We ran until it hurt to breathe...

Wait, no, let me rephrase that. I ran until it hurt to breathe. Then Sheira helpfully dragged me on for another thirty, slow, agonising minutes. I mean, yeah, I get the point of wanting to put as much space between us and the possible homicidal maniacs who may or may not be hot on our trails, but at this point, I was more than willing to take a risk on the latter half of that option. By the time she finally slowed up, I was wheezing Thomas the Tank Engine's, chain-smoking cousin and seriously considering punting myself into the giant, possibly shark-infested, pit trap before us.

"Just...wheeze...five....wheeeze...minutes....wheeeeeze....please!" I begged, lungs burning like I'd snorted a round of paprika (don't ask).

But Sheira wasn't in the mood. She stared at the darkness behind us as if a whole squadron of soldiers were just going to pop out of thin air. I couldn't hear any footsteps or shouting voices, but then again, I couldn't hear much over my rasping windpipe and roaring in my ears. Besides, we both knew how easy it was to sneak up on someone with a soundproof sigil seared into your leg.

With a flash of bright white light, a layer of ice covered the gaping maw of the pit. Sheira hooked a hand under my armpit and dragged me forwards, taking care to shatter our bridge as soon as we were clear. "Just a bit further," she promised, still clutching my arm. "Just until we know we're not being followed.

Turns out, "not being followed" meant another hour of crawling through more of the same ancient, damp ruins that would've given Dungeons and Dragons a run for its money. And the traps weren't getting any nicer either.

Did someone order more bottomless pits? Because we've got bottomless pits! And for a small additional fee, you can also get yours outfitted with the latest spine shattering boulders, wooden spikes that can impale a human vertically and still have room to spare, and for the sadist in your life, one filled to the brim with massive stinging nettles!

There were also fake floors, spikes that shot out of the ceiling if you stepped on the wrong pressure plate, gargoyles that probably spat fire (or worse) at some point, wrecking balls ready to wreck your life and an actual honest to god Indiana Jones boulder poised at the top of the ramp. Luckily for us, however, Ren and her mates had obviously come through this place before and had a good mind to deactivate all of the traps we came across. Because, y'know who fancies working in a place where you're playing Russian roulette with the floor tiles?

It seemed pretty clear to me that whoever built this place didn't want anyone getting in or, rather horribly, out, and I had a nasty feeling which option it was. I came to this realisation sitting on a wooden boat pulley system that was definitely the newest thing in these stupid tunnels for a good century or four. The water beneath us was icy cold and almost black with muck. Not that the water being clear would've helped us as when Sheira prodded a loose shovel into it, the water went up to her wrist and was still going.

Ren hadn't actually said what these ruins were for, but she did know an awful lot about what happened to the people corrupted by the Infernal Fire. Let's just say no one with a Fire Heart could've crossed the river alive and leave it at that, shall we?

Once we were clear of the water and I cut the pulley system with Incaendium (Sheira was adamantly refusing to let me burn anything), there was a distinct lack of traps. Still, I walked with my unusually quiet sword out, flames lighting our way through the tunnels. These corridors were certainly cleaner than our last lot with exposed carvings on the walls and ceilings, archaeologists tools strewn around them, leading us into open rooms filled with statues and strange stone plinths.

If I was in a better mood, I would be picturing myself as Nathan Drake, sneaking through ancient passageways and hunting for long lost treasure. Sadly Ren and the others had picked this place clean months ago. But a boy can dream, right?

We wandered for a bit more, following the red arrows so helpfully laid out by the archaeologists through bigger and grander chambers. After a few more minutes, Sheira suddenly came to a halt, causing me to bump into her shoulder and almost fall to my knees before she caught me.

"Listen, buddy, you may be a complete klutz at the best of times, but you're not usually this bad." She said, easing me upright again. "We can stop for a rest if you need."

"Y'know, I might just take you up on that offer," I slid down the wall onto the cold dirt. Sheira dropped down beside me, shoulder to shoulder. "It's just been a long day."

"You said it."

We sat in slightly awkward silence for a while. It wasn't as if our fight hadn't happened. God knows my stupid brain wasn't about to let me forget that one any time soon, but from this angle, it really didn't seem that important anymore. I mean, we were talking to each other at least, so that was something.

Sighing the rattliest sigh I'd ever sighed, I gazed aimlessly around the room. It was by far the biggest chamber we'd found with ceilings reaching a good twenty- thirty feet up, but it certainly wasn't the glitziest. I mean, come on, a few rooms back, we'd found a marble statue that would've made Michelangelo's David look like a pre-schoolers pasta tower.

This room had one carving, a single hooded figure looking like they'd stepped out the code of Assassins Creed. Their arms were outstretched with two streams of something pouring from their hands. The people at their feet were looking up at the figure with what my much more eloquent mother would describe as "divine reverence" (Since she's started researching ancient cultures, I have been dragged around every museum and art gallery London has to offer. Not that I mind though).

If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was a god, but there's one small problem...we don't have gods. We do have religions like the Hands of Cressida or the Church of the Sun, but they "worship" either the teaching of an Ancient or the raw power of the elements and over the last year I'd seen just about every depiction of the idols known to our kind, thanks to Sheira shoving the book in my face. Ezio Auditore over there was not one of them.

Oh well, good a conversation starter as any. "Hey, Sheira," I nudged her foot to get her attention, "who's that?"

She'd been staring into space for the last minute, so she jumped a bit. "Who's who?"

I nodded towards the carving. "Them. On the wall. The cool looking one with the spear. Doesn't look like any Ancient you've ever shown me."

Instead of replying, she just blinked at the mural. Once, then twice, pause, then blinked again. Out of nowhere, she sat bolt upright, scaring me out of my skin, and let out a gasp.

"No way!

"Jesus effing Christ, Sheira!"

"Oh my god, that's- that's- Ren didn't tell me she found that!"

"You're scaring me now," I muttered, pulse almost back to normal. "Who did she find?"

"Meteora!" She said excitedly.

Now it was my turn to do the slow blinks. "Sheira, that's not a person. That's a Linkin Park album."

"It's also a holy place in Greece, which is probably where they, and he, got the name from. It means 'elevated' or 'high in the air'."

"Sounds more to me like this Meteora guy thinks rather highly of himself with a name like that." I snorted. "It's like those dumb people on Instagram who insist on calling themselves 'influencers' for drinking kale frappes and having a yoga mat."

Yay! I got a laugh out of her for that one. We're still friends!

"Well, unlike those people," she playfully bumped me on the shoulder. "He definitely deserves it. Some people call Meteora the most powerful elemental to ever walk the planet."

"How'd you earn a reputation like that?"

"By being able to control time and space."

... "...oh."

"Yep."

"You mean like actually...."

"Yeah."

"Not like Teagan, who can only move herself back and forwards a few minutes, you mean like actually...."

"Like actually fast forwards, reverse and stop time completely at will? Like, can summon a black hole and create pocket dimensions with a snap of a finger? Like really, and I mean really time travel? Yeah, that's what I mean."

I stared slack jawed at the hooded form of Meteora, decidedly dumbfounded. "I didn't think we could do that."

"We're not. Messing with time is forbidden. Only Meteora and a few other U.B.E's can do it."

"U.B.E's?"

"Universe Breaking Entities." She said as casually as saying, 'would you like another cup of tea?'.

I stopped staring at the statue. "Right...so beings capable of destroying the universe as we know it are just wandering around unchecked and could bring down a planet with everything on it if they just wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Well, that's another reason for me not to sleep at night."

"From what we know, Meteora is one of the good ones."

"Still!" I gestured vaguely to the other end of the room. "That's an insane amount of power to just be milling about! They've made freakin' statues to him! Someone must know how to find him!"

Surprisingly Sheira shook her head with a mischievous grin. "Take another look, specifically at the head. What do you see?"

Alright, I'll bite, I thought to myself. I sat forward and stared hard at the carvings head. The detail had faded over the century, but the shape of the face and the hood were still relatively well defined. The problem was the bits between them. Unless, of course...

"He doesn't have a face!" I shouted.

"Almost! See the rock? It's rough. Uneven. The rest of the carving is intact, but the face is missing. Like at some point something removed it."

Sure enough, it did look like someone had taken a hammer or maybe an axe to it. Like the nose of the Sphinx! "Who would do that?"

"Probably Meteora himself. No one knows what he looks like, and as a result, he doesn't like having his face shown, with or without his mask on."

"But if he wears a mask, surely that would solve his problem?"

"Technically, yes. Legends say the mask is enchanted so even if someone takes it off, they won't remember or recognise him, even if he was in a line-up. But I've always seen it as if you're a time traveller you want to leave as few footprints as possible, but on the other hand, it also makes it easier to cover your tracks."

"It does help to know exactly when something is made."

"There's a famous story of a renaissance painter catching a glimpse of Meteora's face, but every time he put paint to canvas, he woke up the next morning to find the canvas cut from the frame. On the third attempt, he found the piece still there but covered in red and the words 'haven't you got the message yet?' shining for all to see. On the fifth and final attempt the painter made before giving up entirely, the words 'I can do this all day' appeared in black over a month of painstaking work. It was the longest Meteora had gone without desecrating his work."

"Now that's a power play. A month just flushed down the drain!"

"I think it's still in the elemental section of the British Museum. I'll take you there when...."

She trailed off, and the uncomfortable silence returned with a vengeance. She had been about to say, 'when we get through this.' I like it when our adventures end in 'when'. It was so much kinder than 'if'.

Sat there in those manky tunnels, it suddenly became quite real. Maybe it was Ren's words mixing with Koba's, or perhaps it was the realisation that the only way to save my stupid skin was to shut a dirty great gateway to another realm of existence... Yeah...that could be it, but either way, being forced to face the perils of your own mortality certainly gives you time to think about all the things you've done wrong.

"Sheira-" I began.

"Nick, I just-"

We both stopped and grinned awkwardly.

"You first, please."

"No, no, no, you started first."

"Sheira..."

"Go on!"

"No, you!"

"Okay, fine." She shot me a lopsided, sad smile. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry."

Well, that caught me off-guard. "What for? I'm the dumbass who's landed us in this mess! I'm the one who's been acting like a complete jerk. If anyone should be apologising, it's me."

"Maybe, but I can't stop thinking about what I said to you. I shouldn't have said that thing about your dad, that was crossing a line, and I can't take any of it back, no matter how much I want to. It was such a bitchy thing to say."

"Well, if you're a bitch then I'm an arsehole." I shrugged, "it hit me after the factory. I've been acting like a jackass for months now, a self-destructive jackass who stuck his hand into a furnace of clearly evil fire to prove a point. I guess I really thought it wouldn't hurt me, but you know what they say, pride comes before a fall or something like that."

"Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall," Sheira said knowingly.

"That's the full phrase?" I raised an eyebrow. "Well, if that's not the story of my life, I don't know what is."

"Oh, come on, you do have sensible moments."

"They're few and far between, though, let's be honest. I rush into battles headlong, punch first, ask questions never, and come off proud and sometimes arrogant to certain people. I'm a very lucky idiot."

"You're not stupid, though."

"Oh, I am, especially when compared to you."

"Okay, maybe not book smart then, but I've never met anyone who thrives under pressure like you do. You think up mad and brilliant plans completely off the cuff, you're a beast in battle, and your reaction time is insane."

"That's called anxiety, my dear Sheira."

She rolled her eyes in that wonderful Sheira way. "Come off it."

"No, really. My brain is racing all the time. The reason why I do so well in high-pressure environments is that that's my default setting. I'm always on edge; I've been like that since Dad died. When we were homeless, Mum said I was like a coiled spring, always ready just to lash out even when I was just trying to sleep." I sighed and bonked my head back against the wall. "But it's gotten easier, with my powers, I mean. I stopped thinking, 'Oh, someone's going to get me,' and I started thinking, 'Well, if they do, I can just blast them into next week'. You know? I felt strong like my fears meant nothing. I felt invincible! But now I'm scared again, powerless and terrified like I'm just-"

"Losing control?"

I turned back to her. She wasn't looking at me, in fact she seemed to be locked in a staring contest with the faceless carving (Spoiler alert Sheira you're not going to win this one). Of course she gets it, I thought to myself, grumpy I hadn't said anything sooner. Who else could?

"Yeah. Exactly."

"Look, I know it's super cheesy, but," she gently took my hand and gave it a squeeze, "I know how you feel. I lost everything important to me in like three years. First Mum, then my dad, then my home and my history, my title, my childhood, everything just ripped away and I-"

"Look, mate," I said, one word smacking me in the face like a home run swing. "I'm going to have to stop you right there but did you just say title?!"

At once, Sheira went from looking mildly annoyed and confused to a blushing, flustered mess who couldn't meet my eye. "Well, I- no- kinda- yeah- err...."

"Sheira, is there something you want to tell me? Like just perhaps, maybe you're nobility?"

The blush had now shifted from red velvet scarlet to a light cotton candy pink in her cheeks. "I mean technically yes."

"Technically!"

"My full name is Lady Sheira Alicia Winterton if you really want to know...."

Well, I'll be damned. It's like everything suddenly clicked. "Is that why Shadow called you 'Lady' and 'Princess' then? Did he know?"

She shrugged. "No idea. He might have, but he also might have just been trying to annoy me. To great success, I may add. But no, I never said anything explicitly to him."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She took a moment to think it over. "Well, if we're being honest with each other, then sure. Free therapy doesn't come by every day."

"Who said my services are free?"

A dig in the ribs later, she was staring straight ahead into the rocky mask of Meteora and took a very deep, steadying breath. "So pretty much everything I've told you about my family is still true. The biggest difference is the lord and lady part. My mum still died when I was eight, and my dad died three years later, but I might have missed out on the fact that his new wife might have killed him."

Well, that was a change from the script. Sheira told me her old man had a stroke. "So you think it was murder?"

"Yes! My stepmother was not a nice person. She started seeing my dad while my mother was dying in a hospital bed, showed up as his 'guest' to her funeral, announced they were getting married less than six months later and started tearing through my family home like the day after she moved in. Almost all of my mother's things went mysteriously 'missing' after that."

"Why didn't your dad do anything?"

Sheira scoffed. "He didn't care. My parents were an arranged marriage, and he certainly didn't love her. All he wanted was a pretty young thing on his arm to boast about to his friends at the golf club."

"I don't want to speak ill of the dead, mate, but...."

"Yeah, I know. He was the worst, but he was still my dad. That's why him dying hit me so hard, but it didn't exactly come out of nowhere. He kept getting sick, off and on for months. Then fell out of the third-floor window which wasn't strange but the only thing up there was the servants quarters. Then when he was recovering in bed, he had his stroke. On its own, those wouldn't have been weird, but stick 'em together and the empty needle on the bedside table, and it does look a little suspicious."

"Just a little!" I exclaimed loudly. "You've convinced me. But that does leave the important question of why your step mum would want to do your dad...wait."'

"You mean other than the vast quantities of money?"

"The thought hit me like a second after I finished talking."

"Idiot," Sheira sighed fondly. "But I don't think that was just it, though. It was like she was convinced that there was something on the grounds. She'd vanish for weeks at a time, but I never saw her leave the house, but whenever she came back, she'd be in a terrible state. Once she found me in the kitchen after she'd been gone a while and...and then...." Sheira swallowed hard, and I put my arm around her trembling shoulders. "I still don't know what I did to upset her, but one minute I'm making some lunch for myself and the next thing I know, I'm on the ground, bleeding from my head, and she's holding a metal ladle."

I gasped, but that was all I could do. All I could think of was the image of this tiny eleven year old covered in blood and shaking in fear, and it was like I had my full fire back. God have mercy of Sheira's stepmother if she ever meets me.

"It wasn't the first time she'd been like that," she went on with a sniff, "she'd called me every name under the sun and done everything in her power to berate me, but that was the first time she hit me. It wasn't the last, though. I've got a few scars on my back and legs. Lucky I'm so pale really, they don't really show."

"But surely you had people helping run the house, right? There must have been someone nearby!"

"But there wasn't Nick. She fired all the non-essential staff, and the rest of them left out of fear within a year or so. I was completely alone with her as she went from bad to completely insane. She kept disappearing for longer and longer, and she kept coming back worse. She was losing weight, she had this awful smell around her, and she seemed to be losing the ability to talk. She was getting more and more violent to the point I barricaded myself on the second floor. That was the point I knew I had to get out; if I stayed any longer, she'd have killed me, I'm sure of it."

"But you did get out."

She chuckled. "Wasn't easy. I had to climb over the roof, and since my powers kinda sucked back then, the only way I could get down was to sneak down the main staircase and out the front door. She found me on the stairs, but that thing wasn't human, not anymore. I can't describe it...it was so horrible."

"So don't," I said as Sheira choked back a sob.

"I just ran for the front door with her a claw's length from grabbing me. At one point, I felt her hands on my neck, but that same second the chandelier just came crashing down on top of her. I didn't kill her, no way, but it gave me the chance to escape, hop the wall and run all the way to London."

"Hell of a coincidence."

"The house was in disrepair by that point, but I get what you mean. Chandeliers don't just fall from the sky."

"Must have had a friend then."

"If I did, I never saw them. The first friends I made were at the Stronghold, but I was like you. I was constantly waiting for everything to be taken away from me again. I distanced myself a little, didn't keep many friends and certainly wasn't close to anyone."

"You do have friends, though."

"Yeah, but none of them are what I call 'best friends'. I can't share anything real with them. Fir god's sake you're the first person I've told about any of this! I just feel like they can't possibly get it. I'd lost so much in such a short space of time. I was a wreck, constantly on edge and desperate to not be hurt again. And then..." she looked at me then, properly looked at me. Her big blue eyes were still shiny with tears, but those were offset by the soft smile she only whipped out once in a blue moon. "Then I met you."

Jesus, is this girl trying to kill me? Before my death came at the hands of the warm and fuzzies, she elaborated, possibly to end me quicker. "When I met you, I felt like I didn't have to pretend. You just got it. You got everything down to a T. You understood me. Then through you, I meet Shadow who, annoying as he may be, is my best friend next to you. For the first time in years, I felt like everything was perfect. And then Shadow leaves, and you might be dead by the end of the wee!. I'm losing control over everything I love again, and I can't do it! I can't lose you!"

"Hey, hey, hey, I'm not going anywhere," I said firmly. "We're going to fix this, you and me, because there is no way in hell I am leaving you."

"But what do we do?"

"Simple! We head down to Southampton tomorrow, dig up some dirt on the smugglers, find the rift, dunk me in it and shut it up again. Should be done and home in time for tea."

She giggled. "You make it sound so easy."

"Well, I'm not going down without a fight, and if anyone tries to get in our way, we'll make 'em regret the day they decided to mess with the dream team of Fire Boy and Water Girl."

Maybe it was the frayed emotions or the ridiculousness of being sat in a cave, but we both devolved into peals of laughter. If I wasn't already aching, I'd have said we laughed until my sides hurt, but it turns out Infernal Fire really does a number on the old muscles.

When we could both finally breathe again, Sheira looked up at me, decidedly happier than before and said, "I love you, you idiot."

"Love you too, Sheir," I grinned back. "Even when I'm acting like I have a death wish?"

"Even when you have a death wish," she rolled her eyes. "Which you always seem to have."

"It's part of my charm."

"Sure it is," she added with all the sarcasm she could muster. "But we'll deal with it tomorrow. It's late, and you're in no fit state to be trekking over those hills. We'll get some shut-eye and deal with it when we wake up."

"That sounds like the best idea you've ever had."

Truth be told, I was exhausted, and since last year Shadow had been training us to sleep anywhere. I could fall asleep standing up if I wanted to, but right now, I didn't, so the floor it was, with my lumpy backpack as a pillow. Sheira still had her slender fingers laced with my scarred ones.

"Hey," I whispered in the dark, like the statue of Meteora could be listening.

"What?"

"We'll get through this. Together."

Next to me, I heard a sharp intake of breath before her grip tightened on my hand. "Promise?"

"Promise."

Staring up into the dark I made my own little vow to myself. Now you see, I don't like breaking promises at the best of times, but this was one I was going to keep.

Even if it killed me.