I feel no pain as the blade enters my chest, plunging through me and into Fergus in one swift movement. I know what this was meant to do, the last attempt for Gabriel to be a good guy. Keeping my hand firmly on the table, I use my other hand to grip his wrist to force the blade further. 

Its hilt pressed against the thin fabric of my shirt, the cool steel slices through painlessly. Inches apart, I keep a firm hold on his wrist, and his other fist grips the back of mine, forcing it to remain there. 

He mirrors my thoughts in his conviction, Gabriel knew as well as I do what our options were. "Chant." I swallow through the flow of blood to my mouth, refusing to break eye contact for fear either of us might perish before this was done. 

The vines slither down the table, rattling like the tail of a viper as they shrivel against the command of our voices. 

Gabriel sank to his knees before me, holding onto me as if his very life depended on it as he repeated my words back to me. Together, we cling to life and call for the release of the unicorn from the clutches of the table.

Someone yells my name, familiar and yet foreign to me in this space where I can only think of our task. The room begins to ring; shaking, and trembling as if the walls themselves might fall in on us. I see flashes of my visions, flickering in the back of my mind as if they were warning me that we were edging closer to completion. 

Red. So much red. 

As the last of the vines drop off, Fergus' head threatens to lift from the stone. 

"Now the transfer." Gabriel breathes, his eyes lidded as his weight threatens to rest on top of me, he sags like a man made of stone against my knees from his resting place. Blood smeared from his chest to his hidden abdomen and I don't wish to know the condition of his torso. 

My own eyes mirrored back at me, I fought against my nature to save him.

  Brimming with tears, I don't stop, I keep chanting to guide him through the spell that had saved my life all those years ago. 

"Not much longer," I assure him, it was the only reassurance I could offer.

Oftentimes, I had wondered what the dragons felt to have magic extracted from their bodies. The white-hot fire of my body being used as a filter for dark magic as the essence was ripped out of Gabriel was not something I had been prepared for. The table was ruthless, humming, and groaning as it siphoned every drop that he had prepared to give. 

The table was made from dragons, not for mortals. Connected to it through the sword, I feel my body threaten to disintegrate from the extreme surge, the tattered, frayed edges of my subconscious fight to hold onto whatever was left of me in this realm. 

I'm immobile, paralyzed, and unable to stop the transfer as Gabriel attempts to scream. 

I know this pain too well, there would be no sweet relief such as a scream, magic was cruel when it came to the comforts of sound. A simple scream could be so cathartic, helping to edge you closer to tolerance. Often, the intensity of such acts stole all and the helpless victim floated in the black of vacancy that came with a total drain.

 Never before had I wished for the chill, had I longed to feel the icy cold that had gripped me, I felt selfish for wishing for warmth all these years. I'd be grateful for the chill now, convincing me that I might live through this.

Massive jaws grip the man, yanking him away and casting him aside in a broken heap. All in one the pain stops and then is renewed. I gasp for air as the sword is ripped from my chest with a wet pop of floodgates opening inside my weakened body. 

Instinctively, I guard the hole with my hands and slide to a sitting position on the floor.

 Verando's arms encircle me, pulling me to his chest to protect me from the malicious creature who exhaled down on us with the sulfur stench of the devil himself. The softness of his clothes, even stained with blood, was welcomed against the centuries of discomfort I'd just experienced in condensed moments.

My wandering gaze finds Tonic lying on the floor, the darkness had dissipated but so had our companions. In the back of my mind, I hear a horn and shut my eyes as I lean my cheek into Verando's chest. 

Vacant describes the hollow feeling in my own ribs, silence resonates through my body in a whisper that suggests I am no longer alive.

With a booming yelp, Caspian leaps back and away from us.

 Lux stands overtop of the unicorn still bound to the table. With fierce white eyes, the god swings his massive sword and plunges the point into the stone of the table. Shutting my eyes tightly from the bright white, the horn deafeningly loud in my overly sensitive ears. Once more, I feel cold, the warm hand presses over the hole in my chest and I feel the soft lips press against my forehead in some sort of uttered reassurance.

Finally, I manage a glimpse at my hands. 

Red. So much red.

 Feeling dumbfounded that I was still managing, I looked up at my husband to see the strain on his face. He was holding on for both of us, bearing the brunt to keep me here. Verando was bloody, stabbed and bruised, battered and scuffed from head to toe. One of his eyes darkened as if he was struck across the cheekbone. 

So badly I wish to smoothen the potential break in the bridge of his correct nose.

With a clatter of hooves, Fergus steps off the table, snorting frost down on the unholy lands. 

"Fenrir." Lux snarls, his hand tightening on the blade reminded me of a clap of thunder. I don't shy away from the angered god, he'd either spare us or he wouldn't. "Ragnarok will not occur."

Like a serpent, the wolf assesses with a careful waiver of his large head. "If you think you have stopped me, you're all fools. The unicorn was the final piece but not the decision-maker, this vessel is at its end, I only need to be freed of its hold and I will walk the earth once more." 

The cackling wolf traces his tongue over his muzzle. 

"You have lost your champions."

Fergus lays his ears flat against his neck, striking the ground once with his front leg to spark off the cobbles. "Then you know nothing of ours. Remove him from my plain, Tyr."

The god frowns. "I can't. Not while he has a human vessel." A loophole we were all very aware of. I want to speak, I want to remind them that we only needed Fergus to keep this planet spinning.

Swallowing back the metallic taste, I struggle to speak with my empty lungs. "Seal him here," I whisper. "Seal him in this forest, under this castle, make it a tomb. Give our people time-" I begin to cough and feel Verando tighten his grip on me. 

For me, he would do anything, even if it meant damning us to servitude under a different god. "We will dispatch Fenrir," Verando concludes. 

It would cost my home and my land, but it would be worth it. It might earn us our lives, a second chance among third, fourth, and fifth chances gifted to us.

Baring his teeth, Caspian backs towards the exit, sensing his pending imprisonment. "You are insane if you think I will allow you to bind me. You have nothing, you couldn't contain me if you so wished!" He was painfully right and we were running slim on time. 

"Tyr," Fergus warns, I shut my eyes once more, feeling a slip on my hold on reality. The unicorn would feel our fading lives, only this time it appears he might act to save us.

"We don't alter the plans for mortals." The god spits. 

With a cry of defiance, the unicorn defends our souls. "They are ours." Fergus stomps his hoof, bringing a laugh from the god. 

"A chain," Verando tells him firmly. "There's a chain the elves are making that is purified. Leave us if you must but get the chain and bind Fenrir." Kissing the top of my head, he exhales shakily and I can feel the tremble of fatigue setting in. "It's alright. Fenrir is the mission, not us. If it so troubles you, consider trapping Caspian your payment for our assistance."

"Tyr." Fergus snaps harshly as the god considers his offer. 

With a wicked grin, Caspian slips back towards the door once more. "Seems your decision has been made, Tyr. Good seeing you again." 

With a roar, Tyr rolls his arm back to swing the massive sword. It flies through the air at lightning speed, whistling as it plunges through the wolf's chest. Caspian belts out a scream, wrenching and squirming as the blade forces deeper into him with the clench of Tyr's fist. 

"I bind you." He thunders. "I bind you to my blade and I bind you to this vessel." His hand bleeds golden blood from the force as the sword begins to melt into Caspian's body. 

"Until this blade is removed, you will be in this mortal form or you will feel my fury. Hear me, Fenrir. Run for now but I will find you, for now, I will know exactly where you are."

Coughing up black slurry, the wolf circles, and spins as he's forced back into a man. The shape of a sword branded across his chest, he clutches the scalded burn. "And without your sword, how will you kill me?"

"I suppose I will have to rip it out of you once more." Tyr scowls, casting him away harshly as the man sails down the hallway. Narrowing his eyes, he settles his gaze on Fergus. "You are supposed to be indifferent, you are a cosmic being. It is not becoming of you to care for humans."

This time, it's Fergus who frowns, pools of white hair begin to slip from his mane and he collapses into a lying position. Quickly, Tyr kneels beside him. 

"I am dying, Tyr. I can no longer support this form and there are no more horses to rebirth me. We could not have fought Fenrir if we had wished, not with your single hand and with my failing body. But..." His nose tips towards Verando and me. 

"Mortals. Lycans, of course." The god wretches. "Fergus, brother, let me heal you-"

The unicorn shakes his head. "I have lived a good life, a selfish one. For too long, I have allowed the earth to care for itself and merely walked amongst it as a traveler." The Irish accent had long since faded, now it was only a lifetime of knowledge at the helm. "Until these ones showed me what it was to be human, to be loved and cared for. I don't think this form quite suits me anymore. Heal them, Tyr."

"You know I can't." He says through gritted teeth before turning his gaze to look down at me and then at Verando. "Lycan. Do you wish to continue?" 

With a gesture of his hand, the wave of our family appears in the small space, every face of those we lost, projected in shimmering perfection. 

"You have earned your place in Valhalla, much as I don't like to admit it, the wolf is a Nobel follower of the gods. You may go home if you would rather."

Forcing my eyes upward, I touch his paling cheek. "You can go, Randy." 

Wasn't this what he always wanted? To be done with this? To go to Valhalla and be with his family? I couldn't deny him that, I couldn't expect him to want to continue on the path of servitude. There was no getting off this train, it was becoming evident that our fates were much more connected to this realm than we could ever have anticipated.

 Wherever we went, they would need us.

"Heal him," Verando responds without hesitation. "Can't trust you, bloody gods, to do shit. Heal him." 

Much as they were muted by our situation, his words ring clear. He would pick me over eternity in paradise. Our work here was not yet complete, he was as unwilling to lose me as I was to lose him.

Fergus shrugs as Tyr glares at him. "Foul." He grumbles before tilting his chin up with a long exhale. "Very well. His body can no longer continue like this but you already knew that; he's too consumed by dark magic. Change him, the magic side will die..."

"Or it might recede," Fergus interjects. "It must heal itself, the lycan will heal your body but... what has been done to magic might be permanent." 

I can't consider losing my magic, I could only picture Verando holding Xavier and me living to be a part of that. 

Verando knew my wishes, he knew what I wanted at the end of this. "I don't care about that as long as he will live." Verando snaps, sickened at the thought of doing what I'd been asking him to do for months. 

The thought of me becoming like him, even if it meant saving my life, was torturing him. Clutching my face in his hand, he trails his thumb over my lower lip. The skin was refreshing against my chapped lips, dry with cracked blood. "I'm never going to forgive myself for this."

Could he ever forgive himself for me? For how I looked at this moment?

Tyr wrinkles his nose, "The power to create lives within you. Decide, Lycan."

"I'm well aware," Verando grumbles, earning a glare from me. I'd smack him if I could muster it. Holding me firmly to his body, he swallows back the emotion welling inside him. I can see clearly on his face that he regrets ever stepping into my life to be faced with this option. 

"You'd better survive this so you can tell me everything that you're thinking right now. I'm so sorry, Nic."

Craning my head back, I tremble with the ebbing darkness as his lips find my neck. I feel the pinch of his teeth puncturing into my skin. At first, it feels cold, only to begin to burn much like the flames of the table as it reaches my numbed veins. 

My body contracts and I jerk out of his arms, crashing to the floor on my hands and knees to cough and sputter on the immense burning. 

"Hang on Nic." He whispers, careful not to touch me as he waits to see if I'll live or die.

"What of you, brother?" Tyr addresses the unicorn sadly. I'm simply forgotten, fighting for my life on the stone tiles of my old home.

Their voices sound so distant, like a memory more than a reality. All I can hear clearly is my own screaming as I fall to the floor, writhing in the cold. I feel as though I'm on fire, I must be under some sort of punishment, for the pain is maddening. 

"It's time for a change..." Pointing his muzzle towards Gabriel, he gestures to Tyr to retrieve the man. "There is still some magic left in this one, enough to help me restart the plains of this earth that have died from the coming of Fenrir. It won't fix it, it won't heal this wood but... it will start on the right path for whatever will replace me." 

Bringing Gabriel over, Tyr lays his mangled body on the table. "And you choose to use this one's life force to do that?" 

Fergus slowly stands, brushing his muzzle over the bloodied beard of the man. "This is the difference between you and me, Tyr. For I now see how wonderfully flawed humans are." 

The warm hands hover over my body, desperate to aid me in my suffering. "Help him," Verando demands, using the table to stand. 

I can only imagine he's talking about me for it's only I who shrieks so loudly as my bones crack and break, as my body twists and contorts with each piece that would allow my body to shift into a wolf. I feel the hole in my chest threatening to close, I feel every mangled portion of my body mending and winding to form something new entirely. 

Dismissive, the god sniffs in my direction. "He must trial on his own," Tyr tells him firmly. 

I can only wish for death as I feel my spine stretch, my body threatens to rip in half as the lycan side forces me into something not so frail, into some potential that I couldn't envision. 

"You can stand, your color is returning, at this rate, it appears he might survive this. You should be happy."

"He's in pain." Verando snarls as if my pain were his own.

Pursing his lips, Tyr shrugs one shoulder. "You knew this when you agreed to the terms. You, on the other hand-" The god examines the slow healing hole in the man's stomach, shaking his head in disbelief. "What creatures you turned out to be."

Verando resists the urge to scream as Tyr burns it closed with one press of his palm. Chest heaving, teeth gritted, Verando yanks away from him to clutch his side. 

"It'll be over soon," Fergus assures and sighs as the last of his mane falls to the floor. "I must do my work, I'll take this one and clean a path to return to the elves. Go there and you might heal and regroup, as for this place... it's unholy ground now. You must not return to this place, or this wood, not until Fenrir is destroyed. It will be up to you now, as it always was I suppose, to stop Caspian."

My world begins to darken as my body appears to reach a peak of agony and settle for a tremble that rocks me to my core. There must be nothing left of me, I feel as though I should be a smoldering husk on the floor and the only remnants of my form would be ash and darkness. 

Carefully, Verando bends to collect me and I scream an earth-shattering cry as my body threatens to snap once more. "I'm so sorry, darling." He whispers against my skin as I huddle my blazing body against his chest. "Will you go with Fergus, Tyr?" 

Nodding, the god gestures to Tonic, who reluctantly stands. "Go now. We don't have time for your mortal pace. Go to the elves and do not look back. Do not stray from the path I carved for you. I will seek you out when I'm ready." 

My eyelashes are heavy as I steal a last glance at the wilting unicorn, Gabriel's body vanishes as the great horn touches him. As he disappears, so does my consciousness.