Not much made sense as Ira limped alongside Mayvalt across the battlefield. He knew that he hadn't yet been wounded, but he could feel the warmth of fresh blood fill his shirt. He knew he couldn't fall asleep, and yet it begged him so sweetly from just a few centimeters away. 

He knew that New York was filling with Beasts. Thousands upon thousands of boars burst through the surface of Lake Seneca each passing hour. Each swam towards the beach to obliterate the earth. And yet, as he and Mayvalt moved slowly over the sands, not a single one came close.

The echo of bone-blades on volcanic glass filled his ears. At each crash, Mayvalt tensed and stared with wides eyes at the battle surrounding them. Mayvalt clung to her Fae-Iron Bo, her head twisting and snapping to follow the weakest points of Ira's protective wall. Knights flanked Ira at all sides, forming a layer of blubber around his pale and shaking body.

Ah, he thought dizzily, everyone is falling on the sword to save me.

Just as the Cardinal had. He and Father Pine had stayed behind, absorbing the two boars Ira had tussled with into their already heavy burden.

And that was another thing he didn't quite understand. Ira Rule the traitor. The Third Prince's beguiled pet. The one the angels had sent to serve humanity as eternal punishment. They would die for him? It seemed like a joke. One written by the same angels who found humor in sentencing Ira's greatest love to the edge of his sword. Ira's lead-heavy boots caught in the sand. He stumbled forward. Mayvalt's grip over him tightened, just barely keeping him from landing on his face. 

"Almost there, kid." She hissed. "Almost." 

Almost where? To where Melchior was? Where was he? When had Ira last seen him? He'd been shooting arrows at Belial, a wildly brazen smirk across his handsome face. Why had he been doing that? Oh, right, to save the Third Prince. For the same reason all those around him now tried to save Ira; because they needed him. 

Ira shook his yellow hair, loosening the ice frozen over his neurons. "Mayvalt," he hissed beneath his breath, "listen to me. I have to tell you the plan." 

"Sap, kid." She laughed. "I knew you had one." 

He did. He certainly had one. But it wasn't something he'd bet money on. Unfortunately, money wasn't the metric. It was the fate of the world--and Ira had already cast his ballot when he'd refused to slaughter Melchior in cold blood.

"I need to get the Prince." Ira said. 

"We're on the way." She said, "But he's no use to us as tied up as he is." 

"Right." Ira murmured in feeble agreement. Which is when the plan tilted from unwise to inadvisable. "You'll have to get him from his nephew first. No, that would be too easy. We need to get his nephew away from him." 

"Me?" Mayvalt squeaked. 

Ira nodded. "Think of it as two birds and one stone. Belial is irrelevant to our plan of burning Legion. He can be out of the water--it's better if he is. Meanwhile, you and Melchior can't be anywhere near the water. You two will have to keep him away from the Prince and I." 

Mayvalt sighed heavily. "Yeah, no big deal. Just keep that fallen angel and his divine sword from cleaving boss in half." 

Ira fit her with a scowl. "Can you do it?" 

"Sap, I'll try." She shrugged, and since that was all Ira could expect or hope for he nodded. Mayvalt's walnut shell dark eyes flickered across the madness of the beach. They roamed over the heads of the knights, seeking until they landed at the cusp of the lake.

"So, that's Melchior, huh?" She said.

Ira forced his gaze to follow the stiff jab of her chin. There, at the stretch of beach nearest the general, was a boy in a tattered white T-shirt. He stood in an archer's stance, firing arrows ceaselessly over the water, into the pink flesh of roaring boars, and against the silver of Belial's armor. 

Ira's heart pattered against his ribs. His stomach filled with flies, moths, lady bugs, and butterflies. "Yeah. That's him."

My Melchior.

The other half of him. He was, for this moment, alive and unharmed. Dizzy with relief, Ira had to squeeze his eyes shut to regain his composure. Suddenly deprived of his vision, his adrenaline-soaked mind turned to whatever else it could drag in to keep feeding the scene of the battle to his instincts. He could almost taste the rot of blood on his tongue. He could feel, as much as he could hear, his heart thumping behind his ribs.

The sand shifted beneath his boots. Warm blood eased down his stomach in thin rivers. Mayvalt inhaled and exhaled at his side, as warm as the breeze. The wall of soldiers formed around him sounded like rustled fabrics and slashing bone-blades. Only a little further away, the lake bubbled and the boars roared. A man screamed in agony. An arrow cut through the air with a song of flight.

Ira curled his fists at his sides, forcing air as thick as glue into his thrumming lungs. "It may take some convincing to get him to go with you. He won't like this plan." He said finally. 

"It's an interesting way of keeping him safe." Mayvalt nodded stiffly. "Stay out of the water, darling, go fight that Ely instead." 

"Mayvalt." Ira warned. He leveled her beneath one of his best dissapointed glares. One he'd modeled after Father Pine. Specifically during the Knick's sixty-ninth season, when they'd encored more than fifty losses. Ira had heard Father Pine swear for the first and last time that spring.

"Sap, okay!" She surrendered. "It's a good plan, kid. Don't worry. I'll watch his back as well as I can, that I swear." 

It's a good plan. Ira rolled those words over in his foggy brain. It wasn't. No more than sawing off your own hand to escape a bear trap was a good plan. But what else could they do? 

Ira glanced down at his knives, the ones he still managed to hold onto with trembling fingers. A slim tanto blade on a carved handle of pale cedar, a gift from Father Pine. And in his other palm, a jagged tooth roughly affixed to a chunk of ebony-stained pine. There'd be no way to part with them now. They'd go into the water with him--and if his roughly stitched plan managed to work--they'd be lost forever in the scorching waters. Nothing left but pieces of wood. He didn't know why now, crossing the battle front with Mayvalt under his arm, that seemed the strongest thought in his weary mind. 

"Sap, kid." Mayvalt hissed. 

Ira blinked his heavy eyelids and followed her gaze to the lip of Lake Seneca. Beyond a thin wall of knights, and a thicker wall of boars, was the Prince and his nephew. Several feet submerged into the cold waters, so that the lake pulled on their limbs, they circled each other. The general of Legion still waved his Divine-Iron sword through the night air. The Third Prince returned the taunts by lifting his fists over his chest in a boxer's stance. 

The Third Prince struck first. At the disadvantage, given he had no weapon, he seemed to think his odds would be better if he took the offensive. And for a moment it seemed to work. Or for a while it must have been working this same way, Ira realized. The Third Prince must have been holding his own all this time with the same repertoire of tricks. 

He slipped past the edge of Belial's sword, into a distance that no ranged weapon could bend back to match. Once inside the general's guard he pulled back his fist to strike. From the menagerie of black and blue splotches across the general's mirrored face, he must have been landing quite a few blows this way. 

But there was only so long the same moves could go un-countered. The Prince swung forward, and the general rose to meet him. He snatched the Prince's wrist, freezing him in place for a second before then forcing his movement. He dragged him in by the ensnared wrist, rearing his head. Ira knew what was coming and squeezed his eyes shut in a wince of sympathy. Belial brought his skull back with a snap, slamming the brunt of his cranium into the Third Prince's nose. 

Crack!

The Prince stumbled back, released from the general's grasp. He seemed stunned. Instead of attempting to regain his balance, he turned to licking his wounds. His hands moved to cover the gash across his likely broken nose. The blood dripping over his sharp teeth was red and ordinary. Ira didn't know what he expected to see from a bleeding angel, but somehow it hadn't met his expectations. It did not even shimmer like Ossein. 

Ira had been punched in the nose before and he could imagine how the Prince felt now. White-splotches blooming over his vision. Blunt and hot pain reaching with scraping tendrils up into his whirling mind. The Prince took his final step and collapsed, falling to his knees as the dizziness overtook him.

Mayvalt inhaled a sharp gasp. Her grip slipped, abandoning Ira. She was pulling away, unraveling like loose twine. He pitched forward, just barely managing to strengthening his knees beneath him before the ground could take hold. Ira snagged her wrist, stilling her, momentarily stopping the spiral downwards into chaos. She turned to face him, wide brown eyes flushed with tears. 

"Melchior first." Ira said. His words seemed so sure. So cement steady--but that, more than anything, was a lie.

"But Ba'al-" 

Ira squeezed down on the glimmering bones beneath the warm coffee-toned skin of her arm. "Melchior first." 

He knew how she felt. He'd felt the same watching Melchior fire arrows at Belial. Like the center of the universe was being sucked into an all-destroying black hole. For that same feeling, Ira knew he'd make any effort to save Melchior before the world. Before the Prince. 

Her eyes drifted to the Third Prince. He'd managed to find his standing again and had taken to a much looser game of defensive, just barely keeping his darting form from the edge of Belial's wildly swinging blade. Ira grabbed her shoulder, once again recentering her fleeting attention. 

She sucked in a breath and squeezed her eyes shut. It only lasted for a single moment, and when her eyelids fluttered apart she appeared a new soldier all together. The edges of her face had been set into rigid determination. Mayvalt nodded. "Let's go then." 

Ira exhaled a sigh of relief and carefully detangled himself from her, moving to stand on his own two feet. He couldn't walk forward limping. Not with all that hanged in the fragile balance. She watched him with worry filled eyes until he began to move forward. Across the beach--to Melchior's side. It was hard not to run, but not as hard as it would have been to actually run. So he settled for a brisk in-between. 

Melchior noticed them before Ira could call to him. He turned, fixing Ira with his shimmering green eyes. His lips quirked up at the edges, sending jolts of electricity into the space behind Ira's ribs.

"Mel," Ira breathed.

He was close enough to touch. And suddenly nothing else in New York mattered as greatly as that boy stood opposite him. He would have liked to throw himself at him, hugging him with reckless abandon--but he wasn't so beguiled to disregard the arrow-ready bow held over Melchior's chest. 

"Hey, Kitten." He greeted softly. 

Ira laughed but he would have liked to kick stones in frustration instead. He pressed his fingers into his hair and shook his head. He had so many things to say. So many questions to ask. Why did you leave my side? Did you not notice me falling behind, did you not care? Did it not matter? But none of those questions rose to anything more than quiet prayers inside his mind. He was too scared to speak. Too scared to push him away again. Melchior seemed as thin as smoke, already beginning to fade at the edges. Ira couldn't be the thing to finally force him away for good. So, like he had their entire trek through the Catskills, he'd wait for Melchior to speak first.

"Wow, what a touching reunion. I'm Mayvalt--nice to meet you and all that." Mayvalt interrupted dryly. She swung her Bo at her side, slicing apart the air with an agitated cut. "We've said our hellos, now can we get on with it?"

"Oh, uh, nice to meet you." Melchior greeted awkwardly. Ira was half shocked he didn't compliment the weather. His gaze darted to her antlers and then to Ira, questions blooming up behind his eyes. 

"I don't have time to explain." Ira dismissed. "She's with the Prince and working with us." 

"I gathered that much." Melchior added. "So, can you tell me why Ossein isn't working? I've emptied my quiver three times but they keep moving." He swept out his flattened palm, gesturing at a few near boars who'd been pumped so full of arrows they seemed more porcupine than pig. 

"This is Legion." Mayvalt said. She glanced at Ira before sighing. "Okay, fine. I'll explain one more time so you better pay attention. Legion is. . . a cloud. A giant corporeal being floating very far away from here. These pigs are just limbs. Physical manifestations to give Legion something to attack with. You can't kill them, not if you do it one at a time."

"How are we supposed to strike them all down at once? I assume it has something to do with the orders the Cardinals have been passing down: keep them in the water no matter the cost. Wait--hold that thought." Melchior pulled back the string of his bow and fired an arrow at a pig wondering towards the sand. The needle stuck in its' eye, causing the pig to squeal and take half a step back. 

Ira watched him shoot arrow after arrow and tried to stifle the blush rising in his cheeks. Was it normal to feel this warm beneath the heavy wash of midnight rain? Melchior turned back to face him and Ira looked down at his boots. 

"We have a plan for that." Mayvalt said, tilting her head at the Third Prince. "Interested?" 

Melchior laughed, tossing his shoulders up into a carefree shrug. "Sure. What's there to lose?" 

Everything, Ira thought. The word was too heavy to come up his throat. It sat at the bottom of his gut, stewing as just another unspoken thing. Only time would tell if he'd regret staying silent then. "Okay, then do as I say and nothing else. Do you understand? If you do, we can move forward." 

Mayvalt nodded, jabbing with her chin. Ira's eyes turned to Melchior. He lifted his hand to his face and bit the edge of his thumb, seemingly lost in concentration. Finally, he sighed and shook his head. "Now you've got me nervous, Kitten. What could you want from me that I need to agree to before hearing?" 

"Agree and find out?" Ira suggested weakly.

He laughed and surrendered with a slight nod. So Ira told them everything. His entire plan, down to the seconds. And when he was done, Melchior squeezed his eyes shut and dragged his fingers through his cropped curls. 

"You want me to distract the general while you and the Prince bless the lake?" Melchior summarized. "Will that work? Holy water can't kill Beasts or demons, it just burns them. Trust me, I have some experience in that." 

"Sure, your holy water couldn't. What you Heimrians are capable of wielding is hardly even a fraction of divine power. But boss is an Ely. He can harness it to a scale much greater than anything you've ever seen." Mayvalt explained. 

"Okay, and after that. What about the general? What about the gate?" Melchior pressed. 

"One problem at a time." Mayvalt shrugged. 

"So you don't know." He scoffed. "You can't close the gate and you can't kill the general." 

"Mel," Ira warned, placing his palm on his shoulder. "We can battle Belial for his divine sword and use that for the rest. Who cares if it's not a Vestige? It still cuts Ely skin. Listen, this is our best shot at saving the world and you." 

"Maybe that's the problem, Kitten." Melchior said listlessly. "We aren't meant to have both."  

"Don't say that." Ira said, shaking his head until he was dizzy. "Don't ever say that again, Mel."

"I'm sorry." He said those simple words the same way the Prince laughed. As part of an act. A motion detached from any strings. Ira's heart stung behind his ribs. 

"I'll keep him in line." Mayvalt said, glancing at Ira. "I'll keep him from doing anything stupid." 

"Thank you." Ira breathed. "Then, if there's no more questions. Let's go. Everyone has been covering us for far too long." 

Mayvalt seemed anxiously eager. Maybe because moving forward now meant directly protecting her boss, or maybe because punching Belial had seemed enticing to her since seeing the Third Prince do it hours before. She wrapped her fingers around the wild weeds carved into the sides of her Fae-Iron staff and plunged into the lake. 

Ira turned to Melchior, gesturing with his open palms. "After you." 

"This might not work." He said, pulling an Ossein arrow into the cradle of his bow.

"It will." Ira said. He hoped he could change the world. 

"If it doesn't-" 

"It will." He hoped he could change fate. 

"If it starts to go wrong-"

"It won't." He hoped he could change the hearts of the angels. 

"I really like you, Ira Rule." Melchior said. "Would you like to go out on a date with me?"

Ira's heart leapt into his throat and then tumbled back down, bouncing off the sides of his ribs. His finger's shook over the polished wooden handles of his daggers. He swallowed the blush heating his cheeks and pressed his lips together to dismiss the smile begging to break. "Why are you asking me now?" 

"I don't know when I'll get another chance." Melchior shrugged. "Is that a no?" 

"It's not. . . it's not a no." Ira admitted. 

"Then it's a yes?" Melchior laughed, raising his eyebrows. 

Ira shook his head. "Not yet. When we're done here, come find me. I'll give you a real answer." 

Melchior nodded in thought and tilted his head up to the moon. "Well that, Ira Rule, sounds like a promise." 

"I suppose it is." Ira flushed. 

"You know promises have to be sealed with a kiss." Melchior shrugged. His shimmering green eyes found Ira in the dim. They filled with moonlight and shone twice as bright. 

"Oh, is that a fact?" Ira laughed. 

"Well, we could sign a contract but-" 

"-oh, whatever." Ira sighed, rolling his eyes playfully. 

He stepped across the sand, covering thousands of miles with just half a step, and at the end was Melchior. Daggers still in hand, Ira opted for resting his forearms on Melchior's shoulders. The taller boy obediently bent his head--and Ira found him. Because he always would. Because with every fiber of him, he searched for him. His other half. 

Melchior was Ira's missing pieces. He made him whole with the warmth of his skin, and the scent of his hair, and the sweet sound of his laugh. Emptied and bitter was Ira without him. He didn't know how he'd survived so long without him. A thousand lifetimes, a million days he'd been beside the Prince--every single second was a mistake. A moment wasted. A chance to be whole stolen. 

Vaguely, Ira knew that he had no choice. That unlike him, Melchior only existed now. But even more distant than that was a nagging sense of familiarity. Like it wasn't true. Like in every single lifetime Ira had lived, Melchior had been there, too. When they came apart, breathing in cold midnight rain from smiling lips, it tasted of déjà vu. 

Melchior turned to leave and Ira followed. That seemed familiar, too. So did the pins and needles filling his stomach, piercing holes into all the fluttering wings beating there. The water rose over the tops of Ira's boots, filling him with freezing dread. 

The Third Prince had backed into Lake Seneca to his hips. His movements were dragging, weighted by the press of the waves. His nephew swung left with his divine blade. The Prince staggered right at a half-second too late. The iron glanced across the side of his white suit-shirt. The Prince hissed in pain. Red bloomed across the fabric, spider-webbing up and out from the slice dug into his invulnerable skin. 

Mayvalt reached him first. She lifted her Fae-Iron Bo as the general hoisted the tip of his Divine-Iron longsword. At the same moment--they struck. The general slashed towards the Prince's beating heart. He tumbled back, just barely avoiding the edge of the weapon. 

Mayvalt's staff sliced through the air until it met the armored shoulder of the general. The metal met metal with a crash loud enough to rival the car horns on Fifth Avenue. The silver plate folded beneath the body of Mayvalt's Bo, converging against the general's flesh beneath. He made a sound comparable to one of his many boars and spun on his heels, yellow eyes widened in shock. 

"You!" He spat. 

"Hey, cousin. I was feeling a little left out." She smirked. 

The Prince pressed his palm to his bleeding side and exhaled a sharp breath. "I had it handled, Mayvalt dear." 

"We got sick of waiting for you." She shrugged. "Are you done playing catch with your nephew, boss?" 

"I could be persuaded to take a break." He agreed dryly. The blood dripping from his split nose had dried over his fangs. The white of his shirt was rapidly turning pink. Belial, meanwhile, had nothing but a few bruises across his cheeks. The shadowy beginnings of a black eye. Ira wondered how seriously the Prince had been taking the duel. If it wasn't indicative of skill, then it seemed that only one of the angels had ever meant harm, and it wasn't the Prince covered in his own blood. If he'd had any time left to ponder, he might have. 

Melchior slipped into Mayvalt's left, while Ira moved into the right. Together, with the wounded Prince, they formed a circle around the general. His head whipped between the newcomers. He held his sword at the ready, keeping them all carefully distanced.

"What's this? A group number?" He laughed between his snarls. His gaze sunk hooks into Melchior. His lips pulled back over his sharp teeth in a wolfish display. "You, the little dog with his arrows. I remember you. I will delight in snapping your spine."

Melchior grit his own pointed teeth and raised his bow, holding his string back with the tips of his steady fingers. 

Belial swiveled, changing direction to glare at Mayvalt. "The little deer who plays pretend daughter. Did you actually think my uncle would save her? Your missing lover, I mean. Well, you were wrong. Because you're nothing to an Ely, foul goat."

She lifted her chin. The moonlight caught along the golden coff resting over her antler, filling the sky over her pink hair with golden light. "Go on and bark, puppy. We'll still put you down." She scoffed.

Belial licked his teeth. He seemed a lion poised for the killing blow, unconcerned for anything but filling his stomach. It made Ira nervous. Like Belial was the one tricking them, as if this entire night had only been an extravagant show. His golden cat eyes roamed once more, falling down one more peg. To the last link in the chain cornering him. To Ira Rule. 

"And you. Who are you? A pathetic Heimrian here amongst all these greater creations. Well, perhaps not so great, it's only a half-breed and the goat-girl. Then there's the star of this show; the traitorous Prince-" Belial's voice froze over his tongue. He held perfectly stiff and then laughed as if he'd heard a great joke. "Ah, wait, I have an idea."

He clicked his tongue playfully and strolled forward through the tide. His movements cast his Avernian armor in starlight, it bounced off his shell and dripped along the body of his divine blade. Melchior and Mayvalt drew forward, flashing their Avernian weapons. But the general paid them no mind. Ira held his daggers aloft over his heart, ignoring the painfully quick thumping of it. 

The general smirked. A lightness sparkled just beyond his black pupils. He leaned forward over the thin distance between them. "It's you, isn't it? You'll have to forgive me. If you saw the state of your soul--well, I wonder how they did it. How they twisted your soul up into this unrecognizable shape." 

"I don't know what you mean." Ira said from behind clenched teeth. 

"You know exactly what I mean. Oh! Is it a secret? I'm just overflowing with anticipation. I can hardly stand it. Shall I tell him?" Belial whispered, gesturing at the Third Prince with a wild smirk across his identical face. "Shall we tell him who you are?"

The Ossein arrow glanced across the center of Belial's back, exploding into shards of bone. He growled and whipped around, flashing his Divine-Iron in Melchior's direction. "Mutt." 

"It's Melchior." He corrected with a stiff smile. He fletched another arrow into his bow string and held his aim at the general's chest.

Mayvalt laughed, tossing back her head in a display of overwhelming excitement. "Bested by a dog. How embarrassing, cousin. Wait--you know what I just thought of? If you both share the wolf's blood, doesn't that make you family? We're all family! Wow, what a reunion." 

Belial's lips curls in disgust. "You're nothing, goat. No family of mine. That half-blood even less." 

"C'mon, cousin." She shrugged. "Don't be so uncharitable. We're all demons here." 

"I am no demon, you filthy barn animal!" He screamed, surging towards her with his sword raised. 

Mayvalt smirked, lifting her shoulders in a mockingly apologetic shrug. "Sap, but you're an Avernian. Aren't you? I mean I certainly don't see you being able to go back to Elysium. Ever." 

Belial turned purple and struck out with his Divine-Iron. It sliced through the air, whistling where it cut the rain. Mayvalt darted forward, raising her Bo. With a clang that silenced the rest of the battle, the weapons met. Ira had expected her Bo to snap in half, like the Ossein the Prince had first attacked with, but it held beneath a shower of golden sparks. Mayvalt laughed wildly and the general screamed in frustration.

They broke off, each taking a step back. Melchior stepped forward, releasing his arrow at the general. The Ossein punched at his chest and shattered. 

"Is that all you've got?" Belial snarled.

"We're just getting started, cousin!" Mayvalt called. She ran forward through the lake, swinging her Bo up and at the general. The tip caught his chin and snapped his head back. The same trick she'd used on Legion, Ira noted. He stumbled several paces before catching himself. He snarled and surged forward, swinging his sword blindly. The same trick; the same end result. Rage from the enemy. 

Mayvalt caught Ira's eye and nodded. With Belial secured to the end of her hook, she retreated towards the beach. He pursued her, slicing and jabbing at her shadow with his divine weapon. On waterlogged leather boots she managed to just barely keep from his range. Ira turned to Melchior. He hesitated, glancing between Mayvalt and Ira with green eyes flecked with concern.

"Go with her." Ira nodded. "And stay out of the water, Mel." 

Maybe that order was too vague. Maybe what he needed to say instead was no matter what, don't come back for me. But he didn't. It became one more unspoken regret in an already sky-high tower, adding to a swarm so large that soon Ira would forget what he'd said at all that night. 

Melchior nodded with a stiff jab of his chin. "Okay." He said. 

But Ira wouldn't forget that. That one simple word. Spoken so softly, he'd nearly lost it to the rain. And then Melchior was leaving. Ira was watching him leave, and it was becoming more difficult to breath with each step. Because it felt like Ira was meant for this--for watching him leave. For feeling only the absence of him. For the longing that came at watching the ripples form around his departure. 

The Prince tilted forward, landing on his knees in the lake. Ira twisted, suddenly reminded of why he even came, and submerged himself into the lake. He moved through the waves, fighting the tug of them to reach the Prince's side. 

When he'd finally reached him, daggers in hand, he fell short on what to do. So, he waited. He watched as the Prince collected himself with deep ragged breaths. It seemed even that he had the time to wait. That everything had gone eerily still. The Prince and him had slipped into the eye of a hurricane, and all that he could do was watch the walls of waters and winds surrounding him.

On the beach, knights tangled with twelve-foot-tall boarish warriors. The wall still held, the line keeping each pig a step back into the lake. But Ira didn't know for how much longer. The Ossein swords dragging through the air in returned fire had begun to lag and slow. Exhaustion rolled across the platoons, it was clear. They were beginning to fizzle out.

The boars did not share in that human weakness. They swung with vigor, slicing apart bodies as easily as Ira could rip a sheet of note paper. And as if they never mattered, each fallen knight was effortlessly replaced by another. One with an even grimmer expression, who stood over the blood-soaked sands of the last.

In the water, they emerged in increasing numbers from the distance waves. They broke through the oil dark surface, screaming with freshly filled lungs. Each pig began with a swim to the shallows. They clabbered through the waters in panicked jabbing splashes. They seemed only to be swimming by pure chance. As if a miracle held them to the surface.

Ira's grip tensed over his daggers. He moved towards the Prince and then around him. He placed himself against his back and watched the approaching pigs splash haphazardly towards New York.

"They won't come close." The Prince said, his eyes still shut.

Ira glanced at him and then at the boars. True to his word, their path began to diverge. They moved around Ira and the Prince and walked towards the beach, snarling and snapping their tusk-filled mouths. Occasionally, one would toss a hatred filled gaze at the Prince before shambling by.

"They're not attacking you." Ira agreed. "Why aren't they attacking you?"

"They're still following Belial's orders." He said with a casual shrug.

"He doesn't want you harmed?" Ira asked, raising his eyebrows.

"He does," the Prince corrected, "but he'd like to be the one to do it."

"Angels," Ira swore, "and I thought my family was complicated."

The Prince puffed a slight laugh from the edges of his curled lips and fell once again into silence.

"Are you okay?" Ira asked. He winced. His words dripped with apathy, enough even to wound himself. But if the Prince noticed, he made no mention of it. 

"He. . . stabbed me." He rasped. He lifted his palm from his side, staring with blank yellow eyes at the blood slick against his hand. 

"He broke your nose, too." Ira pointed. 

The Prince had nothing to say to that. He exhaled a breath as stiff as the wind over a desert and returned his cupped palm to the split torn into the side of his chest. Ira had assumed the Prince to be someone completely devoid of feeling, but staring down at him now left him unsure.

He seemed stunned--too stunned for the degree of injury. A slight surface level blow to his torso. A Deacon could have shaken it off, and this was the Third Prince. Slumped on his knees, staring at the back of his nephew as Mayvalt and Melchior dragged him towards the sand. Ira winced, shaking his head at his own lack of self reflection. Hadn't he been ready to give up back beneath the axe of a boar? 

But this was the Prince--Ira sighed, pressing his fingertips to the bridge of his nose. It didn't matter. Not for as long as he needed the Prince in his plans. 

"Can you stand?" Ira asked.

The Prince's distance yellow cat eyes flickered up to him. He hesitated for a moment and then lifted his shoulders in a weak shrug, one lacking his usual level of cavalier playfulness. "No point. Didn't you come here to bless the water? I think my position now works rather well."

If water was what they needed then on his knees and submerged up to his shoulders did seem the ideal place. Ira nodded. "Okay, shall we get on with it?"

"You're very demanding." The Prince muttered blankly. "Fine, if you insist. I need you to stay here. You'll be acting as my vessel."

"How does a vessel act?" Ira asked. 

"Quietly." The Prince barked sarcastically, blinking his dazed eyes. "I need to pool my power somewhere before releasing it into the water."

"Why can't you just pool it in the pool?" Ira asked, with a healthy heap of returned sarcasm.

"I can't pull all the power we need instantaneously." The Prince said. "And we're not boiling frogs here--if my weakened power gets into the lake before we're ready for the killing strike then they'll be onto our plan. And trust me, your knights versus thousands of panicked and stampeding pigs-" 

"They're holding so far." Ira grit out between clenched teeth. 

"Those boars are playing with them." The Prince scoffed. "Legion has no ambition. No mind of its' own. Right now, they are Belial, and he feels like this is all a game. If he wanted those knights dead--they would be." 

Ira paused for a moment and then surrendered with a shake of his blond head. 

"Okay, so I'm your nuke." Ira said. "Is that. . . safe?" 

The Prince shrugged and Ira winced. He pressed his palms against the sides of his head. It had only just stopped ringing, and now he seemed dizzy on something even worse. "You're just mentioning this now?"

"It seemed you had very few options left." The Prince said. "Why spend time agonizing over the details when we were going to end up here in the end anyway?" 

"Because I could explode!" Ira shouted, throwing his palms into the air.

The Prince pressed his fingertips to the bridge of his broken nose, giving a theatrical performance of indifference. "Fine! Go then! Go grab your friend and slaughter him. That will certainly give you the better odds of making it out of here." 

Ira's tongue froze over his teeth. He swallowed, choking on the taste of ash, and fell silent. The Prince's expression softened. He blew a breath from between his bloodied teeth and let his gaze fall to the surface of the rolling lake. 

"I'm sorry." He spoke plainly, but Ira thought some part of him might have meant it. "We can find another way, one that gives you and your friend a chance. I'll help you-" 

"No." Ira said, shaking his head. "No. You're right. This is. . . this is it. Let's just do it." 

The Prince gazed up at him for a moment before slowly nodding. Ira's face, set into harsh lines of determination, was the last thing the Prince looked at. He let his eyes drift slowly shut and tilted his head back slightly to soak in the rain drops falling from the jet black sky. The tears pelted his cheeks and rolled down the sides of his angular jaw. It hung from his skin and dripped over the soaked fabric of his stained shirt. And Ira watched each raindrop, following the trails of them with his blue eyes. 

He wondered how many gallons of water falling from the sky it would take to wash the Prince's mask from his face. He was a puzzle--a problem. And Ira couldn't figure it out. He was the Prince. The Third Prince of Hell. He was Beelzebub. He was Ira's greatest mistake, but he didn't know Ira. Despite, in every lifetime, knowing Ira--he didn't know Ira.

If you saw the state of your soul. Belial had said.They twisted your soul up into this unrecognizable shape.

Who was they? The angels? Had it happened when Ira had been merged together with the Forgotten Prophecy? When he'd become half of Melchior? When they'd turned him over to this miserable path of repentance? 

Then should he be grateful? Should he be glad that he'd been marred past familiarity? So when it was over he could kill the Prince and finally wash his hands free of this mess. So he could go to college with Melchior, and move past the tangled lies of his past to make a better future with Father Pine--as a real family. 

Ba-dump!

Ira winced, pressing his flattened palm to his chest. His heart stung, twisting in place from a sudden hot spike poking at his ribs. He gasped in a lungful of frozen night air--choking on the sudden heat. And then it was still. Gone, as if it had never happened. He rolled his shoulders, wondering if what he'd felt had ever been real at all. The rain soaked in his hair. The lake tugged at the material of his pants, mud pooled over the tops of his boots. Ira glanced at the Prince. Still knelt in silent meditation, head tilted back towards the full moon.

"Is it work-" 

Ira's words burst inside his throat, exploding into acid which tore at the back of his throat. He doubled over, gasping in lungfuls of scorched air. Hooks found him. They came from the sky, replacing the rain with fiery teeth. They impaled in his flesh, burrowing until they met the resistance of bone.

Ira screamed--or he thought he did. Until he felt the painful snapped of his jaws grinding his teeth and realized he'd never made any sound at all. His head lurched back, forcing his gaze upwards to the starry sky. His muscles tensed until his bones begged to break beneath them. Where each invisible stinger stabbed into his skin, it was volcanic. Ira was burning alive from invisible fire. 

He wondered if this was how Melchior had felt when the Beast had tossed him into Lake Seneca. If this was how it felt to be consumed by power, like his blood was being boiled to evaporation inside of his veins.

For a Heimrian to hold onto power from Elysium it must first be diluted. Ira could recall Mayvalt saying those words, hunkered beside him against an old pine tree. Water is a vessel, so is the blade of a Vestige. 

He couldn't breath. He couldn't think. Ira's heart slammed against his ribs, begging to break free. Pleading to flee from the tsunami of molten metal inside of his marrow. The cold fingers of the lake slipped away, and Ira was falling. He'd taken a misstep and dropped into the space between the universe. The full moon, the starry sky, the lake, and the forest. They were all just strings woven together in a tapestry--and Ira had been removed from the art. He'd plummeted into a place occupied by nothing but agony so strong it was white static. 

And that was where he remained. For seconds, for centuries, for a span so ancient it could never be counted. The minutes dragged into years, all of it spent doused in flames. He was living a thousand deaths--all of them converged into one. His throat swelled until air abandoned his lungs. His skin stung with a thousand slashes. His heart pittered into a final pathetic beat. And that was where he hung, suspended and writhing--until he heard it. 

"Have you ever run out?" 

The whisper floated across the back of Ira's eyelids. And he latched to it. He reached out with shaking fingers and grasped it tightly. Desperate for anything to pull him from the white noise screaming in his eardrums. 

The voice was his own. He could recognize it, he remembered it. The voice that replied was the one he needed most. It came with a laugh and the slightest recollection of a smile breaking over pointed white teeth. 

"Of arrows?" When he turned to speak, he paused his progress on the hiking trail. Ira rushed to meet him. He pressed in to the slim trail, forcing them to walk side-by-side beneath the cerulean blue pines blanketing the Catskills. 

Ira had huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, cocking his head. "Yes, of arrows. Why are you acting like it's a stupid question?"

"No, no. It's not--I've just never been asked that before." He laughed, surrendering with a gesture made of flattened and raised palms. "I've run out before, yes."

"Was it. . . scary?" Ira asked.

Melchior tilted his head for a moment and then shook it. "No."

"Why not?" Ira asked.

"Well, it's a secret." Melchior teased. "An archer's trick."

Ira wrinkled up the lines of his eyebrows and pressed his expression down into a soft glare. "An archer's secret? Now I've got to know."

So Melchior laughed, a sound that filled all of Ira's skull, and shrugged. "Fine, alright. You've convinced me."

Ira leaned forward, coming so near to the other boy that the scent of his skin filled his lungs. Ira's heart pittered faster but he told himself it was out of anticipation. After all, hearing the cure to fear seemed rather enticing. 

"I counted them." He said. "Each arrow I fire, I count."

Ira leaned back and scoffed, blowing a heated sigh from his nose. "That's. . . simple."

"An archer isn't afraid of running out of arrows." Melchior said. "They're afraid of wasting the ones they have." 

Ira leaned back, turning to look up at the pine needles hanging over their heads. 

"You're disappointed with my trick?" Melchior guessed, glancing at his sulking. 

Ira shook his head. "No, I just thought you had a way to chase out fear. I guess I am a little let down." He laughed.

Melchior nodded. "Well, next time you're afraid. Why don't you count?" 

Ira tipped his head in confusion. "Count my arrows?" 

"Or sheep." Melchior teased. "Just count, Kitten. Before you know it--it will all fade away. You'll have defeated the monster before you run out."

He squeezed his eyes shut. The wind rustled through the blue needles, filling the forest with soft sweet songs. And he counted--he counted the only way he knew how. 

I am Ira Rule. 

I am Ira Rule.

I am Ira Rule.

I am-

"Ira Rule."

His eyes snapped open, and Ira burst into a coughing fit so violent he thought he must have slipped beneath the waves. Each of his nerves felt lava-filled and curled beneath his skin. He sputtered on the ash coating his throat and forced his shuddering lungs to take in gulps of cold night air.

The water pooled around his hips, holding him together with its' gentle pressure. Where he was licked by flames, the water rose to sooth his ache. Ira gasped in a breath as sharp as rock salt and slumped to his knees, falling greedily into the cold wash. The molten liquid inside of him hardened, becoming stiff metal shells over his bones. Ira sucked in deep breaths and exhaled ragged sighs until the world stopped spinning around him. 

Alive. He was alive. 

"Is it. . . over?" Ira wheezed. 

"You're a jar full of gunpowder." The Prince agreed. "It's far from over."

He could barely manage to hold his eyes open--but he did. He twisted, searching to catch up on what he'd missed while floating in delusions. Where--where? Ira's heart stuttered to a halt behind his charred ribs. On the sand, tangled with Mayvalt, was Melchior. On his feet and unharmed, firing arrows at Belial. The general seemed a viper in a pit, lashing and whipping furiously between Mayvalt and Melchior's attacks but unable to land a strike. The shallows were still filled by twelve-foot-tall boars. The wall containing them was thinning, filling with more spilt blood. Enough to weave thousands of new robes. 

"Focus, darling." The Prince said. "It's time." 

"For?" 

"Ignition." 

"What was it before?" Ira rasped, the Prince leveled him with a wince and Ira groaned out a sigh of surrender. "Fine! Just tell me what to do." 

"Nothing." The Prince said. "I needed you to hold my power here in this realm, and now that you have all I need to do is take it back. Your only job is to stay alive." 

"Okay." Ira nodded. "Okay, yeah, sure. Works for me." 

The Prince held out his palm, extending it over the waves. Ira looked down as if it had scorched him--and then realized it had. He glanced back up at the Prince who tilted his head and scoffed. "I don't bite. . . well--I won't." 

Ira hesitated a second more before reaching for the Prince. His fingertips eased into the other's cupped palm, shivers exploded from where their skin touched. The Prince was as cold as ice and full of electricity, it sent arcs of lighting shooting into Ira's elbow, painful jabbing needles that sunk into his flesh. Ira gasped and yanked his hand away. The Prince's glinting golden eyes widened--but he let Ira go without protest. 

Ira turned pink and stammered to defend himself. "It hurt." He muttered simply. 

"I'll be gentle." The Prince promised dryly, extending his palm again. "We'll call that a trial run. Hold onto me, and don't pull away again." 

"W-why not?" Ira asked, his heart flipping beneath his wild nerves. 

"We're forming a connection. One that is rather hard to maintain when you jerk away from me." The Prince said, forcing a light chuckle into his otherwise dull tone. 

"Ah," Ira clicked. "Right." 

He blew a breath through his nose and extended his palm, once again finding the Prince. Their fingers tangled this time, wrapping each other into a loose embrace with the heels of their palms pressed together. Ira squeezed his eyes shut and hoped he wasn't turning pink. 

"Ready?" The Prince asked. 

Ira nodded. 

"Don't let go." The Prince said once more--and then Ira felt it and knew why the Prince had warned him again. 

It was agony. Or something worse. As painful as it had been to fill up on divine power, it was so much more to lose it. The muscles of his arm flexed, his shoulders twitched, and it took all he had to not withdraw. He might have if the Prince hadn't ever so slightly tightened his grip.

He could feel it. As hot as he'd felt before, it was twice as cold. Prying strings as frigid to the touch as dry ice. They slithered into Ira through the palm of his hand. They were coming from the Third Prince. Where the moved under his skin they left a trail of frost, turning the muscles of his arm into solid blocks of ice and churning his blood to sludge. 

Ira's mouth opened in a silent scream, a single gasping wheeze all he could manage to force past his lips. Tears filled his eyes and turned to fresh snowflakes before they could roll down his cheeks. 

He was really going to die. He was really going to die. 

Panic stronger than the pain bloomed behind his eyelids. Ira jerked--and the Prince grasped him tighter. Ira kicked, terrible sobs filled his throat, his shoulders trembled beneath the black fabric of his bishop's cloak, but the Prince held on. Ira's tongue turned into cement behind his teeth. He was glad--he didn't want to beg. 

Ira shut his eyes--and for what felt like the first time in his life; he didn't fight as the sleep reached to take him. He went willingly. He fell away, receding into the furthest corners of his mind. Running until the pain could not follow. He went down, and down, and down. Like descending to the Cardinal's court--and then burying into the marble floors. 

Down, and down, and down.