Manx clung to Vaskin's arm, both of them frozen in fear as they gazed into the eye of the giant bird. She could feel her heart throbbing in her chest, and she knew she had to act quickly. Manx closed her eyes, praying that this wouldn't be their final moment. The one thought that raced through her head was that she would rather be anywhere than here. Before she knew what she was doing, a vortex of shadows swirled around her and Vaskin, pulling them to some unknown location.

"Where...where are we?" Vaskin asked nervously.

Manx opened her eyes and looked around. They were standing outside the entrance to a cave, high within the mountains. It seemed as if they were on a wide ledge, almost as if they were standing on an island in the sky. Manx looked out over the ledge and she could see the entire city, with the Empress' palace in the center, and every step of the path they had followed on their quest.

"I don't know..." Manx said nervously. "But I think we're safe, for now at least. I think I can see the Roc from up here."

"Good thinking, Manx." Vaskin said.

"I really don't know why we're here. I've never seen this place before." Manx said, still trying to peice together where she had teleported them to. She was distracted from her thoughts when she heard the soft sound of metal jungling against metal.

"Vaskin, what are you doing?" She asked, turning towards him.

Vaskin looked up at her from all fours, kneeling in a pile of gold coins, and he said, "What? It's just laying out here in the open."

"I don't think that's a good idea." Manx said.

"C'mon, it's free gold! How is that not a good idea!" He replied, shoveling more handfulls of gold coins into his pockets.

"How do you know that it isn't a dragon's hoard or the spoils of some other creature? I don't know where we are so could you please be careful." Manx said, nervously watching as he began shoving gold down his shirt once his pockets were full.

"I'm sure it'll be fine. Besides, if there was a dragon or something guarding this stuff then it would be on me in an...OUCH!" he said, suddenly pulling his hand back in pain. Manx teleported to his side and grabbed his hand before he could do anything else.

"Let me see that!" Manx said, wincing at the trickle of blood that was pouring down his palm. A three inch piece of glass was embedded into his hand between the bones of his pointer and middle fingers on his left hand.

"OW OW OW!" he whimpered as Manx inspected the wound.

"It didn't go all the way through." she said softly, gingerly pulling the glass shard from his hand and tearing off a piece of his shirt to bandage the wound.

"Where did that come from?" Vaskin whimpered, cradling his injured hand.

"You must have been too distracted by the gold that you didn't notice the broken mirror. See, I told you something like that would happen!" she replied, still holding his wounded hand.

"But there was free gold!" Vaskin said.

Manx rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. "There has to be a reason behind all that gold being up here. Which means something or someone didn't want it to be found, or at the very least brought it here on purpose. Whatever the case, I don't think we're as safe as we'd like to think."

"My, my, isn't this one perceptive." A gravelly voice rasped from behind them.

"Who said that?!" Manx yelped in alarm, turning to face the general direction of the voice. All she could see besides the gold and the mirror shards was a large ugly stone gargoyle which stood at nearly fifteen feet.

"That wasn't there before..." Manx said, eying the statue suspiciously.

A menacing grin spread across the gargoyle's face. The statue opened its crooked beak and spoke, once again in that voice that sounded like stones scraping together. "My Mistress will be ever so pleased to see you."

"Saladorian!" Vaskin said, in a low angry tone that was as cold as ice.

"You know this gargoyle?" Manx asked apprehensively at his response.

"He's Lyrica's right hand minion...which means..." Vaskin said loathingly.

"The mistress hasn't forgotten you." Saladorian replied, giving Vaskin a warning glare. 

"We've done it..." Manx gasped slowly. "We've found her! And now we can go home!" she said, the realization hitting her in waves of relief.

"Who said that the Mistress would let you go anywhere now that you're here, hmmm?!" Saladorian gleefully rasped.

Shadows swirled around Manx's hands as she stood up, glaring at the gargoyle's stony face with a look of self satisfaction and defiance.

"Manx, don't!" Vaskin yelled, leaping to his feet and standing in front of her.

"I can take him! We can make him tell us where Lyrica is, and then we can go home and get this whole stupid thing over with!" Manx said.

"You don't know what you're dealing with! Saladorian is dangerous, and any magic you try will just bounce off. He's not truly alive, or at least his physical form isn't. The only reason he can move and speak is because Lyrica's magic is binding his soul to this form and forcing him to do her bidding! Don't waste your powers on him!" Vaskin said.

"Right you are." Saladorian hissed, pretending to swipe a stony paw at Vaskin.

"Where is Lyrica?" Manx growled, trying to ignore Vaskin.

"I don't need to tell you that." Saladorian said with a grin.

"And why is that?" Manx yelled through Vaskin's head as he desperately tried to shield her from any attack the gargoyle might attempt.

"Because..." said Saladorian, "She's been in there this whole time!" The gargoyle gestured with a paw and pointed to the cave. 

Manx looked into the cave, nodded, and said, "Come on, Vaskin. Let's make sure he's telling the truth."

"It could be a trap!" Vaskin replied.

"So what if it is. It's a cave. I can see and sense anything that hides in the dark, and I'm pretty sure he's telling the truth. Lyrica can't hurt us because my powers are at their strongest when I can draw energy from the darkness. If she tries anything, I can just teleport us away like I got us here in the first place." Manx said.

"I can't allow you inside!" Saladorian squawked in alarm as she took a step forward.

"Lyrica is undead. We pose no threat to her. And she poses no threat to us. We have the upper hand in this." Manx calmly stated.

"No!" Vaskin said, "This is Lyrica we're talking about! She could be toying with any kind of unknown magic that you would be powerless against! And what if Mieraux is with her!"

"I'm stronger that I was last time I faced Mieraux, and I'm not injured either." Manx shot back, turning to face him.

"She isn't here." Lyrica's voice solemnly echoed from deep inside the cave.

"See, I told you!" Manx said, folding her arms indignantly. They stood there in complete silence for a few moments, before Manx said, "What are you waiting for? Start writing your letter to the Empress, or however it is you contact her."

At that, Saladorian lunged towards Vaskin just as Manx grabbed the gargoyle's stony tail.

"Leave them be." Lyrica said sternly from inside the cave.

Saladorian stepped back, and Vaskin glared towards the cave, pulling a piece of parchment from his pack. Manx stood frozen in surprise for a long moment, before letting the gargoyle's tail go and staring into the cave.

"That's it? You're just giving up? Handing yourself in to be killed?" Manx asked.

"Of course." Lyrica replied from inside the cave, as if it was the most obvious and logical answer there ever was.

"What?! Why?!" Manx gasped.

"Don't talk to her, Manx! She'll only mess with your head. This is our only chance to set everything right!" Vaskin said, furiously scribbling on the paper.

"I will talk to whomever I please, and nobody has a right to govern my thoughts! No matter what else in my life they can take away, my thoughts are my own, and any decision I make is my choice!" Manx snapped, tears glistening within her sunset colored eyes.

"At least you have the choice to make the right decision." Lyrica called back, her voice an echo of what she had once been not long before.

"But this isn't right! Where is the dracolitch that put the palace to its knees, the one who flung the Empress into another world so that Vaskin and I had to leave everything we knew and loved to rescue her? Why aren't you fighting back?" Manx yelled into the cave.

"Because..."Lyrica began, "I deserve whatever Leif decides to do with me. I'm a complete failure in everything I've strived for, and nothing can undo the things that I have done."

"You have done some good..." Manx started, before Vaskin cut in with a gasp of shock and horror, saying, "MANX!"

"You amuse me with such talk. What, pray tell, have I ever done right with my life?" Lyrica replied, her voice gaining a hint of its usual prideful undertones.

"You killed Naegori the Swift! If you hadn't, I'd still be rotting away in that dungeon, and I'd have never met Vaskin or my father, or any of the other people who have help me come this far. I'd...I'd like to thank you for that before we bring you in, or at least let you know..." Manx said.

"That was an accident!" Lyrica roared. "She just happened to get in the way! I could care less about you and your piddly little friendships, or any positives that could have resulted from the thing I did."

Shadows rushed around Manx's hands as she said, "There had to have been a reason for you doing all those things, or you wouldn't have done them! You had to have felt strongly enough about whatever was going on back then that you acted as you did!"

"So now I'm a living soul with feelings all of a sudden?" Lyrica sarcastically growled, her voice drawing nearer.

"Manx, stop it! Just stop it! We have what we want, and we can just go home and forget this ever happened! She doesn't deserve this!" Vaskin said, walking over to her and grabbing her by the arm.

"Exactly my point!" Lyrica bellowed, her red eyes now so close to the entrance of the cave that Vaskin and Manx could see their glow. "Vaskin here just summed up exactly why I've done everything I ever have, and why I have decided it's worthless to continue!"

"NO! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Just shut up, both of you!" Manx shouted.

"Manx!..." Vaskin said, as she violently pulled her arm out of his grasp and glared at him with a fury he had rarely seen before.

"Life goes on! You can make a different choice!" Manx said.

"Look at me! Look at what I have done! There is no other way, no going back, no changing the past!" Lyrica screeched, her head stretching out of the cave and into the daylight. Her face was falling apart even more than her emotional state, strips of decaying skin and muscle hanging off and flapping in the breeze as she spoke.

Most of the right side of Lyrica's face was rotted down to the bone, and the other side no longer had its beautiful lavender color. The flesh and scales left on her body was pale and dirty, no longer reflecting the light it used to when she was alive. Lyrica's wings were tattered and torn. What was left of her glorious hide was rotting, dirty, and hanging off in ribbons and clumps. Her entrails dragged on the ground, hanging out through the spot where the rot and decay had completely eaten away at her underbelly.

As Lyrica spoke, flies buzzed around her face and body, and Manx could almost hear the sound of the maggots and worms burrowing through Lyrica's decomposing putrid form. And yet through all of the undead dragon's morbid glory, Manx could see the pain within her eyes.

"My father changed. After years of slaughtering innocents and serving the Red Shadow, he changed! I'm not proud of what he did, in fact I resent him for leaving the day I was born, but he did worse things than you from what I know." Manx said, looking up into Lyrica's glowing red eyes.

"I can't change! It isn't up to me!" Lyrica hissed.

"Manx, stay out of this! Let's go home, report to the Empress. This isn't your fight, and you aren't the one who gets to decide her fate! How could you even think..." Vaskin said, pleading with her to listen.

With a wave of her hand, Manx conjured a portal. "Go home, Vaskin." she said sternly.

"Wha? But...what about you?" Vaskin said.

"I'll stay here and make sure she doesn't leave." Manx said.

"But you just said..." Vaskin began.

"Go, now! I will contact you if ever I am in danger." Manx shot back.

"Please, don't do this!" Vaskin replied, his eyes growing wet with the hint of tears. Manx looked solemnly into his eyes and said, "This is for the best." before she gingerly held his face and planted a soft kiss on his lips.

"Manx! Please, She's dangerous! What if I lose you?" Vaskin whimpered.

"I'll be fine. Now go!" Manx snapped, shoving him through the portal and closing it behind him.

Lyrica stared at her for a moment and asked, "Why did you...?"

"There isn't much time to talk. I had to get him out of here. If he saw what I'm about to do it would hurt him, but I have to make the right choice." Manx said.

"What do you mean?" Lyrica said, furrowing what was left of her brow in a confused expression.

"You have to go! Now! Fly away before Leif can track you down!" Manx cried out.

"No. I'm going to face my death with honor. I'm already dead in a sense so what's the point?" Lyrica replied.

"I'm not letting you give up on yourself!" Manx yelled, extending her hand to the dracolitch who towered over her by at least seven feet. "I'm giving you the biggest chance you'll ever have, the chance to change! Or at least to get away from here before the Empress figures out a way. She'll know your location any second now, so you have to trust me."

"Why are you giving me this chance?" Lyrica said softly, sorrow and pain and confusion all carried on her voice.

"Because I see you. Not the rotting corpse that stands where you physically are, but I see who you are deep down inside. You're in pain, you're alone, you're misunderstood. You're treated as less than everyone else simply because of some past actions that you likely had a right to commit. And until I see that last glimmer of a soul, a feeling, perceptive, sentient being flee for your eyes, I am not letting you die." Manx replied.

"I could kill you here and now and there is nothing you could do about it!" Lyrica screamed.

"You might be lacking in sanity, but I know you're not stupid. And I thought you didn't care any more. What have I done that would justify such actions? What would that accomplish?" Manx retorted, still firmly holding her outstretched hand in front of her.

"There isn't any hope for me left in this entire world." Lyrica wailed, dipping her head low in shame and remorse.

"Take my hand and I will prove you wrong." Manx replied, gazing into Lyrica's eyes. "It's your choice, however, whether or not you let yourself exist long enough for me to prove that there is still hope."

"I don't know how!" Lyrica cried, turning away.

"Place your paw on my hand and I'll show you." Manx said. Lyrica gazed back at her cave for a long moment, and then back at Manx. She looked at Saladorian, who was standing still and staring off into space, turned to stone for the moment. Lyrica then looked over the ledge, gazing at the palace in the distance, and the city gleaming in the light. She then looked back at Manx, and slowly but shakily she took her hand.

Manx nodded at Lyrica, with a slight smile, and in an instant Manx had teleported them away.

"What...where...?" Lyrica started, looking around wide eyed.

Manx replied, "I don't know where we are, so there is no way anyone can trace us. Not even if the Empress pulls my father into this mess."

"How did your magic work on me?" Lyrica said, tilting her head in confusion.

"You gave your full consent by taking my hand and choosing to trust me." Manx commented.

"But why did you do such a thing?" Lyrica replied, still confused.

"I have my reasons. I gave you a chance and you took it. I could ask you the same thing." Manx sighed.

"I didn't deserve that chance!" Lyrica hissed, sitting back on her haunches and folding her forelegs.

"You took it all the same. And that means that somewhere, deep inside you, there's a hope that you can change." Manx said.

"Oh do shut up!" Lyrica snapped, knocking Manx backwards with a swipe of her tail.

"Why won't you listen?" Manx said, a pleading look in her eyes.

Lyrica turned her back to her and sat down. Manx lay on her back and folded her hands behind her head, staring at the sky. She blew that annoying stray hair out of her face in exasperation, and the two of them sat in silence.