Aidan couldn't scratch the days into the wall of the cell, it was solid stone and he didn't have any tools to mark it with. But he knew a great many of them had passed. It had been more than a week. More than a month even. He knew that his friends wouldn't forget him, Flame Song certainly wouldn't! But he started to worry. He hadn't seen how the fight had ended. What if the others were dead? And even if they lived, what if something else had happened to them? Jordanis's two month deadline couldn't be far away. Why hadn't they completed their quest, found the crystal? Jordanis had said that touching the crystal would pull them all home. Surely that meant that he and Seymore would be pulled home as well? But they were still here, which meant the crystal remained undiscovered. Something had gone wrong, but he didn't know what. And he was frustratingly unable to do anything about it. The three of them were given food and water, but that was the only contact they had with anyone else. Nobody came for them. They were just left in their cell.

Sometimes the three of them passed the time with conversation, but mostly they were silent. Brianna fretted over her husband and her friends, Syemore kept his thoughts to himself as he almost always did, and Aidan brooded. He turned the past over and over in his mind. In his current state of depression it seemed that everything he'd ever done had been futile, useless. If he died or simply ceased to exist, the kingdom and the Queen's Own wouldn't even notice. Only Flame Song would miss him.

The more time passed the more his depression and his fear grew. Brianna tried to reassure him, but her assurances that Seymore would soon take the castle fell flat. "Soon" might well be months away, and by then it would be too late for his world.

But one day, after it seemed like he had been in the cell for an eternity, he heard faint distant shouts, and what sounded like the clash of weapons. Then there was shouting from much closer, and the sound of the dungeon door being thrown open. A brief flurry of steel on steel was followed by a cry and a thud, and then Lavasida came around the corner into the hallway. He had a bloodstained sword in one hand, and the keys to the cells in the other.

"Lavasida!" Brianna reached out through the bars.

"Brianna, love! You're alive! One moment, I'll have you out." He fitted a key to the lock, and door swung open. Brianna darted out and flung her arms around Lavasida. He hugged her back, hard, and Aidan was quite certain that this was Brianna's husband, and not the Dark Lord that he knew. He got to his feet and left the cell, with Syemore close on his heels.

"You must be Aidan," Lavasida said. "Your wife is going to be very happy to find that you're alive!"

"Where is she?"

"Looking for your crystal. She said were it not for that she would have come after you first, but that it was more important than anything else."

"She's right," said Aidan with a nod. "And I should start looking too." The four of them exited the dungeon. Aidan stopped to take the sword that belonged to the dead guard. It felt long and awkward in his hand, but it was better than nothing. The dungeon stairs let out in a corridor near the center of the main hall.

"I'll leave you here," said Lavasida. "If I don't see Flame again before you all return to your world, tell her goodbye for me." He took Brianna's hand and headed for the door that would lead out into the courtyard.

With no better idea of where to look, Aidan turned to go to the throne room. A few roughly dressed soldiers came the other way, and gave him some curious glances. He probably looked a sight, still in his underthings, running through the castle with sword in hand, and with a goblin following behind him. But he didn't look like one of Tara's soldiers, so they moved on, leaving him to search the throne room unharmed.

There was no sign of the crystal there, and no sign of any of the Queen's Own either. So he took the stairs up to Tara's room, though he thought it quite possible that one of the others had been and gone already, and the crystal was hidden in some less likely place. But when he topped the stairs he saw it there, simply sitting at the far end of the room. He paused, then moved forward slowly. Something wasn't right...

And then he was frozen in place, held by Tara's spell. She laughed, appearing suddenly in the center of the room, and he saw the others of the Queen's Own around him. He tried to fight, but he couldn't move, couldn't even turn his head.

"How interesting." Tara walked around the frozen group, her face set in a smirking smile. "I knew the crystal I found came from another world, but I had not expected that it would be a world much like my own. And yet here you are. I can tell that you are outworlders, but you look much like the people of Seymore's little rebellion. Our worlds must be very, very close. I wonder..." She circled them again. "It seems I am at last to be ousted here. I had thought to go elsewhere in this world, but perhaps I might have better luck in your world. I sense the magic hanging around you all. I think I can use it to take myself to your world, and leave you here. Wouldn't that be amusing?"

Brianna spoke. "If you go to our world without the crystal, you'll die. It's being destroyed by chaos. If the crystal isn't returned soon so that the breach can be repaired, then everything there will die." Tara stopped in front of Brianna and smiled darkly at her.

"How sad. But you would let me go, if I took your crystal with? You wouldn't oppose me?"

"Yes."

"Amazing. But no, I don't think I will. I think I'll just kill you all now and go south as I had originally planned. The idea of causing the destruction of an entire world amuses me." As Brianna and Tara spoke, Aidan noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Flame Song was only a few yards away from him, suspended in mid leap by Tara's spell. She was slightly to the side of the Tyrant Dragon and not in her direct line of sight. And she wasn’t simply hanging there. The faint blur of shape-shifting was moving over her. It grew and faded, grew and faded, and Aidan could sense the effort Flame was making, struggling to shift shape in spite of her enforced immobility. Suddenly the blurring grew stronger and then Flame was human and in motion. She tumbled forward and rolled nimbly, coming to her feet with her belt dagger drawn and keeping her momentum as she dived at Tara.

It nearly worked, but the dagger was a small weapon, and Flame wasn't an expert knife fighter. She hit the Tyrant, and the knife dug into her, but only a glancing blow, drawing a long red line along her side. Tara snarled, her superior smirk vanishing behind a mask of pure rage. With a lightning-quick motion she grabbed Flame by the throat. And as she did so, her own form shimmered and twisted, and now she was holding Flame Song with a golden-scaled, clawed hand. She had not taken the form of a full dragon, she wouldn't have fit in the room as such, but in half dragon shape she was perhaps twice the size of a human. "Clever little cat," she hissed. "But not clever enough. And since I am going to kill you all, you've won the privilege of going first."

Aidan had fought to move before, but not he struggled with every ounce of strength he had. But it was in vain, the spell held him in a grip stronger than steel. He couldn't even turn his head away as Tara dug her long claws into Flame's neck and then tore them out in a spray of blood. Flame dropped to the floor, and Aidan stopped his futile battle. It was too late.

In that instant the room suddenly flashed into pure white light, blinding Aidan and the others. The spell holding him dissolved and he stumbled forward from the momentum he'd had before being frozen. He blinked bright sparkles from his eyes for a second, then dropped his borrowed sword and dashed to his wife's side, heedless of all else. She lay sprawled in a growing pool of blood, but her heart was still beating. Aidan pressed his hand against the deep gash in her neck, trying to slow the blood flow. He heard a shout, and a series of shrieks behind him, and then an explosion rocked the room. Before the ringing in his ears had even cleared somebody dropped down to his knees next to Aidan. He didn't recognize the thin, dark-haired man, but he recognized the white robes the man wore, and he felt hope suddenly springing up again in his heart. The cleric put his hand over Aidan's, and Aidan felt a strange sort of warmth there. The blood flow from Flame stopped, the gash under Aidan's hand closed, and a moment later Flame opened her eyes and looked up at him.

"Aidan. You're alive." He voice was a little bit shaky.

"Flame Song." Aidan was almost in tears. "I thought you were going to die!" She moved to sit up, and he helped her. She looked up at the cleric with a smile. "Thank you Radu."

He smiled back. "I couldn't have done anything else. Though I'd best make sure..." He knelt again by her side and placed his hand over her stomach. "Ah, good." His smile was a little broader now. "The baby is fine."

Aidan gaped. "Baby?"

"Yes. I'm pregnant." Flame suddenly laughed and hugged him. He hugged her back hard, hardly daring to believe that it could be true. When they both pulled back a moment later, Aidan looked over to see Brianna standing next to the crystal. In front of her a limp, golden-scaled form sprawled in the center of the room.

"We shouldn't delay any longer," said Brianna. "Thank you, Radu, for all your help. Our world owes its existence to you."

"And I owe you my life," said Flame softly. "If I can ever repay you..."

Radu shook his head. "I need no repayment."

"Maybe not, but we owe you all the same," said Aidan.

"Let's go," said Brianna. She took a step closer and put her hand on the crystal.

Aidan and Flame clung to each other as the disorientation of portal travel swept over them. When reality felt stable again they found themselves no longer on the floor of the castle room, but in the courtyard, sitting on the grass.

There was no sign here of the battle that had raged in that other world, but the courtyard no longer looked quite as it had. There were patches of grass that seemed to be oddly shaped and colored, and in a few places the castle walls seemed to have been breached, where the stones had, no doubt, turned into some less durable substance.

Aidan helped Flame to her feet. Jordanis came running out of the Tower, and directed a small horde of servants in taking the crystal in. Aidan heard him saying that the spell to repair the sphere would be cast within the hour. Aidan simply stood, with Flame leaning on him. They had done it. They had done it, but... He looked over at his wife, at the drying blood that still streaked her shirt. But the cost had nearly been more than he could bear paying.