“She comes to avenge her children. Do you feel their screams?"

The world trembled, and Rubines felt the fear resonating through the dungeon heart in his chest.

"She cannot help it. She knows I am killing them. Every thread you see reaching here has drawn on a dungeon’s heart until it beats no more.”

The ground shook. More threads rose up to join the reaching host. They were taller than the tallest trees now, extending ever upward. The Dungeon Queen descended, washing the land in a crimson light that promised death.

“And you're sure she won't realize it’s a trap?”

“None knows the true depths of magic like me. She could devour the world whole and still my knowledge would surpass hers. Would you ever have conceived of this? If I described this scene to you, would you imagine it to be capable of snaring one as ancient and powerful as her?”

“If it were so easy to destroy the dungeons, why didn’t you do so sooner? Why not simply drain them all and let us remain? Why go so far as to destroy the world?”

“Easy? You think what I have done is easy?” Delarin laughed, and now Rubines could hear the madness in it clearly, the mania that lurked beneath the surface finally unleashed to the fullest. “I have labored for weeks unceasing. The souls of a thousand elves wouldn't scratch the surface of what I've built here."

The crimson gem descended, and uncountable silver threads rose up to meet it.

Then they touched. Power met power and fused together. Rubines felt the impact in his chest, the gem he carried flickering and fading before it shattered apart and fell away. The shockwave of the impact above flattened the trees, slamming refugees to the ground and rustling Delarin's hair even through the layers of protective barriers.

"It is done!" Delarin exulted, raising both hands to the sky, his face alight with the clash of blue and crimson light. "Now, my world will be born! Come!"

He took Rubines by the hand, then jumped from the edge of the ravine, dragging them both down and into the passage. A moment of disorientation, then Rubines stood in clear sunlight, a stark contrast to the grim view through the passage, where the world's finale burned in crimson light.

The dungeon queen's steady glow flickered as pulses of light raced into the passage, her power drawn away through a thousand tiny threads. Then it was too much.

Cracks began to run along the flawless gemstone surface. For a moment she hovered there, her pulse dimming as she strained against the silver light that sought to consume her.

Then the Dungeon Queen shattered, raining fragments of crystal across the flattened forest, each trailing an inert silver thread.

Beneath, the world trembled and cracked. Rifts ran along the line of each silver line as, suddenly unbound, they tore the planet apart. The remaining refugees were crushed or fell into the abyss that opened beneath them, the passage shrinking and twisting as the world around it crumbled.

The landscape of their old world split asunder.

Fragments of the shattered Dungeon Queen fell from the sky and fire rose from the ground. Moonlight power crackled across the planet’s surface as the passage drifted away, trailing the fading threads that had fueled it as they drew what little power remained in the corpse of a dying world.

For a few minutes longer the passage lingered, drifting in the void as the planet receded from it. Two elves stood and watched the world of their birth burn in silver fire until it splintered too far, stone and flame finally quenched in the cold of the void, shattering its remnants to dust.

Then the last lingering power in the passage faded completely, cutting off Rubines’ view of the thick ashen cloud that was the only remnant of his homeworld.

That image would never leave him.

Their world was gone.

But it had taken the Dungeon Queen and her wretched offspring with it.

Delarin Shadowcalled had been as good as his word. One day of evacuation, as many elves saved as could be convinced to take the passage and managed to survive the transition. The rest sacrificed to necessity.

Of the tens of thousands of elves in the city, only Poro's three thousand forest elves had even attempted to escape; of those thousands, hundreds were gasping for breath, unable to adapt to the alien world Delarin had created for them. Hundreds more were already gone, unmoving and blank-eyed.

Rubines could do nothing for them. He was no healer, and he’d sworn to stand by Delarin’s side. The price would weigh long on his soul, Rubines knew, as he tried to convince himself there had been no other choice.

But hundreds also stood, blinking in sunlight untainted by death, staring at their new home with uncertainty and hope. His sacrifices had not been in vain. He tried to force himself to believe it.

“Ours was not the first world she has seeded with her vile spawn,” Delarin said, his voice low and serious. “The source of the plague may be gone, but there are more worlds where her children consume all they touch. If left to themselves, another Queen will rise and the destruction will spread anew.”

Rubines turned to him, too weary and heartsick to reply. He’d made his promises and would not break them. Whatever Delarin commanded, he would do. That was all that remained to him. A promise to fulfill, a price to be paid.

He could do nothing for his people now, what fragile few remained. It would be up to them to build their new lives. Rubines had other obligations.

Delarin’s eyes burned with passionate amethyst flame. “If I’m to protect my new world, there must be no remnant of her kind. We will find them all, wherever they hide, until none remains. Together, we will wipe the heavens clean of her legacy, and build a new future for our people from the ashes of their destruction.”

Something stirred in Rubines’ dead and ashen heart, a tiny spark to offset the despair and grief.

A flicker of purpose.

And a promise of vengeance.

“Together…”

“Yes. Together.”

“Why? After everything I did?”

“You denied me to my face, rejected me on the council, and stood by as the entire world turned against me. But through it all, your heart knew the truth. When you had nowhere else to turn you finally swallowed your damn pride and came back to me. Can I say as much of any other? You were the only one willing to do what needed doing and get me the tools to do all this. If not for you, my new world would be a tiny, lonely thing, not a new beginning for me but a slower end. If that’s not worth forgiving someone over then what is?”

“I’m sorry. I should never have doubted you. If you’ll truly still have me, I will continue to stand at your side.” Rubines spoke haltingly at first, voice gaining strength as his heart sang to a new rhythm. “In leaving our world, I have left behind who I was. I thought my life would end, but now I see it is only beginning. As token of my rebirth, I take the name Rubines Voidheart.”

Delarin snorted. “A bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Don’t interrupt, this will be the first oath taken in our new world, I think it deserves some gravitas. And you took the name Shadowcalled so who are you to complain?”

Delarin waved it away. “I don’t need your oath. You can consider yourself released. You've proven yourself well enough. I’ll have you as my friend, not my slave.”

For the first time in a very long time, Rubines smiled with genuine warmth, despite the deep sorrow that still burned his heart. “That is why I give it.”

He stood tall, facing across their strange new world, and raised his voice until it echoed from the sky.

“By the ashes of sun and moon and homeland, by the void with which I am reborn, I, Rubines Voidheart, swear my life to your purpose. Not of necessity, but in unity and hope.”

Delarin waited for the echoes to fade before snorting a laugh. "I did say I'd teach you to burn the world. You done being dramatic yet?”

Rubines sighed. “Yes. I’m done being dramatic.”

“Good. Then you can get to work.” Delarin Shadowcalled strode away from the empty arrival site and across the alien land of their new home.

His friend followed.

THE END