put it more plainly: What are you going to say to me if Cynder dies? You won't be able to live with yourself. No little quotes will help you."

Spyro shook his head. "I… I don't even want to think about that."

"And that's why I care more than you do. Even a potential threat to Cynder means more than my honour, more than anything. I would save her. You would hesitate like you are right now."

"I'm sorry."

"You will be. You remember it, don't you? Cynder's dying breath, her eyes. Fixed… On us. "Why couldn't you save me?" That's what she was thinking. She trusted you and you betrayed her. That blame. That was for you. You. You're betraying Cynder."

Spyro clenched his paw, hissing in pain as the raw burn of Darkmire's acid stung him, sending a sharp stabbing pain up his leg. "I'm being myself. Cynder appreciates honesty. She chose me over you, and maybe this is why."

Hope growled, Spyro could sense him gritting his teeth in barely restrained fury and frustration. "Your filthy lies won't work on me. Cynder only chose you over me because she's confused. Someday I will bring her out of that. Think about my offer, for Cynder's sake."

Spyro shook his head, but he could feel that Hope was already gone. He could tell that he had cut Hope deep with his words, but Hope had done exactly the same to him.

Did he really love Cynder less than Hope did? What if he did? Was it a good thing? If it stopped him from being a psychotic stalker then maybe he should be glad he loved Cynder less than Hope. What if he was just being selfish?

Hope's words had brought back that image he had tried so hard to put out of his head. Cynder, dying at his feet. Her ribcage torn open, organs exposed. Her heart held within a deformed black scaled paw. Darkmire's paw, reaching out with Cynder's heart held in it's grasp, mockingly offering it to him.

Spyro slapped himself on the unscarred side of his face. He pictured Cynder smiling, that smug grin when she'd beaten him in a training fight. The mixture of delight and playful outrage on her face when he had won a round, pinned her down and kissed her. Her green eyes gazing at him with pure warmth and happiness as they'd sat, watching a sunrise alone in the wilderness.

Spyro rubbed his forehead, groaning softly as his heart rate slowed down back to calmness. Cynder could look after herself.

He breathed in deeply, then out again.

Cynder was important, and he wanted to protect her, but she was strong and smart enough to protect herself. If their positions were reversed would she go for the kill to protect his life? Maybe…

He sighed. Darkmire was using Cynder to torment him and Hope, and if he wasn't careful then it would work even more than it already had.

They were playing into Darkmire's paws. The horrible black dragon didn't want to fight them, in fact she didn't really even want to be free from the tomb.

No, she wanted to do to Spyro and Hope exactly what she had done to Pleasure.

She wanted to break them apart, torture them with words and actions and make them fight each other in the most painful and personal way possible.

He had seen how much she had enjoyed their suffering; all she wanted was more of that. Spyro knew that he and Hope were doomed to be in conflict; a conflict that Darkmire was trying to fuel, to fill them with hate and self doubt.

He didn't know whether he would be forced to guard Hope forever like Pleasure had for Darkmire, or if somehow he would be able to fight his way free of Hope's influence like Cynder and Malefor had; but what he did know was that conflict was inevitable and Darkmire was licking her lips in anticipation of watching it.

It wasn't just Pleasure who had been driven mad in that cell, it had been Darkmire too. Inflicting suffering was the only thing she cared about now.

The most powerful dragon alive, maybe the most powerful dragon who had ever lived, had been isolated for so long she had gone past the point of being a psychopath and into insanity.

His paw and face were stinging. Spyro grimaced and created ice again to rest against the wounds. On the surface they seemed to be healing ever so slightly, but the pain was very slow to fade. He frowned, looking at the wall and moving his head back and forth.

The black spot in his vision from where a drop of acid had hit his eye seemed to be getting smaller. He shivered at the memory, the pain was a shooting stinging kind of pain, like a needle being poked into the wound over and over with every beat of his heart, each spike of discomfort reminded him of the feeling of Darkmire's cold tongue.

Time passed, and eventually Spyro walked back to Pleasure and gently shook her awake. The black dragoness shifted unhappily, reluctant to wake up; but after a few minutes she stirred and opened her eyes.

"Ahh… Spyro? I must have drifted asleep…"

"You don't remember?"

"I don't know. Remember what?" She sat up, staring at his face. "What happened to you? Your head… The scales are wrong."

"Oh, yeah… Your 'other side' did that to me. Don't worry, I'm fine."

"It looks… not good." Pleasure did her best to stand up, then yelped slightly and looked down at herself, suddenly becoming aware of her own injuries as she moved.

Spyro had noticed already that Pleasure was afraid of saying Darkmire's name, and that extended to even mentioning words such as 'pain' and 'hurt'. He didn't think those were the actual triggers that pushed her towards being taken over, but for her sake he would try to avoid those words in exactly the same way that he found himself trying to avoid the word 'hope'.

The word felt almost dirty to him now, each time he said it or remembered someone saying it he felt a bit of discomfort.

"I'm fine, trust me. You're going to be fine too."

"My stomach feels bad, and my paw. But you look worse. I'm sorry… I only know the other one is bad, I c-couldn't stop her… I didn't mean to-" She was starting to ramble fearfully, getting stressed.

"Can you move your paws? Are you tasting blood or anything?"

"Umm." Pleasure twitched her claws, Spyro's multiple questions were enough to distract her. "I think I can move my paws. But I can't remember what blood tastes like, I'm sorry."

"That's okay, open your mouth for a moment please?" Spyro leaned closer.

Pleasure did so, and Spyro's head twitched back instinctively; her breath smelled metallic, magical, poisonous, and sure enough it smelled bloody. It immediately brought back memories of her tongue stroking his face; that horrible feeling. He gave her mouth a quick glance, not seeing any visible traces of blood, and so he nodded and leaned back. If there was no wound then he didn't want to worry her.

"Okay, you can close your mouth. Everything seems to be okay. Let me know if there is anything that changes. You smacked into the wall pretty hard. There don't seem to be any serious injuries though at least."

Pleasure nodded. "I'm really sorry… I didn't mean to do this."

"Don't worry, I'm going through the same thing. We'll figure something out."

"Yes…" Pleasure nodded, and in that moment she almost believed it.

The air was cold, and Cynder didn't care. Trees, water and ice whipped by below them as they flew. She had traded places with Imperia to take the lead as they flew once the silver dragoness had eventually tired; now it was Cynder cutting a path through the air towards Darkmire's Tomb. Malefor would have taken the lead once they reached the mountains, as he also had fire with which to keep them all warm, but Cynder had other plans.

It was hard work, but every second brought her closer to Spyro, and so the miles flew by. They didn't even bother to take the winding path through the mountains, instead as they approached Cynder bent their path upwards.

She flapped her wings, gaining height as the water was replaced with a grey rocky shoreline and then the snowy foothills of the mountain range rising upwards, but failing to catch them.

Imperia, catching on to Cynder's intentions spread her wings wider and the wind rose to a howl around them, both wind dragonesses beating their wings hard to whip up an air current as they were catapulted up into the air, taller than the mountains.

It was a strange experience, Cynder was used to taking to the air and seeing the ground fall away beneath her feet, but this was different. Everything got smaller and smaller, details fading into the background. The lofty peaks of the mountains were at eye level, and then even they were below them.

The winds up here were not so familiar to Cynder, they followed massive patterns that would take days to fly around, and they contained huge columns and tides of air that were far too large for a wind dragon to control at will.

The wind that they entered was diagonal to their flight path, and while Cynder sliced their path through it Imperia deflected the worst of the external winds from disrupting their flight.

Wind up here was like the tides of the ocean or a huge stone rolling down the mountainside, the sheer weight of them were nearly impossible to hold back with force, but between the two of them they were able to navigate it well enough, Malefor holding close behind them.

It felt like hardly a minute before they spotted Darkmire's Tomb below them, a far cry from the slow cold journey that she had taken to arrive there with Spyro. She dove, wings tucked, with Imperia hot on her tail.

There was a guard at the door, who took a defensive stance as they approached. Cynder didn't even slow down, sweeping past him in a blur.

"Halt!" The poor fire dragon yelped, ready to jump in her way, but losing his nerve at the last moment and leaping aside as her speed ruffled the fins on his neck.

"Let her pass! We're here on behalf of Warfang. I'm Imperia th-"

Cynder heard just enough to know that Imperia was going to sort it out before she was gone, zipping down the corridors, dodging a few other dragons and then sweeping into the narrow crevasse which led into the depths of the mountain.

On their first trip down here they'd crawled, the space too small for them to walk upright. Cynder didn't even hesitate, she tucked her wings and dived, flying like a dart straight into pitch blackness.

Her wind magic warned her of the dangers, rocky outcroppings and boulders which could have easily broken a wing if she'd flown into them at such speed, and she twisted and turned as needed, flying so close to those obstacles in pitch blackness that some of them grazed her scales.

It was a scary flight, the air roared around her, everything was oppressive and heavy, and she couldn't see anything at all. Spyro had lit up to guide them last time.

The darkness pounded against her head, and she didn't dare make more than tiny corrections to her angle of flight or she would risk hitting any of the rocky surfaces which were less than a foot above and below her.

She hit the floor at the end of the crevasse with a heavy thud, a rush of dust falling behind her, dislodged by the speed of her passage. She crouched there, panting slightly.

Navigating with just her wind magic was stressful, and she blinked hard as she adjusted to the light. The flight to Darkmire's Tomb had been long and tiring, her body and her magic both pushed to near their limits, she took just a few seconds to gather her strength, enough for one final burst of action.

She stretched her wings and legs, just making sure she hadn't injured herself on the descent, and once she had a moment to make sure she was alright she was moving again, zipping past another two guards and whirling around the corridor.

There!

She heard the ever so familiar voice of Spyro coming from one of the cells.

She homed in on the correct cell, her heart leaping as she saw the lean purple shape of Spyro, those gleaming gold horns and bright red wings.

Cynder skated to a stop in front of a barred wall, and then darted forwards, in the moment before she crashed into the bars she turned to shadow, swirling through the metal and reforming inside the cell.

"Spyro!" She exclaimed, dashing across the cell towards him.

The purple dragon jumped as he heard the shout, turning around and seeing the black and red shape of Cynder emerging from the whirling darkness and leaping straight at him.

Instantly his maw lit up with a brilliant smile, surprised and overjoyed the moment he saw her. He jumped to his feet and darted forwards, the two of them crashed into each other and fell in a tangle of wings and legs as they hugged tightly.

"Cynder! Oh Cynder I'm so glad to see you! I'm so glad you're alright!"

He wrapped his paws tightly around her waist, feeling her nuzzle and rub her face against his cheek.

Cynder purred happily, her emerald eyes spotted the dark shape of another dragon curled up in the corner of the room, but for the moment she didn't really care. She was just so glad to hold him again, feel his warmth, his reassuring scent, the touch of his scales.

"I'm so glad you're alright too! You were brilliant Spyro! I'm so glad you came here! It's so clever. Did it work? How are you feeling!?"

"I'm fine. A few flickers, but I'm in control." Spyro said as Cynder finally got off him. "It's not a permanent solution, but it's bought me enough time to get your help."

Cynder waited until Spyro had gotten up and then immediately hugged him again. "Well I'm glad that you're back. And…"

Her voice suddenly went tight with worry as Spyro turned his head the other way and she saw a large patch of his scales were scarred, it looked like a burn mark, wicked and swollen and tender; and it spread over his cheek and up across one of his eyes.

"What is that? What happened? It looks painful!"

There was a gasp from the other side of the room, and Cynder's mind for the first time consciously registered the figure in the corner, who up until now had been marked as unimportant.

"Cynder I'm fine, I have to explain what's going on."

Spyro said as reassuringly as he could.

Cynder turned to stare at the black dragoness in the corner, taking in her scale colour and her eyes. She noticed the deep level of malnourishment, instinctively knowing that in a physical fight she could snap this dragon in half without any effort, but at the same time she was fascinated by how similar the black dragoness looked to her, and well able to sense that the diminutive dragoness had a great deal of power hidden inside.

It was like looking into a mirror, one that twisted and bent her image into something more like the terror of the skies, and then beyond even that, to the point where the hard edges and long horns looked unnatural and nightmarish.

This poor dragoness looked like the scariest bedtime stories version of the Terror of The Skies, and she looked like she was suffering horribly from every moment of existing in such a body. She winced in sympathy as she saw cracked horns, visible ribs and vertebra, ragged wings, and claws which caused her fingers to twist at unnatural angles. But still… it felt like a mirror.

The other dragoness was just staring at them. No. Staring at her. It wasn't an aggressive look. It wasn't a scared look. It was… Cynder wasn't even sure what it was. It was a look of awe.

"You're a- She's… a black dragon." She glanced at Spyro. "Is she the Dar-"

"Yes." Spyro cut her off. "Don't talk about that. But she is the dragon who was sealed here. Don't say words aloud which mention… uh… feeling bad, in a combat related sense."

"You mean like pai-"

"Yes don't mention it." Spyro said, cutting her off again, chuckling slightly, but Cynder could tell that his laugh was hiding a certain level of nervousness. She remembered the little gasp she had heard when she'd said Spyro's wound looked 'painful'. Spyro waved a paw casually. "Try not to talk about that thing which you just almost mentioned. Ahem… anyway… I'm sorry for interrupting."

He cleared his throat.

"Cynder, I would like you to meet Pleasure. And Pleasure, this is Cynder."

"Umm… Hi?" Cynder stepped away from Spyro's embrace and offered a paw to the dragoness.

Pleasure stared at the paw blankly for a moment, then gazed up at Cynder, staring into her eyes. "H-hi… Spyro told me about you, Cynder. I… I'm so glad to meet you."

"Oh. Uh… thanks." Cynder smiled slightly awkwardly. She looked back at Spyro for help.

"I told Pleasure a bit about you." Spyro said.

"Yes. About how brave you are."

Pleasure added, starting to find her voice.

"How strong you were to break free of your corruption and face the darkness which controlled you. About how sometimes you can get angry and scared and don't always know what to do, just like me. But that if I try really hard I can be like you and push through it. Is it really true? Are you… happy?"

"Uhh… yes." Cynder said, putting her paw down and shuffling uncomfortably. There was a look of desperate innocent hope in Pleasure's eyes. It unsettled Cynder a little bit.

"Yes…" Pleasure repeated as if Cynder had just said the single greatest word ever spoken. "That's incredible. Have you been outside too? Seen Warfang and trees and mountains?"

"Uhh… Yes? I just came from outside. Literally two minutes ago." Cynder said.

Spyro snorted slightly in amusement at that. Cynder continued, sympathy but also a bit of sternness in her voice.

"Look, I don't really know you, and while I trust Spyro to talk about me I feel like I can't really give you any of the advice you seem to want. Stuff happens, sometimes life is hard and pai- uh… difficult. I'm sure that you can handle it somehow, and we'll do what we can to help you."

She didn't think she'd said anything special, but Pleasure was staring at her with a look of awe. She nodded. "You're right. I'll do my best. Thankyou Cynder. It's so nice to meet you."

"Uhh, you too, Pleasure." Cynder did her best to give the other black dragoness a smile, and after a few moments she was able to make it quite convincing. It wasn't that she disliked the other dragoness, she could just see that Pleasure had already built up Cynder as a mythical figure in her mind; and she wasn't entirely comfortable with that. She looked to Spyro. "I get the feeling you mostly told her the good stuff about me?"

Spyro chuckled and shook his head, stepping up beside her and giving her another hug. "I told her everything as best I could. I think that her knowing you're not perfect only made her admire you even more."

Cynder looked at Pleasure awkwardly, wondering if the dragoness would be bothered by them talking about her instead of too her. But she didn't even seem to notice, too busy staring at them both with amazement.

Cynder leaned in and lowered her voice. "Shes… uh… not all there, is she?"

"Who would be, after a million years in darkness with only a dark version of herself for company?" Spyro asked. His tone wasn't accusing at all, he knew Cynder just hadn't thought about it that way yet.

Cynder shrugged. "Fair enough. Considering that I guess she's doing pretty well." She leaned in to nuzzle Spyro, hesitating as she got a closer look at his burn mark. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Spyro nodded. "Don't worry about it. I'm just glad to see you." He hugged her with his wing and gave her a smile.

Cynder nodded, slightly reluctantly before turning back to Pleasure. But then she hesitated as a deeply worrying thought crossed her mind.

"Hey, so you're a black dragoness just like me. Do you know what elements you have?"

She moved a bit closer, keeping a respectful distance, but settling down beside Pleasure so they could talk more easily. Using her tail she lightly tugged Spyro closer, mostly just for the sake of wanting to be close to him, but also because if she was right then she would want him sitting down so she could examine his wound properly. Even as he moved to sit down beside her she saw the similar burn mark on his paw, and she noticed that he was walking with a very slight limp.

"I don't know… I'm sorry." Pleasure said. "I can't remember very much about my magic. I think it's bad and I don't want to use it."

"I see. I get told the same thing about my elements sometimes. But I am who I am, I'm not a mutant or a corrupted vessel. I'm just a dragon. Sometimes people are wrong, and you just have to ignore them."

She turned to Spyro.

"Does she have the same elements as me?"

Before he was halfway into his nod she had leaned in and licked his cheek, pulling her tongue back into her mouth and tasting…

Her eyes widened. She did her best to keep her voice even.

"Spyro how long ago did this burn happen?"

"Umm… A little while. Maybe hours. Why?"

"Because I cannot describe how poisoned you are right now. I don't even know what half of these toxins are, and the ones I do know are the most painful slow acting destructive evil things I've ever tasted before."

Spyro gulped nervously. "Uh… That's not good." He put a paw up to touch his face, but Cynder grabbed it and forced it down.

"Don't touch it! I don't even know if this mix and match poison kit is deadly, half of their effects contradict each other, but it's more than enough to have you begging for death."

She shot a glance at Pleasure, seeing that the other black dragon had flinched away and was mumbling to herself, but in the heat of the moment Cynder forgot about Spyro's warnings, unaware of the dangers that came from stressing her out.

"I can probably cure it. I don't know what these poisons are, but now I've tasted them I can copy them, and I can probably nullify them too with a few hours to meditate and focus on my poison magic. But in the meantime I have to stop it from doing any more damage. Tell me anywhere that's hurting."

Pleasure flinched again, more violently. Unfortunately Spyro didn't notice either, he knew just how dangerous Cynder's poisons could be, and was entirely focused on giving her the information she needed to cure it.

Cynder licked over his paw first, her saliva soothing the pain almost immediately. Spyro groaned softly in relief. "That feels much better… Can you also check my eye? I think I've got a burned spot in it."

Cynder leaned in to check, hissing softly to stop herself from swearing as she saw he was right, there was a small burned patch in his eye.

"Okay, this is probably going to hurt. I'm going to have to lick right on it."

"Do what you have to do." Spyro replied, reaching up with his other paw and holding his eyelid open. He gritted his teeth and grunted as Cynder's tongue brushed directly over his eye. The tongue itself wasn't painful at all, simply a weird feeling, but as it touched the burn mark a jolt of pain nearly made him flinch. She went about licking the rest of his face, and had just finished his paw when suddenly her wind senses started to trigger warnings.

Cynder looked around, seeing that Pleasure had curled up into a ball, her claws clutching her head. Her grip got tighter and tighter, and she was silently mouthing words that Cynder couldn't make out. Spyro jumped up, obviously worried.

"Cynder she's losing control! Be careful!" He hurried forwards, leaning down beside her and starting to talk to her. "It's okay, you're safe. You're fine. Cynder's here. Be brave, you can do it. You can-"

The dragoness let out a long drawn out scream as her claws scraped down the sides of her face, leaving bloody trails, and then as the scream ran out and faded into a whine the entire world seemed to curl and fold inwards, gravity pulling them towards the frail dragoness. Spyro grunted as he was dragged half a step forwards, he would have been dragged closer, but Cynder wrapped her wind magic around them both to keep them from being pulled in.

"What's happening to her!?" Cynder shouted.

And then Cynder saw Pleasure's eyes flick open, and they were bright burning yellow.

Everything was quiet and still, and they were no longer being pulled inwards, but Cynder's wind senses were screaming at her, telling her they were inside the power bubble of a much stronger dragon, she could sense foreign magic trying to invade her personal space.

Bright yellow eyes met Spyro's pale purple eyes first, and then Cynder's green ones, scanning between them both.

Pleasure's mouth, which had gone slack, split into a wide toothy grin as the fragile form of the dragoness was lifted to it's feet like a puppet on strings.

Cynder backed away, teeth bared in a snarl, crouched and ready to fight. Spyro was also on guard, but without quite the same urgency that Cynder had. He moved slightly forwards to be in front of her, making himself more of a target. Seeing Darkmire without so much as a wall between them was terrifying, but at least he had seen her before.

"What do you want?" He said to the skeletal black dragon.

"Cynder has come. Such bitterness. Such defensiveness. What a tender juicy centre inside… Truly she exceeds my expectations. How I look forwards to cracking her open and laying bare the things she tries to hide."

Cynder snarled at the words, suddenly feeling the tendrils of fear magic which were stroking over her skull, red smoke which penetrated flesh and bone as if it wasn't even there and dug into her brain, hunting through her thoughts, reading her mind.

"I'm standing right here you bitch!" She snapped, lashing out with her own fear magic.

The blade of red which she summoned, solid enough to be visible to Spyro, slashed down the room between them, slicing through the cloud of red smoke which had been trailing around and through both her head and Spyro's. With a growl Cynder raised a paw and swiped towards Darkmire, sending the wave of fear crashing into the unnatural dragon.

The red light hit Darkmire directly, and she recoiled violently away from it, claws scraping the ground and a high pitched scream rising up from her throat, a horrible screech which could have broken glass.

Spyro and Cynder both backed off with gritted teeth at the sound, Cynder hissing back in defiance.

Darkmire shook her head violently, her body snapping back into position and her yellow eyes locked onto Cynder.

"Yes… Ohhhh yes you are…" Darkmire whispered. Her voice now seeming more solid than it had in the past, transmitted mostly by mere sound instead of by her fear magic. It was less painful to listen to, and yet it still made Cynder's skin crawl. "You struck me. How interesting…"

She laughed, a horrible grating sound.

"And I'll do it again if you don't keep those fear magic tentacles out of my head!" Cynder growled. "I don't know what you want, but I know what you are, and I know I don't like you. Now give us the weird quiet one back!"

Darkmire laughed harder, taking a jerky step forwards.

"Do you not appreciate my gift? Can you not taste the poisons I've put into your dear mate? Such knowledge a poison dragon would kill for, and so swiftly you flew, swiftly enough to save his life. Am I not generous?"

Cynder growled. "If that's your generosity then I don't want it. Your good side has just made it to second on my list of people to save, so get out of my way and I'll deal with you when it's your turn."

"Such bravado… Such ferocity. You must have hated being so powerless to help your love. Perhaps I could tell you how you can help."

Cynder gritted her teeth and kept quiet. She could already tell that this dragon was much more adept with fear magic than she was, and as much as she hated giving Darkmire any power over her whatsoever she knew she would need to find out what she was meaning.

Darkmire tilted her head in satisfaction, teeth bared in a sick smile.

"Much better… Much better… how well trained you are."

Cynder's claws scraped over the floor in absolute fury as she was mocked. She could feel in Darkmire's words that she was intentionally making reference to Cynder's past, back when she had been enslaved to the will of the Dark Master. Her dislike turned cold and hard, a ball of icy hate in the centre of her being.

This was personal now. She had barely met this dragon, and she already despised them.

"I need to know how to save Spyro; so I need you for now. But someday very soon Spyro will be safe, and then you'll be the last dark dragon in the world. Guess what happens then? Mark my words… someday I will end you."

Darkmire only laughed, turning away from Cynder towards the bars of the cell.

"I see there will be much amusement to gain from you yet, black dragon. But first we have guests, hiding away in the shadows. Come out, come out! Imperia and Malefor."

It's so good to have Spyro and Cynder back together again; I've missed writing them together. However it looks like they're going to have to put in some work before they get a quiet moment. Darkmire is going to be a huge problem, but maybe she knows something that can help them?

Writing this chapter was tricky, but I hope you enjoyed it! Please feel free to let me know what you liked or what could be improved.

Thanks for reading!

-4Dragons