My eyes snapped open within the dream, meeting my other self in an illusionary representation of my palatial suite on Nekheb. It had been a while since I'd met my subconscious and he'd had an image update since last we'd met. He was no longer wearing the black leather duster and tailor made clothing, though the scrupulously manicured goatee remained. His appearance now mirrored my own, complete with porcelain skin and star strewn eyes. He wore a tightly fitting black garment that wouldn't have been out of place in a Bollywood production of Macbeth, complete with silver inlaid hieroglyphs around the collar.

He eyed me with a look of constrained disgust. "You are a moron."

"Nice to see you too." I sighed, resigning myself to a lecture from my subconscious as I stood up from the wooden stool and walked around the stone table. There were a number of objects on it, maps, battle plans, casualty reports, all the papers and books that had become a grim tally of my own inability to protect the people who'd become my own. I noticed that he'd made a number of red slashes through the proposed assault on one of Moloch's fortresses, apparently pre-emptively having written off part of the fleet as casualties.

He ignored my glibness and repeated his statement, putting greater emphasis on each word. "You. Are. A. Moron."

"I heard you the first time." I replied to my other, leaning upon the windowsill and staring out into the distance. It was an image of Nekheb as I'd last seen it, a sprawling metropolis just beginning to come back into its glory. The fire gutted districts destroyed in Chronos' initial invasion were beginning to show signs of recovery, stand stone buildings rising from the blackened ruins. We'd had an influx of war refugees to take the place of the fallen, and then some. If I really squinted my eyes I could just see the distant shape of tents outside the city's walls where tribes of Jaffa and Humans had taken root, waiting for their opportunity to live in the great city.

"And if I repeated it an additional thousand times I don't think that it would make the point with sufficient gravitas to hammer it in through your thick skull. You're still acting like you're back in Chicago, like your just Harry Dresden PI – downtrodden savior of the desperate and hopeless. " He held up a pale hand, turning it so that I could just see the blackened veins beneath his palm. "That life is gone. That Harry is dead. You are never going back."

My eyes flashed with rage as I rounded on my other, but he just continued to speak as though my rage was of no consequence. And really it was, it wasn't as though I could hurt the manifestation of my subconscious mind – much as I'd like to. "You're actively trying to fight being who you are. And its making you stupid. You have infinite resources at your beck and call – entire planets worth of worshippers to give you additional power, and what do you do with it? You use secondhand trinkets from a war ten thousand years ago to protect yourself because you're afraid of being strong."

"I'm afraid of tapping in to something that is going to re-write who I am on a fundamental level." I replied to my other. "I'm afraid of becoming a slave to belief in the Lord Warden."

"You have a religion that is based around the idea that you are an ass-kicking borderline Jedi cum Gandalf capable of literally crushing Hydras with your brain, and you're worried that they might make you more like that?" My other arched his brow. "How terrible – you might have to save someone or defeat some great evil. And we wouldn't want that."

"You know as much as I know about what that stuff will do to us, which is precisely nothing with a side order of 'I reckon.' I get it, its power. You're all about that, but power comes at a price. And neither one of us knows exactly what price I'd end up paying." I shuddered. "And I can't be sure of how much the belief of the people we're going to be fighting works into the mix. I could turn out as some sort of evil sorcerer god like Heka just because they believe that I'm him."

"Well heaven forbid that you leave your library long enough to actually go out into the world and actually work on your image." My double pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation. "Or take advantage of the literal harem throwing themselves at you."

"The harem who seem to be under the impression that they're supposed to be committing ritual suicide afterwards?" I waved away the idea. "No thanks."

"So just forbid them from doing it." My double replied in emphatic staccato, dragging out the last five words in deliberate over emphasis. "Or go out and find someone else. You are a King now, even if you're not willing to admit that you're a god. You have options man – use them."

I shook my head. "I can't do that. There's nobody who'd be on even footing with me. I'd either meet someone who was enamored by power or was afraid of it. Either way I don't think they'd ever like me for me."

"Save me from pointless Chivalry." My other looked skyward, cursing his lot in life. "And do something life affirming for once. Because this trying to kill yourself without actually doing the deed crap is getting old."

I sputtered, "I'm not trying to – "

My double didn't even let me finish before replying. "Bullshit!"

He glared at me, the starry pits of his eyes flashing a deep crimson before he continued his furious retort. "You're a moron but you're not stupid. You've been throwing yourself on every dangerous mission you could get ahold of, the most dangerous, most bloody, and most stupid jobs that you can possibly join. Sure, you can write that off to everyone else as just wanting to do the right thing and save as many lives as you can, but I know better."

"So what, I'm supposed to just let people fighting in my name die without at least trying to help?" I replied, grabbing a page of casualty statistics up from the table and brandishing it at my other. "There are people dying every day, people who believe that they're dying for something by dying for me. People who believe that I'm a freaking god."

"You are a god." Replied my other. "Remember, you got the coronation and everything."

"Don't change the subject." I snarled at my other.

"I'm not." He replied, crossing his arms and standing firm as my eyes flashed at him. "You, Harry Dresden, are no longer human. You can throw yourself onto as many different suicidal missions as you want to but it will never make you into the human you once were. It's only going to make you dead and not human. And rather than self-flagellating by throwing yourself into impossible battles so that you can feed the infuriating amount of survivor's guilt you seem to feel after Lash's death you could be the God King leading armies into battles that you're actually capable of winning."

"I'm not abandoning people to die on impossible battles without hope." The paper crumpled in my hand as my fists balled hard enough to draw blood. "They deserve better."

"You're at war Harry, you don't get the luxury of being the Martyr and a General – not if you want to win. So get down from the cross and face facts." My other started counting off on his fingers. "You've been doing your best to keep to familiar things – trying to keep life as close to it was when you were human. Sure you upgraded your staff and gave yourself some new toys, but you've got an entire kingdom worth of resources to play with and you've spent most of the past year researching how to make as few changes to the timeline as are possible when you could be devoting that energy into finding a way to finish this war."

"Paradox is sort of a bad idea." I replied dryly.

"Sure, and if the changes that you were making affect Earth, it's probably best not to go hog wild. But you've spent the past eight months essentially outside the realm of any possible butterflies affecting your path." My other rolled his eyes. "Something tells me that you can make the world better in space without doing drastic damage to Chicago."

"You do realize that we're probably drastically affecting the timeline at the moment." I replied. "Heading straight to Earth."

"Sure," My double agreed. "Because you're a moron who let yourself get defeated."

"I wasn't going to risk killing the mortals." I shook my head. "And I wasn't going to kill a six year old."

"Yeah… You hurting her really felt like it was on the table back there didn't it?" Sarcasm dripped from my double's voice. "The Winter Queen strong arms you into being at as specific place at a specific time while using your brothers' life as leverage and you just walk in, in spite of believing that it's a trap, and you just barrel on in as though this is business as usual. Even if it had been the Americans, that was a dumb fucking idea. You went in half cocked and lazy."

"You think I should have waited longer? Delayed more? This is Thomas we're talking about man. My brother, I'm not going to wait and see when it comes to saving it life. You want me to what? Just leave him to his fate." I snorted. "Fat fucking chance."

"Oh yea, because you're of real fucking use to him trussed up and captured by Russian Special Forces." My double rejoined. "You're not looking at this objectively. How could you be? You've spent the past year effectively alone with only the Skull and Mab to know who you really are. It's driving you a little bit insane."

"You're calling me crazy?" I balked at the suggestion.

My double paused for a moment before replying. "Harry, can you really seriously be defending the state of your mental health while arguing with a hallucination?"

Ok, I'll admit that my double might have had a point there but I wasn't about to tell him that. "I'm not crazy."

"Perhaps not irredeemably so but, you're lonely and isolated." My double replied. "You've spent your entire adult life building up protective layers of ritual and habit. You wear the same jacket. You live in the same apartment. You drive the same beat up car. You work in a job that is under-paid and over-worked because it fits in your image. You even go to the same restaurant whenever you go out, in spite of the fact that you know it's terrible for you."

"I like the paper hat." I replied defensively, keenly aware of a year's worth of Burger King cravings that I'd been unable to fulfil.

"You don't even leave Chicago unless you absolutely have to. And no you have no real friends, no family, no pets, no history, and can't even use your real name." Replied my double. "I think that when the Winter Queen offered you a normal problem from your old life that you jumped at it. I think that you were so desperate for any connection to the man you once were that you willingly walked into a trap." My double leaned down on the window sill next to me, staring out into the horizon. "I think that you chose to assume that you were capable of handling the situation because you've been fighting the same threats on a daily basis for the past year. You've gotten used to knowing what to expect, fallen into a routine of battling unchallenging foes."

"Weren't you the one who just suggested I was throwing myself at impossible odds in an attempt to kill myself?" I shook my head. "Getting kind of scattered there aren't you?"

"I said that you were trying to kill yourself, not that you were doing an especially good job of it." Replied my double. "Jaffa were hardly a threat to you, even before you ascended. And while Chronos has outsiders and Hydra in his ranks, there aren't enough of them for him to commit them to every engagement. You've faced one, maybe two heavy hitters in four months. The last time you had a real threat against your life was before your coronation and you haven't been without an armed retinue in nearly a year. Hell's Bells Harry, you stopped consciously worrying about how many fairies were in your city three months ago. If that's not suicidal I don't know what is."

"So which is it?" I snarked. "Do I have too much danger in my life or too little?"

He grinned at me. "You're getting used to the monsters being on your side Harry. It makes you sloppy. It nearly made you dead. You being dead is bad – you'd take me with you."

"Well as long as we have our priorities in order." I replied in exasperation. "While I'm getting psychoanalyzed by you, why do you believe that I'm trying to kill myself?"

"Harry." My other replied sadly. "Even you should be bright enough to know that without needing me to spell it out to you. You've said it yourself. People are dying for you. And you, Harry Dresden, cannot abide the idea of losing someone who loves you. Your whole "tortured misanthrope" schtick let you keep the number of people you lost to an absolute minimum, but now you've got planets worth of people who love you."

My double put a hand on my shoulder, gripping it in a firm yet comforting gesture. "They are dying for you and you hate that you don't think you deserve it. Never mind that yet another woman in your life has left you right after you've come to terms with the fact that she loves you." He smiled lecherously. "And you actually let yourself love her back."

I flinched at the reference to Lash and her dream visitation. The memory of that night was amazing, but I'd done my best not to dwell on it. The scrupulous absence of companionship in my mind had left me with an empty loneliness as painful as anything else I'd ever felt.

Was I really punishing myself for having survived Lash's death? I wiped tears from the side of my face that I hadn't even realized were falling as I replied. "She didn't deserve to die."

"Neither do you Harry." Replied my other. "Cutting yourself off from the people who've let themselves into your life and love you for the things you're doing as the "Lord Warden" won't bring back your old life. Martyring yourself for your warriors won't make you less guilty of having made yourself their god."

"I don't know if it matters." I sighed. "I've pretty much gotten us killed already."

"Enough with the emo crap." Replied my double. "You're not dead yet. Which mean's we're not dead yet. I mean, it's the freaking Russians, they can't be any harder to deal with than Vampire hordes or Jaffa Legions. Which means that you, Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, the god of freaking magic, are going to get your head out of your ass and find a way out of this situation. Muscle up and face your freaking problems man. You have allies counting on you, family too. If you're not willing to do it for yourself do it for them."

I refused to allow harm to come to Thomas. I didn't like the idea of anything bad happening to Muminah. And even Ammit and Enlil were frenemies of a sort. "I'm not letting anyone hurt them."

"Damn right. Now I'm sorry man, but this won't be pleasant." Replied my double as he winced at something. "If I'm honest, it's really going to suck."

I didn't have time to ask exactly what was going to suck as an icy sensation subsumed me, coldness banishing my vision of my other self and waking me from my unconscious state. I sputtered and spat as I sat up, straining against the thick iron manacles binding me to a chair bolted down to the deck. A deluge of water washed down over me, frigid sea-water pouring out and over me from a fire hose. Russian sailors kept the spigot pointed at me, chattering orders and replies to each other over the thrumming "chug-thump" of the pump. Armed men carrying the air guns used to disable me offworld stood on either side of the pump, ready to disable me if necessary.

I squinted through the water, blinking it out of my eyes. I was wearing a jumpsuit of some kind, similar to those being worn by the Russian sailors only without the patches to denote rank and name. We were on a ship of some sort, an aircraft carrier judging by the fighter planes and helicopters just visible beyond a thick canvas barrier partitioning the hangar bay. Behind another set of doors and another canvas barrier to obscure it, I could just glimpse the outline of the Stargate. Even more armed Russians stood at the edge of the canvas barriers, these armed with conventional weapons – ostensibly to ensure that the only men who gained access to either me or the Stargate were those with a need to know.

Only a couple members of the Brute Squad were in the hangar bay with me, but their body language was relaxed. Apparently they were satisfied the threat I represented had been neutralized. On the other side of the hanger I caught sight of Archive and her bodyguard. They were presently engaged in conversation with an older man. A Russian Wizard of severe features and considerable age, even by the standards of the White Council. I'd never met him in person but I recognized him immediately as Simon Pietrovich, the White Council's expert on Vampires.

I closed my eyes, drowning out the rushing sound of sea water and directing my attention to them. I tilted my head to them, and listened. It isn't magic, anyone can do it really, but I've picked up a particular knack for filtering out excess noise. It wasn't easy, but I caught the gist of their conversation.

Simon rolled one of the silver darts between his fingers. "And this works?"

"Quite effectively." Replied the Archive. "The bloodstone is the key to all their abilities. Once introduced, the serum causes a disruption to it – effectively turning the magically conductive material against them. The greater the power of the Goa'uld, the more effective the serum is against them. It even disrupts wards infected with the stone, one merely needs coat the needle."

"I will require as much as you can provide." Replied the Wizard, his voice polite but demanding.

The Archive shook her head. "I have already given you as much as can be made till the next alignment. You have more than is required to subdue them till we get them to your sanctum – the room is prepared?"

"It is, though I still feel that an attempt to end his life should be made in the immediate." Replied the Wizard.

"No." Rejoined the Archive. "We can't be sure how complete the ritual of ascension was. At best we'd be creating a truly powerful shade, at worst we'd be giving birth to a Skinwalker. He must be contained till the proper time. The Winter Queen was explicit in her warning that he cannot be slain before the proper moment three years hence or it will end in ruin."

"I would advise refraining from discussing this further Ma'am." Interjected Kincaid, his predatory eyes directed towards me. "The serum seems to have worn off."

"A pity." Ivy sighed. "I was hoping to avoid using more of the serum." She looked to the Russians and spoke an order to them. Two abrupt hiss-thumps later, I was fading back to blackness but not before realizing one salient fact. Simon Petrovich and the Brute Squad were going to die soon, slain by the Vampire Courts before the war between Summer and Winter began. If I had my timeline straight, their demise was due to come to pass in the next day. And unless I figured something out soon, my companions, Ivy, and I were going to go down with them.

Just another day in the life of Harry Dresden.