Manx walked up the road leading to the palace, apprehension weighing heavily on her heart. Vaskin walked beside her, holding her hand, but that didn't change the anxiety that wormed its way through her body. Her stomach felt like it was tied into a thousand knots, jarred with every step. Her sore muscles protested with every move, and her heart felt like it was trying to make a grand escape by how hard it was pounding inside her chest.

"It's going to be alright. You know Leif, and she knows you. If possible, try to hide the parts about Lyrica from her unless absolutely necessary. If at all you feel in danger, you have your powers. Use them." Vaskin whispered in her ear as they passed the wyverns guarding the palace gate.

Manx swallowed hard and nodded.

The second the palace doors opened, The Empress herself in all her glory greeted them. Her pale green scales shimmered in the morning sun, and her large icy blue eyes looked over Manx and Vaskin with a cold recognition. Her translucent wings were folded at her sides, reflecting the entire spectrum of light. She was small for a dragon, not much larger than a horse. The Empress was built like a small cat, muscular and solid but lithe and graceful. Her silvery horns sat upon the crest of her head like a crown, and in the middle of her forehead was a diamond shaped golden scale.

"Leif." Vaskin said, nodding to the Empress. She didn't mind him using her true name as they had known each other long before she was Empress.

"I said I wanted to meet with Manx alone." Leif replied, nodding in his direction. Manx fell back a little, avoiding the dragon's piercing gaze. Her eyes fell upon the long jagged scar that ran across the Empress' chest from when Lyrica had torn out her heart stone, only to place it back during the battle.

Vaskin kissed Manx lightly on top of her head, looking into her eyes in the most reassuring way he could. Manx took in a deep breath, before following the Empress inside the palace.

"Why don't we meet in the garden." Leif said, after they had left Vaskin waiting at the doors. She said it not unkindly, even intending to act as a friend, but all the previous warmth Manx had known before was drained from her voice.

Manx nodded, not exactly sure whether or not she should speak. She knew that regardless of how this went, she had to tell the truth. And yet, the truth was probably the most dangerous thing to tell.

As they walked out the back door, Manx noticed that the Empress had some red lines across her front left foreleg and she wondered if the dragon had recently gotten into a fight.

"Sit down." Leif said calmly, motioning towards a stone bench. Manx obeyed.

"I know it must have been extremely hard for you, being out on your own like that. Is it true that Scrapper killed a young dragon right before your eyes?" The Empress asked.

"How did you...?" Manx said, her jaw dropping in surprise.

"The kid wouldn't shut up about it. I hope it wasn't as...graphic as she made it out to be. I honestly don't know what to do about it." Leif replied, turning her head away with a slight sniff.

Manx closed her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks. "It's true. All of it."

"I was hoping it wasn't. Now I'll have to sentence the girl to prison, or worse. I'll have to send a message to the murdered fledgling's family, and..."

"Empress, are you...are you crying?" Manx asked.

"How can I be strong through all the evils of this world? How am I supposed to know what's best when I can't even keep up with what is best for myself?" Leif sighed, a tear falling down her face and landing on the ground, soaking into the cobblestone pathway.

"What happened to your foreleg?" Manx asked. "Did you and Hadrix get into a fight?"

"Yes, we did. After he saw that I'd scratched myself. He said he'd bite out my claws if he caught me doing it ever again. He acts like an idiot most of the time, but deep down I think he cares." Leif replied sadly.

"You did that?!" Manx asked in surprise and alarm.

"I was...infuriated with myself when I thought I'd let you die. I didn't know how to cope." The Empress replied, hanging her head in shame.

"I...I'm really sorry. What are you going to do with Xolt now that..." Manx said

The Empress raised her head and looked at Manx with a deep sorrow in her eyes that chilled her to the very soul. "That depends." The Empress stated.

"Depends on what?" Manx asked.

"Is it all true? What Xolt said...? I know for a fact he lied about you being dead. But were you really...did you really help Lyrica escape?" Leif asked, her icy blue eyes drilling into Manx's face, searching for an answer.

Manx lowered her eyes. "I had to. When I looked into her eyes, I saw that she was just as alone and hurt and terrified as I was. And I couldn't...I couldn't let her die."

The Empress' pupils narrowed to slits. Smoke billowed from the corners of her mouth as a pale blue glow rose in her chest beneath her scales. "Lyrica feels no pain. She shows no pity. She is as indifferent to the suffering of others like the dirt beneath our feet. The pain you saw in her eyes couldn't have been any one else's but your own." The Empress growled, taking a step forward and retracting her knife-like claws.

"That can't be true! She really does care, and she wants to change! She even cried..." Manx started.

"You TRAITOR!" Leif yelled, swiping her claws across Manx's chest.

"After everything she did to this world, there is no second chance!" Leif growled, as Manx doubled over in pain.

Manx shrank in her seat, putting her hand to her stinging belly and gasping in horror at the sight of her own blood.

"I didn't mean.." Manx started, her eyes wide with terror as the dragon reared on her hind legs, fire rising in her chest.

"Please, I just wanted to save her!" Manx whimpered.

"Save her? How could you! Why would you, when she doesn't give a care about saving you!" Leif roared, slashing Manx with two claws across her face.

"Empress, please! She's changed!" Manx begged.

"I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR TRECHERY!" The Empress bellowed. "AND I'VE HAD ENOUGH PAIN! LYRICA HAS GONE TOO FAR, AND IT ENDS HERE!!!"

Manx saw the icy blue glow rising just below the Empress' jawline. She closed her eyes and put her arms over her face to shield herself from the torrent of flames. She felt the heat rippling in the air around the Empress' flames and knew that the fire had gone too far up the dragon's throat for the Empress to stop it even if she wanted to. She was too shocked to use her powers to teleport away.

Manx sat there curled in a ball, time slowing down as the burst of flames poured from the dragon's mouth. But instead of feeling the flames consume her and the stinging pain of the dragon's fire, she felt cool and unscathed.

Manx waited for a few seconds, expecting the searing pain of the dragon's fire to hit her at any minute, but instead nothing happened. There was a sudden screech of fury from the Empress and the sound of wings furiously flapping and draconic cries of pain. Manx slowly opened her eyes, to see none other than Lyrica, wrestling with the Empress in the garden grass.

"YOU DARE SHOW YOURSELF ON MY PALACE GROUNDS?!!" Leif roared, tearing her claws into Lyrica's wing.

"And you dare attempt to slaughter your own subjects? Really, I expected better of you!" Lyrica shot back.

"DON'T YOU DARE TALK TO ME ABOUT SLAUGHTERING MY SUBJECTS WHEN YOU'VE KILLED HUNDREDS OF THEM!" Leif screamed, slashing through Lyrica's neck.

"Hold still, will you! I'm not trying to hurt you!" Lyrica hissed as she gripped Leif around the wrist and yanked her rival's claws out of her shoulder joint.

LIKE I WOULD BELIEVE THAT!" Leif screeched, as dozens of wyverns flew in to try and aid the Empress. "BACK OFF YOU FLYING TOADS! THIS IS MY FIGHT!"

The wyverns could see that Lyrica appeared to be losing the battle by far, and that it was dangerous to try and leap into the tangle of scales and claws and teeth. Despite the fact that Lyrica was larger, she wasn't trying to harm the Empress. Leif on the other hand was tearing into Lyica with everything she had, blood spattering everywhere. Halfway through the fight, Leif paused for a second and growled, "BLOOD?! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BLEED! YOU'RE UNDEAD!"

"It's a long story!" Lyrica growled, trying to pull the smaller dragon off of her throat. "Now could you please stop that! I just grew these scales back yesterday!"

Lyrica twisted around and pinned the smaller and stockier dragon to the ground, glaring at her with her blood red eyes.

"How are you alive?!" Leif hissed, panting heavily and trying to wriggle free.

"Can you just be civilized for once and leave the scales alone!" Lyrica spat. "I'll explain once you stop bloody trying to kill me!"

"How are you not dead yet?! I slashed your jugular at least five times! And my heart..."

"Isn't as pure as you think it is." Lyrica said, finishing her sentence for her. "I'm just as surprised as you are that I lasted this long against you. I was almost hoping you would kill me. But alas, there is something important against which we must join forces."

"How are you healing so fast?!" Leif growled, glaring up at Lyrica's multiple wounds which were all emitting silver sparks and closing themselves up.

"I don't know!" Lyrica shot back. "If you ask me I'd say it was the bloody unicorn!"

Suddenly, Manx stood up from her seat and yelled, "Consent!"

"WHAT?!" Leif and Lyrica hissed in unison.

"You can't preform almost any magic on a dragon without their consent unless it is a stronger kind of magic. Equal magic will have half the effect, unless or until the dragon wills for it to work. That's why it didn't fully heal you or fully kill you!" Manx said.

"What do you mean? What's going on?" Leif growled.

"Lyrica was stabbed by a unicorn. And until now, she didn't want to be alive. Maybe something in the fight triggered her instincts and will to live, thus allowing the unicorn's light magic to overpower the dark magic that made her a dracolitch." Manx said, clutching her bleeding side in pain.

"I'm alive?" Lyrica said, her eyes wide as she looked down at her gleaming lavender scales.

"It appears that way." Manx coughed.

"I'M ALIVE!" Lyrica cheered, realizing that she had forgotten what being fully alive had felt like.

"Which means I can kill you now!" Leif roared, raking her hind claws along Lyrica's belly.

"It doesn't work that way!" Manx called out. "The unicorn's healing magic has been laying dormant. Now that it's activated it could be stronger than before. Anything you do will just make the magic more powerful."

"NO! It can't...!" Leif hissed, realizing that what Manx said was true. "How do you know all this?"

"I spent eleven...years...of my life...reading books...in the dungeon." Manx choked out, a trickle of blood running out of the corner of her mouth.

"MANX!" Lyrica screeched in alarm, releasing the Empress and running to her side.

"GET AWAY FROM HER!" Leif roared, leaping in Lyrica's way.

"You're the one who did this to her, not me!" Lyrica warned, shoving Leif out of her way and scooping Manx up in her claws.

"I...I did this?" Leif stammered, shock written all over her face.

"Yes, YOU!" Lyrica retorted.

"It's...alright." Manx coughed. "You...didn't mean to..."

"Manx! You can't die yet!" Lyrica whimpered, as Manx's eyes fluttered shut.

"I'm sorry. I never meant to..." Leif whispered.

Lyrica gently lay Manx down in the grass. "She...she was my only friend."

"If you're gonna' cry you may as well let your tears fall on her." Leif snapped, leaning over Manx with worry in her eyes.

"What? Why?" Lyrica asked, perplexed.

"Just...just do it, alright! I hope this works." Leif said.

Lyrica nodded. A silvery tear trickled down her face, landing directly over Manx's heart. Leif leaned her head over and let her tears fall on Manx as well.

The two mortal enemies paused, both holding their breath and hoping that the magic would work.

Minutes passed, with the two of them sitting there over Manx in silence.

And then, there was a light glow over her wounds. Silvery threads danced about over her injuries, before they were absorbed into the wounds.

"That isn't supposed to happen..." Leif said, her eyes growing wide with panic.

"Sssh. Look!" Lyrica said, watching with awe as the wounds closed themselves up on their own. They gazed at her with hope flickering in their eyes as she suddenly drew in a deep breath, and her eyes fluttered open.

"Manx, I'm so sorry! I never in all the Valdt wanted to hurt you! I let my anger get the best of me, and I..." Leif said, as Manx sat up and blinked.

"What...what happened? It just feels like I passed out." Manx said, putting a hand to her ribs.

"How do you feel?" Lyrica asked, concerned. Leif glared at Lyrica in surprise.

"Better, I guess. I think whatever you did healed my other injuries as well." Manx replied. "I'm really sorry, for everything I put you both through."

"Vaskin is probably going to kill me when he finds out..." Leif started.

"The one you should really worry about is my dad." Manx said with a shrug.

"That's nothing compared to my sister." Lyrica muttered, gazing off into the distance.

"You have a sister?" Leif and Manx asked in unison.

Lyrica nodded. "Celyn." she said, as if the name were an infectious disease.

"WAIT, WHAT?" Manx yelled, clambering to her feet. "I thought Celyn was a voice in your head, and then a mist, and now you're telling me she's your sister?"

"She can speak in my mind and turn herself into a mist." Lyrica replied. "And she's the reason why I...why I...Leif, I never wanted..."

"You have no right to an excuse for what you did to me!" Leif roared, once again gripping Lyrica around the throat.

"Leif, please! I just need you to listen!" Lyrica cried out.

"There is no forgiveness for how you made me SUFFER, for how you made little Anna SUFFER,  for how to her last breath, you made Naegori SUFFER! You killed them! You killed them all, my mentor, my friend, my orphan!" Leif screeched, tears pouring out of her eyes.

"Every scratch you put on me will just make the magic that brought me back to life become stronger! You have to listen, Leif! I know you hate me. And I know what I did was wrong...

"WRONG?! WRONG?! WRONG?! Anna, she was just a child! And Naegori was like a mother to me, a mother who actually saw my strengths and didn't criticize me for my every flaw! And what of my real mother, and my family, who all suffered when your terrorizing me made me have to fake my own death in fear of their lives?" Leif roared back.

"If you think that was bad, try watching your parents being torn to shreds in front of your eyes and being raised by their killer! Try being fed your own pets for breakfast in fear for your life! Try being tortured simply because the one living thing who actually cares is bored! Try growing up in the shadow of all the priveleged dragons while you rot away in a cage made from the bones of your own kin!" Lyrica howled back, tears beginning to flow from her eyes as well.

"I made you suffer because if I didn't, Celyn would have killed me!" Lyrica yowled as Leif's claws dug deeper into her scales.

"What?! I...I never knew!" Leif said, softening her voice and relaxing her grip. She then narrowed her eyes and said, "But that still doesn't justify what you did to me!"

"I know!" Lyrica replied. "And frankly, I never liked you. You were always such a bloody shining paragon. But if Celyn is coming back, I can't let her take anything else away."