“Excuse me?” Xandra stared up at Orenda in disbelief, and Orenda knew that she was completely unprepared to deal with someone like herself, someone who had no respect for her position, and no fear of what was, apparently, a centuries long threat of, ‘Do as I say or my boyfriend will beat you up’.

“I said,” Orenda held out the sword, “Take this sword, that your people believe to be a sign of Divine Right, from me, or get out of my chair.”

“Klin,” Xandra said, and Klin reached out to take back his sword.

“No,” Orenda jerked it back, “I know your lapdog can hold it. I know he has a claim to Divine Right. I want to see you hold it. I have come to challenge the throne by divine right, and as a citizen of the Urillian Empire I have every right to do so. Now take this sword from me, or get up and let me sit down.”

“My family has-”

“Neither I, nor Thesis, cares,” Orenda said.

“Arrest this madwoman!” Xandra demanded of her guards, “I shouldn’t have to say that! I shouldn’t have to tell you not to let assassins into the castle to brandish weapons at your queen.”

“She’s got the fire stone!” Klin warned the soldiers that approached Orenda, “She’s been chosen by Thesis! Stand down!”

“Klin,” Xandra narrowed her eyes at him.

“No one else needs to die today,” Klin said, frantically, “Not… we don’t… it won’t do any good.”

“Klin, everything we’ve built… we’re so close.” Xandra pleaded with him.

“I didn’t get the air stone,” Klin said, “It won’t work.”

“We’ll get it,” Xandra swore to him, “You’ll go back. We’ll send a bigger army. We’ll do whatever you need. Why are you letting this happen?”

“Because!” Klin shrieked with such force that it reverberated through the ballroom, “Because we’re going to wake the demigorge! Because Morgan was right! Because I can’t do this anymore! Because she’s right! Because people hate us! I get back to another rebellion? Someone is always trying to kill us! It’s every day now! I can’t keep doing this! I haven’t sat down! I got off the boat and come in here with rabbits and pirates running around and how long am I supposed to take this? How much can I take?”

“You are shouting,” She said through clenched teeth, “Screaming and hollering and carrying on in front of the whole court.”

“I hate this court!” Klin screamed, and his eyes were green, “You know that! I’m not one of you, and it isn’t fair!”

The nobles, who had fallen silent began to murmer amongst themselves.

“You can break down later!” Xandra snapped at him, “Now is not the time!”

“No!” Klin said, “This has been- this has been…” He grabbed his face and began to cry, “Don’t do that! Get out of my head!”

“You’re upset,” Xandra said, “Get rid of this girl, and we’ll talk about it. We’ll go upstairs, away from all these people. Darling, my love, look at me; it’s going to be alright.” She cupped his face and looked deeply into his eyes, and Orenda was growing annoyed. None of whatever rich people nonsense they were going on about was any of her business, and couldn’t possibly be important. She opened her mouth to say as much, but suddenly Xandra’s composure broke, and Orenda did not know how long what she watching had been building.

“You did defeat the monster at the air temple on top of the world,” Xandra hissed, “we need to talk about this, now! You spoke to the demon Magnus? You left the stone in the Frozen North on the advice of a demon?” She stood, turned to Orenda and said, “I want this girl arrested, taken to the dungeon. I will retire to my chambers.”

“You’re not going anywhere!” Orenda told her, then jerked her head as the sound of a body hitting the floor. Sonny had finally passed out from the exhaustion, and Mary Sue followed soon after. Shifting at all was so tiring, and what they had done had drained their bodies. Orenda knew that they were at their most vulnerable, and if she didn’t do something now, they would never again awaken. The Urillians would slaughter them now, while they were weak.

“I’m sorry,” Klin cried, “I’m sorry.”

“Kill this assasin where she stands,” Xandra said, and Orenda watched her frail body tremble, “And we will talk about this.”

“I can’t!” Klin screamed, “I tried! And I… I…”

Stay strong, master. Orenda knew the sword was not speaking to her.

“I don’t think you’re right,” Klin admitted, speaking slowly, as if each word hurt, “I don’t… I don’t think… I… we can’t keep doing this. That stone is making you sick, Xandra! It’s hurting you and I did that, and I have to live with that.” He started to cry, “I love you so much and I’m killing you! It’s driven you mad, to live outside your element. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But we can’t keep doing this. I can’t… I can’t break that last seal! It’ll awaken the demigorge!”

“No, it won’t!” Xandra told him, “Let’s talk about it in private. You’re upset. You’ve always hated crowds. I’m trying to help you. You’re embarrassing yourself. You’re embarrassing me!”

“Xandra!” Orenda snapped, “Take this sword from me now, or I will set you ablaze. I don’t have time for whatever nonsense this is, and I don’t care. I am giving you a choice here. I don’t have to do that.”

“You don’t want to threaten me, little girl,” Xandra glared up at her, “Do you think I stayed alive by being weak?”

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“I think you stayed alive this long because you hid behind some dumbass child you found,” Orenda told her, “that has done everything you asked until he found someone else to manipulate him. No one in this castle seems to understand the way the real world works. I don’t know if you’re just that sheltered or that stupid, but people are dying! People are living in bondage! I am not here to discuss your relationships or to play games! I am the avatar of a god, and I have come to end the pain you have wrought. You ordered the attack that destroyed my homeland knowing something would happen, so you could build your bloody rock collection. You thought I would never find this again? Well I have! And if you want it back, you’ll have to pry it from my chest. And I don’t think you can. So take this sword, now. If you don’t, you will sizzle when you die like the last Urillian I killed!”

“Klin!” Xandra snapped.

“But she’s,” Klin argued, and to Orenda he snarled, “Don’t threaten her!”

“Don’t get involved,” Orenda told him, “You are really bad for each other, and I don’t care. I don’t know why you keep thinking I care! Get out of my way or burn! You two don’t seem to comprehend what’s happening here! You are standing between a god and the power to set the world to rights! So if you aren’t part of that future, get out of the way or burn!”

“This should have never been allowed to get this far,” Xandra said, “I can’t believe this!”

She glared at Klin, and he shrank back and folded his arms over his chest.

Xandra turned back to Orenda and raised her hand into a fist, and Orenda watched a bright, blue light emanate from her chest. Orenda wasn’t sure what she was trying to do, because while she did feel intense water magic settling over her face and hands, whatever Xandra had tried to cast did not penetrate the sterilite armor even in its weakened state.

Orenda arched an eyebrow at her, and Xandra stared at her with the first fear Orenda imagined the empress had felt in centuries.

“I don’t know why you didn’t believe me,” Orenda said, “I gave you the chance to run.”

She held the sword to her side, raised her hand, and felt the temperature change in the room. The power of a god flowed through her, and she released it.

Orenda did not think the emaciated witch could move so quickly. But the water from the rivers around the throne rose to meet the blast Orenda had cast, and the nobility screamed as it turned to vapor. The steam shot out so fiercely and so quickly that the soldiers behind Orenda fled as they began to cook in their armor like meat in a canner.

“Stop it!” Klin shrieked again, “Stop!”

“Help me!” Xandra yelled at him, “And have everyone evacuate!”

“What do we do, sir?” Orenda saw the impossibly old man, standing to the side.

“I have to save the princess,” Klin said, and his eyes were green as he jumped from the protective barricade of the water and tackled Orenda around her midsection. The sterilite armor, she realized, protected him from feeling the heat there, and he moved so fast and with so much strength that he knocked the air from her, and pinned her to the floor before she could react.

The sword went spinning from her grasp, and came to a rest several feet away.

“I told you to run!” Klin screamed, “I told you not to touch it! I gave you a chance! And you tried to kill my wife! Now I have to carve out your heart!”

“With your bare hands?” Orenda asked, “Get the hell off me! I don’t know what is wrong with you, but any idiot can see that she’s using you! You know it yourself! Get off of me and let me solve this problem for you!”

“Somebody throw me my sword!” Klin yelled, and then amended, “No, nevermind, I realized how stupid that was right after I said it. Thesis’s glowing eyes why am I so goddamn stupid?”

“I don’t think you are,” Orenda said, “I don’t think you’re stupid, I think you’re sad. And drunk. I wish I were drunk. Get off of me.”

“No!”

Klin grabbed at her chest, and Orenda felt the pain as he dug his fingers into her flesh. She wondered why he didn’t call up the armor, didn’t crush her under its weight.

He wrapped his free hand around her throat, with four fingers over one vein and his thumb over the other, and Orenda felt her world beginning to go fuzzy at the edges. He was so much physically stronger than her; she realized that if he had wanted to overpower her upstairs, if he had moved faster, if he had not been, as he claimed, genuinely concerned for her wellbeing, if he had not thought that he could have talked her out of taking the fire stone, he could have killed her where she stood.

She tried to raise her hand, to get a clear shot at him.

“Stupid slippery-ass knitting,” Klin mumbled, and Orenda’s oxygen deprived brain finally reminded her that his hand was touching her flesh.

He screamed and drew back at the fire shield she cast, but it was too late. The armor jumped up in an attempt to protect him, but it burned away along with the carpet she was lying on. Orenda sat straight up and took in a deep breath, feeling the pain of her own foolishness, but it was short-lived. She saw Klin running for his sword, saw him scoop it from the floor, and then she was off the floor, and floating in a pool of water.

Xandra stood below her, and the water had flowed from the rivers around her throne and into the air with a wave of her hand. It condensed there, in a sort of bubble that moved with her. The sterilite must have kept Orenda from feeling most of the sickness, but still her head ached, her vision swam, and she had not had time to fill her lungs properly.

Orenda turned her head to see the old man had run, once again to Klin, that Klin was kneeling on the ground, clutching his head and crying. Xandra looked awful. She had been burned as well by the steam, Orenda realized, and it had done away with all of her presentability. Her beautiful dress was soaking wet, her wig had come undone, and her makeup was ruined. It was more obvious than ever why she wore it, and this spell was another drop in the bucket of terrible, terrible decisions Xandra had made.

Master? The staff pleaded. Master?

Help me, Orenda prayed. Help me. I’m so close.

The stone in her heart began to glow with the fire of the heart of a planet, and as the sacred flame surrounded and protected Orenda, it did not solidify, but grew hotter and hotter, brighter and brighter, surrounded her, not a forest, not one living thing, but the magic in the hearts of all living things that she had seen in the bright expanse of nothingness, and as the water around her evaporated and dissipated she fell to the floor, and the tiles melted beneath her.

“I have come to claim the throne by divine right,” Orenda said as she pushed herself to her feet, “I am the chosen avatar of Thesis upon Xren. Xandra, you have been tested by god, and you have been found lacking.”

Xandra screamed- not in fear, but in frustration.

As Orenda ran towards her, she watched the thing in her chest begin to glow, and watched the water flow out of it until Xandra stood before her, a creature she had never seen, a living ocean, giving off the strongest water magic Orenda had ever known. She knew that even the heart of a god would not protect her, that had it not been for the Brigaddons, the simple, human Brigaddons with their love of strange food and unmatched knitting ability, she would be so ill she would be unable to stand.

“She ain’t never done that before,” Klin said in concern, “Xandra! I’m sorry!”