Dustfinger crouched in the dark woods, across from his own grave.

'My grave,' he thought, bewildered. Cool rain fell against his skin. Closing his eyes, Dustfinger lifted up his head and let the water fall on his face. With his eyes still closed, he whispered fire-words, and tiny white flames flared up between his fingers, dancing and licking his hands, caressing him as a dog caresses its master when he returns from a long journey, and at once Dustfinger was filled with a sense of longing; longing for his family: his wife, Roxane, his daughter, Brianna…his son, Farid.

Dustfinger leaned back against the thick oak tree behind him and extinguished the flame. The puff of smoke it sent up hung before his face for several seconds before being dissipated by the rain. The rain was growing heavier, but he did not mind, filling his lungs with the fresh, damp air.

It felt so good just to breathe, and to feel the air he was breathing.

He had no memory of the shadowlands—only a dim sensation of cold and dark and nothingness; emptiness.

What confusion he had experienced to suddenly open his eyes to some place other than the shadowlands. He had not known where he was, or why he was there. He felt as though he had closed his eyes in one place and opened them in another after a bleak, horrible dream.

Death was a strange thing. 'But can one really die in this world?' Dustfinger was no longer sure of his world, a world spun of inkblood and paper; but was his world truly as thin as paper?

Dustfinger closed his eyes to his surroundings and placed his palm against the cold, muddy ground. 'Real enough,' he thought. No; his world was not flimsy and thin. It was simply a world within another world, but completely separate from it, too. And it was very real, no matter how unsure he was.

There was one thing of which Dustfinger was certain: Basta was alive. He did not know what convinced him of the notion, but somehow, he knew that Basta had cheated death.

Much as he wished to return to his family, he knew that he must face his old enemy.

The air before Dustfinger moved; the wet leaved before him rustled. He did not have to open his eyes to know that Basta stood before him, as if called into being by his thoughts.

"I have been waiting for you, my old friend." Dustfinger's voice felt odd in his throat; solid, tangible, real. But it lacked any feeling, simply stating a fact that told him by his mind and his heart. He opened his eyes.

Basta's face wore an expression halfway between a smug smile and a glower. "Have you, now?" he snarled. "I suppose you know also what I am about to say?"

Dustfinger rose to his feet. Basta always had been taller than him, but now he seemed so small, so insignificant, like a moth, pale and fluttering compared to a graceful, swooping bird.

"That depends upon your choice of words," Dustfinger's voice showed that he felt no fear, and it angered Basta; Dustfinger could see that plainly, and he smiled a queer smile. "Do you still feel it, Basta? Those cold fingers of death, pressing against your throat, wrapping around your heart? They say that those who escape death so dishonestly always do, for the rest of their lives. It is like a curse. Or do you not believe in curses? Anymore, I mean."

Basta's eyes, for a brief moment, betrayed that Dustfinger's talk unnerved him, and his hand twitched as if it wished to feel his heart beating, or his pale throat, to be sure there were no fingers there, but then he grinned. "I can see that you no longer fear death; it is apparent upon your every feature. Not your own death, at any rate. But what about your dear Roxane? Surely you wouldn't wish to return only to lose her—or your daughter Brianna? Gone before you even had a chance to really know her. Or Farid! Do you suppose death would be willing to make the same bargain twice?" He laughed hollowly.

Dustfinger's face remained unmoved, and Basta's laughter died instantly. "Or has death made you so callous as to cease to care for them?" his voice was low and husky. "Do you regret it? Switching places with that worthless boy? Oh yes, I know all about that; there are no secrets among the White Women. Such sacrifice, O' Noble Dustfinger! Such selflessness! Everyone sings of it! And how it made me wish to wring his scrawny neck! Are those who die in vain still called heroes? Like Violante's late husband?"

Slowly, Dustfinger began to speak. "I know your words, Basta, and what they are—empty and void; meaningless, full of hatred and fear. No, you have not lost your fear of death. It is more apparent each time you speak. Indeed, you fear it now more than ever before! Am I not right?"

"No more than I am about you fearing your loved ones' deaths! Perhaps I should send them all to it this very day! No bargain you could ever make would bring back that many, I know that for a fact!"

At once Dustfinger broke forth in a cry that resounded throughout the dark forest; a shout without words or body, but full of meaning, and from his very being sprung up angry, white flame, flames that consume; hissing and snarling, roaring with an animal voice, hungry and enraged. It engulfed Dustfinger, and spread to the ground, the trees, and the rocks about him, which grew white with head but did not melt.

Basta's mouth opened to scream but no sound came forth, so great was his terror. He stared wide-eyed at the flames about him, lighting up the forest, dispersing every shadow from their midst.

Dustfinger remained motionless in the heart of the flame; only his lips moved, forming the fire-words that made the flames so angry and perilous.

"Cease your empty threats, you coward!" Dustfinger's voice rose above the sound of the roaring flames. "For I do not fear death any more than I fear you! Fear has no power over me anymore. But its grip upon you will not loosen, not as long as you live. Also, know this—the day you send another soul to the shadowlands is they day you return there yourself, and it will be worse for you than it was before."

Basta stumbled backward and fell, his mouth open in horror. Before his wide eyes Dustfinger had seemed to transform from a man back from the dead to a man immortal, without fear or anger; only a righteous fury. There was no bitterness in him. His words were not spoken in rage, but in pure truth—pure truth, and love for his family and friends.

From the flames Dustfinger stared down at Basta, his eyes burning whiter than the fire. They held no malice, nor any threat, but a nameless expression that stabbed Basta with terror.

Dustfinger's lips began to silently move, and the great flames began to change shape. They ceased to hiss and spit and began to quietly whisper in a light, wailing voice. 'Basta…' they called his name. Slowly their forms changed to those of tall, wispy women in flowing white gowns, their faces inexpressive and flickering, their hair floating, and their blank eyes all fixed on Basta.

Trembling, Basta began to crawl backward away from them, but they advanced toward him, gradually drawing near, unwavering. They were surrounding him, and the heat from their fiery bodies was so intense it made him sweat. His ragged, muddy shirt flapped in the wind created by the heat.

Now the women were reaching their ghostly arms out to him, their hands open and their thin fingers outspread. Basta shrunk down close to the ground and stared up at them, breathless with fear, his heart pounding. They drew closer, more tightly around him, so that he could see nothing beyond their fiery forms.

The one closest to him reached out her flaming, searing fingers and touched his skin—but it did not burn. Instead, Basta felt the coldest of chills pass through him, like frigid waters engulfing one who has fallen through the ice. In enveloped his heart, and for a moment he thought it had stopped beating. With one hand, he clutched at his heaving chest.

The one who had touched him stepped back, and the heat from her skirts of fire began to melt the rocks about her feet.

"Only the very wicked feel the touch of Winter from white flame," Dustfinger's voice carried over the whispering. At the sound of his voice the fiery forms retreated. As they did so, they lost their form and became simply white flames once more, shrinking, lessening as they neared the feet of Dustfinger. Finally they all had disappeared except for one tiny white tongue upon his finger.

The forest was silent and dark once more, but the flame was bright enough to illuminate both Basta's and Dustfinger's faces. "The freezing touch of fire," Dustfinger murmured, almost to himself, but his eyes were on Basta. "You feel it now in your heart, do you not? It is a mark, a mark felt only by yourself, but visible and calling aloud to death. And the moment you summon death by taking another's life, you will have summoned it to yourself, and it will take you." A smile passed over his lips. "As far and as fast as you run, as often you hide, you will not escape what holds your heart captive—until the day you die, or until the day your heart is changed."

The flame flickering on Dustfinger's finger took the shape of a heart, and pulsed and throbbed in the air and turned from white to red. Dustfinger's voice was barely audible as he whispered a single word: "Leave."

Basta leaped to his feet and fled blindly through the trees, his fingers pressed against his chest, his mouth hanging open in a soundless scream.

Dustfinger watched him in silence, then turned away, into the trees, and began to walk by the light of the flame on his hand, which was once again white and formless as a tongue of flame.

--

The sky was beginning to lighten over the Black Prince's silent camp. Farid sat alone, staring blankly into a small fire, tears streaming down his face. He could not say exactly why he wept, but his heart ached within him so that he could not help it. It was sore from disappointment and exhaustion, from fear and sorrow, and Farid was glad that the men of the camp were too weary to have risen yet and thus see him crying.

As he stared at the flame, he fathomed that he saw the flames grow brighter. The orange light began to deepen into a brighter red, and they began to grow. The redness slowly changed to blue. Farid wiped his tears away and stared, afraid that his blurred eyes were deceiving him, but they were not. He watched, not breathing, as the flames became white, whiter than snow, and taller. Their crackling sounded like words; soft, inaudible words, words he could not understand.

Then the words grew louder. 'Farid,' they whispered. 'Farid.' Farid jumped up, heart racing.

"Yes?" his voice was so soft that he himself hardly heard it.

"Farid, my son." The voice did not come from the flame, but from somewhere beyond and behind him. He spun around, and his heart nearly stopped.

There stood Dustfinger, beneath the shadow of the trees. Eyes on Farid, he stepped forward, a loving smile on his lips.

Farid remained where he was. The tears had come pouring down again; a torrent of happy tears. He shook his head, and a choked, joyful laugh escaped from his throat. "Dustfinger," he whispered in a hoarse voice.

He took a hesitant step forward, as if unsure that Dustfinger was real, flesh and blood. He took another step, slowly and disbelievingly walking toward him.

As the two drew closer to each other, a ring, formed by several, flickering tongues of fire, appeared, hanging in the air about them: flames that danced, flames that sang the song of joy in both of their hearts.

The End

Finished! I hope you liked it!

This chapter was the shortest, and yet it took me the longest. I struggle with endings. It's the most important part of a story.

And I hold a belief - more of a standard for myself, really - that the last chapter should either be the longest, the shortest, and nowhere in between.

Thanks for reading!