For those few seconds, there was nothing but silence. Though noise from the surface was naturally muffled this deep underground, something felt unnatural about the quiet. The silence was too heavy—too forced. But her prince gave her no quarter to deliberate further; her return had roused an old flame and he sought to burn her with it.

"Kill me," he commanded again.

"No."

His eyes narrowed. In the muted lighting, the difference vilified him. "That's an order."

"I don't take orders from you."

He smirked. Before her was not a bedraggled man bound and disgraced, but a soldier, a prince—and a tiger still as wild as the day they first met. The fire in his eye was undeterred, the strength rippling through his muscles unchecked. He was a predator ensnared at the moment, but still powerful inside his cage. She knew what would happen if she freed him from those chains.

"You seem different," she said finally. The sarcasm was a jab at more than his bound state. "What happened to you?"

He shrugged. The motion was nonchalant, as if the heavy chain around his shoulders weighed them down not at all. "I lived. But you should know all about that, right?"

"I saved your life."

"Against my will."

"Then rot down here with your ingratitude. I didn't come back to watch you die." Turning her back to him, she leaned down for the lantern at her feet.

"You would dare leave me here again? Don't you want to know what happened after you left? Who emerged the victor, or what happened to our soldiers? Or even how this—" he jerked the chains for emphasis "—happened to me?"

"I don't care what happened to you. The rest will become known to me as it needs to."

He shook his head with a chuckle. "You haven't changed. Just as stubborn as ever." His gaze lingered on her bare legs for a few seconds before his smirk deepened and he looked back at her face. "And as dead set at not blending in as last time, I see. Did you not attract unwanted attention up there wearing such strange clothes?"

"The only unwanted attention I'm getting is from you. If I don't want people to notice the difference, they don't." Nodding towards the elegantly carved item in his hand, she addressed her qualms with its presence: "What the hell is that doing here?"

"Oh, so I suppose you wanted me to notice then, did you? This—" He juggled the heavy jade seal casually in his hand "—I kept for the memories. And because it was killing my father. And now because it's killing me."

She rolled her eyes and ignored his initial sarcasm. "Only you could say that so casually. I thought your father was dead already."

"He was."

"Past tense?"

His hand visibly tightened around the seal. "Yes."

"And did the seal have something to do with it?" His silence after the question was answer enough. "Great. Did it resurrect anyone else?"

"Besides you?" The fleeting temper after the mention of his father faded slightly as he managed a wry smile at her scowl. "No."

"You really think I count? Why the hell would I sacrifice my resurrection abilities to the seal if I just wanted to waste them reviving myself again?"

"I never knew what went on through your head. For all I know, you intended to work backwards to begin with."

"Shut up. The only one it was meant for was you. Who else did you let it resurrect?"

He only grinned at her. For a second, she saw a flash of his old self: the energetic, young warrior-prince fuelled by the passion of his empire and his dreams for its prosperity and peace. Then the grin twisted back to a smirk, the good-natured amusement back to scorn, and the image faded. But the longing left in its absence burned hotter than the sun. "Set me free. Then I'll tell you."

"Tell me who put you in those chains first."

He settled back into the chair with the posture of a king—never mind acknowledging that his throne was as much a prison as a self-made pedestal. "Not till you free me."

"Then enjoy the rest of eternity with just yourself as company. I can find my answers another way."

"Oh, really? Through what: your magic?"

In an instant, all airs of pleasantry between them vanished. Though she had learned something of self-restraint since her last mission here, even the most trained composure had limits and hers was nowhere near leashed enough to heed its own. "You swore to me you would never call it that again."

"And you swore to me you would see my ambitions fulfilled." His grin took on a crueler edge. "Even if it killed you."

"It did kill me."

"And yet still I live on without a land or people to call my own. It looks like you died a little too soon."

"It is not my job to personally hand feed you every little victory in your hilariously short-lived military campaign here, actually." Her hand twitched with warning as the ringing in her ears deafened her to the frail pleas of her self-control. "Maybe next time I should stand properly back instead of contributing to the idiocy that was your magnificent failure at defending both your beloved land and family against that snake. Or did you forget how many of them fell thanks to—"

Something struck her with the force of a landslide before she could finish the sentence. She hit the wall so hard it cracked the earth itself and fractured every bone along the length of her spine. Vision darkening instantly at the edges, she braced one hand against the wall for balance as the sudden wind in the room roared through her ears.

That … that bastard! What the hell just happened?

Squinting through the darkness—the wind had snuffed the lantern out—she glimpsed a faint glow where she had last seen him. Sure enough, at the center of the otherworldly light gaining greater and greater prominence every second, was the prince—but not as she had left him.

Something was wrong with his chains.

They trembled with a pulse of energy before unraveling from his body in one fluid motion to the floor, squirming there under the radiance of their former prisoner. But their supernatural motion was not so disturbing as was the reaction they triggered: a tightening and almost suffocating pressure on her chest, as if someone had reached inside for her heart and grasped his hand around it and squeezed.

The effect could have killed a normal human. It almost killed her. Being a soldier of the afterlife did not exempt her from death; it just allowed her to tread the boundary without ever crossing completely over. But did that make it hurt any less? Hell no.

Clutching her free hand to her chest as her vision blurred with tears, she pushed herself away from the wall. The wind forced her back a step instantly, but she resisted the worst of it as her injuries healed themselves on instinct. The light threatened to blind her but she squinted against its glare, searching the heart of the brightness for the prince. There he still stood in the center of the radiance, his shoulders hunched and his long black hair whipping wildly about him in the wind.

"You should have freed me yourself."

For that briefest of moments, the resonation of his words bristled the hairs on the back of her neck. Though it was hard to discern for certain, she swore she had heard two voices. The first definitely belonged to the prince; it had been a clearly physical (if barely audible) shout through the gale, bolstered by that otherworldly strength feeding through the chains. But the second voice ... it had been right at her ear, so close she swore lips brushed the skin there with each word.

The familiarity stunned her. Was that … who she thought it was?

"The chains." Again she heard both voices but this time focused on the second one directly, listening to its echo, memorizing the rhythmic waver of every syllable and the lightened contrast in tone from the deeper accent of the prince. "I told you to free me from them yourself. That chance was … all I could give you, you idiot ..."

Barely recognizing the implication in time, she readied herself as the chains at his feet burst alight with flames. The next moment, the entire room lit up with the accompanying inferno.

Her back struck something hard again and the impact shattered her completely; every bone from head to toe fractured in an instant. Being killed once was bad enough—even if the first experience had just bordered the edge of actually ending her life—but two near-death experiences so close together was too goddamned much. The world flashed from white to black to white again before fading into a clouded landscape of nothingness.

And only then in that fleeting moment of transition between life and death did she see him: the owner of the second voice—and her former partner.

He stood in front of her just as she remembered him: the same dirty, scuffed jeans and ratted t-shirt; the same tousled, light brown hair as stubbornly dropped across his eyes as ever; the same devilishly handsome smirk with the half-smoked cigarette hanging loosely between his lips; and the same eyes, a storm of blue and grey and smoldering vibrancy that set her nostalgia afire with longing.

"Hey." That voice of his was still spliced in two, but now his half was stronger: the dry humor and wicked sarcasm she loved so much took the spotlight while the passionate fire and battle lust of the prince faded into the background. He lifted one hand to his mouth and removed the cigarette lazily. "Long time no see, huh?"

True to her nature, she hid the emotion from her expression—though knowing him, he had felt it the instant he arrived here. Reworking her expression into the same cool amusement of his own, she tilted her chin up at him in willing ignorance of his unnatural attunement to her emotions. "You spying on me, little boy?"

He grinned and shrugged. "Not really. Least, I didn't mean to—not that I mind the view." His gaze shamelessly trailed down her body like always, lingering especially on her bare legs before looking back up at her with a laugh. "Actually, I was just about asleep when ..." He gestured with his free hand to the empty gray space around them "... this happened, whatever this is. Not my ideal dream sequence of you. Too many clothes. Miss me or something?"

She smirked at his tone. "Not a chance. I didn't call you here."

"Yeah, I'd have felt it if you did. Well, I'm here, anyway." He took another drag of the cigarette and looked around with mild interest. When the smoke passed his lips this time, the acrid smell stung the back of her own throat and nose. Being close enough to taste that smoke again was good, but not good enough; the next step was those lips. "So, what gives?"

"Good question. I'll let you know when I figure it out." His presence here was indication enough of something amiss, but it was more the timing of his arrival that troubled her than the arrival itself. "Something is up with our link. You think the Judicature had a hand in it?"

As a former mediator himself, Will Bryce possessed the same abilities she did: the ability to cross worlds at his leisure and interact with their inhabitants, the ability to communicate with any other mediators (former or current) within those worlds, and the ability to communicate directly with the organization—the Judicature—they both served. But she and her partner shared something else: a commune unique to the two of them, one that could not be eavesdropped upon by the other mediators or even by their organization.

That link was born from a relationship strong enough to transcend time itself—one that heeded neither life nor death—and thusly ignored the flow of time for the duration of its conversations. But the link rarely activated without their consent. The last time had been a special circumstance: one in which her partner had not been so readily available for conversation then as he was now.

"Maybe." Will cocked an eyebrow in amusement. "Why?"

"What was on your mind before you came here? The very last thing." If it correlated to the circumstances with the prince just prior to the chains phenomenon, then it made sense. The prince was only alive because of her partner, after all—because of their similarities.

Will was silent for a long moment, the cigarette stilled between his lips. Then something flashed through his face and he turned his head away with a soft noise of derision. The voiceless response was answer enough. Anything provoking that kind of passivity from him was born of old wounds—ones that she had no desire reliving. To his credit, he respected the bad blood and wasted no breath with excuses. When he looked back at her, the single word response was she needed:

"Her."

With that simple word, the friendly atmosphere between them fractured. Seemingly having completed its purpose, the vision started to disintegrate and she caught a glimpse of Will turning his head away before the image of both him and the greyscale landscape faded from sight. The real world came back into focus a second later, restoring the storm and rainswept landscape and leaving no evidence that her partner had ever stood there at all.

Except that now standing in almost his exact same stance and exhibiting almost his exact same defeated body language was the prince.

The otherworldly light was gone. The chains were gone. The prince had lost what she now realized to be the mystical backing from her partner, and it showed: he barely maintained his balance against the wind and hunched his shoulders against the rain, his body on the brink of collapse. His wet hair shrouded a face so haggard and bruised she barely recognized it, and his clothes were bloodstained and torn.

Had he looked like that before, or had it just been too dark in the room to tell?

Frowning and still reeling from the bitterness left by that last admission from her partner, she looked past the prince at the smoking remains of the hut behind him. The edges of the crater there glowed molten orange in places, hissing whenever the rain dared drown their heat. The combination of smoke and vapor doused the whole village in an eerie haze.

Had the prince caused that by merely breaking free from those chains? What the hell else had she left in that seal to provide him such inhuman strength?

"I tried protecting them." It took her a second to realize the prince had spoken and looked back to see him glaring at the ground. It seemed beyond his ability to maintain his ruse of confidence any longer. "I tried, even after you left, with the gift of life you left me … I tried protecting them. But I failed. I want to make it right, but I just … I don't know how."

Guilt. Reminding him of his failure to protect his homeland during her last mission here while her partner had been reflecting on a similar theme must have triggered the vision. Was this the reason she had been transitioned here? Was this the price she had to repay for stupidly sparing his life because her partner's had been so unfairly taken from her at the time?

"Sun Ce …" Merely saying his name reminded her of everything she had done wrong and she sighed and massaged her temple with two fingers. Being on such personal basis with him had caused this shit to begin with, but she had yet to learn her lesson. Was she still so stupid? "Just … forget it. I was pissed off. All I want to do is see the seal."

The sword edge brushed the side of her throat from behind. "That makes two of us."

Instinct took over. A single instant of motion and their positions were reversed: her assaulter on his knees and her knee on his back, one hand forced down between his shoulder blades and the other yanking his arm up behind his back. When he initially refused to drop his sword, a twist of her hand against his wrist threatened to dislocate his shoulder. He yelped at the treatment and relinquished the weapon.

Then she realized just whom she had accosted—at the same time the prince did.

"Father?" said Sun Ce as she instantly released her hold on the other man and backed off at the recognition. The older warrior said nothing at first and only pushed himself back to his feet, pressing a hand to his shoulder and working it around in its socket several times to properly realign it. Then he reached down and reclaimed his sword before turning around with a hardened expression—one that lightened only marginally at the sight of his son.

"… Ce," said Sun Jian finally. His brilliant white hair still stuck out at all angles despite the rain, and the rest of his darkened features looked as strikingly harsh as ever. Though he and his son shared the same facial characteristics, Sun Jian carried the same shadowed undertones she had seen on Sun Ce before. The influence of the seal had passed along to his father, too? "I'm happy I found you. For awhile there, it seemed like you didn't want to come home."

Sun Ce narrowed his eyes and took a step backwards. The behavior tipped her off instantly. This was what he had meant earlier by the seal trying killing his father: it was burdening the Sun family patriarch with her judicial power as well. Had she really left so much of it behind to steal? "That might be because I don't. I told you not to follow me, father."

Sun Jian laughed. As though cued by his mirth, his soldiers stepped out of the mists from all sides: infantry equipped with spears and swords and numerous units of archers at their back, the sheer number of them tallying well over fifty—maybe even a hundred. The sight stiffened her instantly as she took a wary step back towards Sun Ce. Was this the army she had heard before discovering the prince?

Reminded just then of her earlier aggressor, she glanced to the skies. Now in the absence of the secondary presence from her partner, the gigantic pair of eyes had disappeared—and with them the presence of the powerful mystic they belonged to.

He had seen what He wanted already. Shit.

"Ce, don't do this." Sun Jian stepped forwards with one arm outstretched in a gesture of half-hearted treatise. His smile remained steadfast despite its insincerity, his silhouette towering over his son in spite of the several distance of feet between them. "All we want is for you to come home. You and the seal."

"I told you you're not getting your hands on it." Sun Ce was unarmed and dressed in nothing but a dirtied tunic and pants; his father and the soldiers were in full armor and armed to the goddamned teeth. Yet still he stood his ground—just like her partner would have done in the same situation. Their idiot audacity would kill them both again if she didn't stop it.

"Ce, that seal is the property of the rightful emperor. My duty is to return it to the capital where it belongs." Sun Jian visibly tightened his grip on his sword. His soldiers mimicked his movements; several dozen swords and spears shifted in the grips of their holders as every man settled into the same battle-readied stance of their commander. "This is the last time I'll tell you: don't make this harder than it has to be."

"If you want it, come and claim it off my dead body."

For the love of—what was this sudden animosity between father and son? The Sun family had always stood strong together: Sun Jian the most experienced fighter and the fiercest tiger, and his two sons and daughter his ferocious cubs. But now that bond had been severed, and all because of what? Because that bastard snake wanted the power left in the seal and had started taking minions to get it?

"Actually …" The air hissed with the sound of embers hitting rain as she reformed just in front of the prince; the technique had taken less than half a second to transition her between the two men "... speaking as the one who personally saw the both of you die the last time I was here, believe me when I say this fight can only be won by both of you losing. I can't let that happen yet."

Sun Jian seemed to take notice of her only now that she had directly obstructed his view and shifted his focus fully towards her. His pretended affection towards Sun Ce twisted into something a hell of a lot darker as the presence motivating him recognized her intent to interfere. "And who are you to come between a father and his son?"

"No name worth mentioning, really. Just a reaper back here to reclaim what's rightfully hers."


anonia12: Thank you for the comment. :) Hopefully your questions will be answered as you keep reading, and as well your confusion clarified. I appreciate your reading my first chapter!