Klax hadn't expected to open his eyes again.

And so, when he did, and he realized he was lying on top of Tara, he took a few moments to register his surprise.

The Minxit's eyes fluttered open, and she sensed that her arms were around something fluffy and warm before looking through the haze of sleep to see who it was she was staring up at.

"Well," she muttered. "So, this is your way of rewarding me?"

Klax at first blinked in confusion before he greeted her goad with a hoarse chuckle.

"…unbelievable," he said.

He stood up slowly, cracking his back and looking down at the gaping hole they'd both emerged through, and the ruptured pieces of Duskmetal floor and debris that was strewn all about them.

"An explosive furball," he said as he looked down at Tara, who was currently having a very long stretch on the ground. "You never cease to amaze me, Tara."

She jerked a finger in his direction.

"Don't go telling everyone," she ordered, trying to rise and finding that she still had the wind knocked out of her from her landing. "I don't wanna get into the habit of coughing that shit up every time we get in a bind. It's a Minxit's secret weapon, y'know…"

Klax offered her his hand. "You're secret's safe with me."

She smirked as she let him pull her up, then staggered slightly, swaying as she took in the dark hallway that stretched out before them.

"Looks like we're walking the rest of the way," she said.

"Towards who knows what other horrors," Klax agreed. "I can only hope that Ethan and the others have traversed the dangers of this place and passed through unscathed."

Tara waved his concern away. "Nah, they'll be fine. Ethan's the resourceful type. And the two wizards can snap their fingers and make anything happen. It ain't them I'm worried about."

Klax eyed her before nodding towards the long corridor dimly lit with stuttering lamps. He chose to ignore the look she was giving him.

This isn't the time, Tara, he thought. Why do you always do this…?

"We press on," he said. "With any luck, we can link up with the rest before they get to the next floor of this Delve."

Tara said nothing. They walked on in silence.

The corridor gave way to rooms upon rooms of grisly experiments and prison chambers – each one showing them different hybrids who'd been tortured beyond recognition. Some humans, too, filled the prison cells – some fused together or torn before death, with lacerations that turned even Tara's stomach.

"Bastard even experimented on his own kind…"

If Klax did feel a sense of revulsion at the horrors he saw, he did not express it. He kept moving forward, deeper into the dark, without even looking back to see Tara's face etched with concern behind him.

"Klax," she said when they cleared their sixth prison room. "Hey, listen…"

"I know," he said. It was a simple statement, but the sadness it contained stopped Tara in her tracks. "I know."

"If you know, then you'll stop and think for a moment."

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"That won't do us – or the others – any good."

"For fuck's sake stop thinking about other people for a second!"

She ran in front of him before he could walk through the entrance to another torture chamber, eyes red-rimmed and clearly weary.

"Look, I know what that old bastard said back there got to you. And you know that that's exactly what he wants – he wants to get in your head, get you angry."

Klax scoffed, trying to move past her. "If I recall, that's exactly what I told you –"

"Sure, but I know you well enough to know when you're just acting tough."

He growled, but the gesture was low and not menacing.

He began pacing the room, trying to avoid looking at her as he did so.

"What do you want me to say? That Jun'Ei's probably dead? That us coming here – me coming here – actually means nothing at all?"

Tara shook her head.

"I just want you to be prepared for what you might see, down there…"

"You don't have to tell me," Klax replied quietly. "I know. I already know."

Tara looked at him then like he'd shivved her in the stomach. But his expression was cool. Totally calm. He finally stopped moving and slumped against the far wall of one of the prison cells, sighing deeply as he then sat on the flea-covered cot that the dead inmate must have once slept in.

"When she came to me in the City of Illusions, I felt it then," he said – his voice a mere shadow of what it was in the island battle below. "Her voice was hazy. Her eyes, though bright, were speckled and veiny. And her skin – her fur – though I could touch it and feel that same sense of softness I used to on cold winter nights…it was different. Tainted. I could feel her shaking as I tried to hold her."

Tara sidled into the cell, coming to stand beside him, arms crossed, staring at the cold tiles beneath them both.

"…you really saw her, then? The real her? How could you-"

"Even in the dream-world I knew," Klax murmured. "I knew that she was there. I knew she was in pain. All this time, I've known. Yet she didn't cry out. She didn't beg to be saved. Instead, she asked Ethan to find her here, so she could tell him what will save this doomed world."

"She's strong," Tara said quietly. "That'll never change."

Klax nodded at his feet. Hi shoulders sagged, and he seemed in this moment to sink into himself.

"You think I can't accept that she might be gone, Tara," he said. "But the truth is: I know she's not the same mate I bonded with all those years ago. I know that whatever that bastard's done to her, it's already taken her from me. I've known that ever since the City of Illusions, and I've made peace with it."

Tara heard him choke for a moment. She didn't say a word. Didn't move a muscle.

"But I have to see her," he continued. "The real her. I need to see her with my own eyes. Even if it hurts me more than any blade that's ever pierced my skin. She was – she is – my Bonded. She will always be my Bonded. I have carried her spirit as a burden all this time, and I must face the reality alone."

Tara gave a wet sniff and looked away into the damp walls of the cell. Her next words were barely audible in the confines of the prison.

"There are other people who care about you."

He looked up at her with such sudden intensity that she felt forced to look back.

"I know," he said. Then again, with sorrow: "I know."

A sudden crash brought the two of them back to the reality of their situation. It sounded like an entire section of wall had just crumbled in the room next door.

"Ready for the next batch of craziness?" Klax asked.

Tara flashed him a smirk. "Always."

They both advanced, adrenaline pumping, towards the exit to the prison chamber, and ended up in a circular room with a stained-glass window depicting the first Lightborn, Krea. Outside, the darkness of twilight loomed over the world, casting bright rays of light into the interior of the prison.

They must have ascended to one of the main castle towers.

And their suspicions had been correct: an entire section of the castle wall had been broken - literally torn apart from the looks of the smokescreen and wreckage that was strewn about the ground. When they arrived, the Duskmetal wall section was still in the process of crumbling, and they crouched low, ready for whatever horror had just dug through to greet them from the innards of the Watch.

Slowly, a pair of shadows emerged from the darkness.

Shadows that took on very familiar shapes.

"Hah!" Tara shouted, sheathing her blades. "Trust our two mages to turn themselves into living bulldozers. I'm betting that was your idea, Faun, right?"

Klax stayed down, unsure. For some reason, the two shadows seemed much too stiff, much too controlled, and much too silent. The smaller one of the pair made no reply to Tara's quip. Instead, their dark eyes stared ever forward. As if they were waiting.

Waiting for a command.

"Faun?"

The smoke continued to clear, and Klax's keen eyes picked out something glinting behind it:

The light of arcane energy swirling at the tip of both mages' staves.

"Tara," he whispered as he moved to grab her arm. "That's not –"

His voice was swallowed by the first strike – a pair of energy beams wreathed in red and green that sprang from the shadowed mages and homed in on the Minxit and Lycae.

The world vanished in a haze of fiery light.

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