"He must never be allowed to speak?" Alahira asked, and Zu Mari nodded.

"You can never let him cast his—"

There was a ripple along her branch, then a choking gag from their prisoner. Alahira had released his mouth, but her branch held a bloody tongue as it drew away. "Done."

Ozyri screamed, coughing and choking on his own blood, eyes wide with shock and horror.

"What else, my love?" Alahira asked, a branch sliding around Zu's shoulders comfortingly.

Zu stared quickly cast a wound-sealing ritual. "You also must not let him die," he reproved. "If he dies, everything begins again."

"You said he couldn't be killed."

"Yes, he can't. Or we'll have to fight him all over again."

Ozyri slammed his head back against the trunk of the tree, as though trying to smash his skull open, and Alahira quickly wrapped a branch across his forehead to hold him still, then another across his mouth to silence his screaming. "Fear not, my love. I can keep him alive a very long time."

"Can you hold him forever? Won't you need to rest?"

Alahira laughed. "I need never rest. And he is strong enough, he can give me much before he loses his value."

"Well, that takes care of one problem." Zu stared around at the walls of the time bubble holding them in. "Now I just need to figure out how to escape this place."

Ozyri's muscles flexed as he tried to break free, but he barely moved, only twitching. His eyes followed Zu with burning hatred.

"Are there any spells or techniques at his level which do not require either seals or speech?" Zu asked.

"There are some, but none which he could use to escape this specific situation," Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death assured him. "Are you sure it's okay to leave him with this demon?"

"What other option do I have? He's too powerful to subdue by normal means."

"It feels wrong to me."

"You're a sword. How can anything feel wrong to you?"

"Perhaps it's only my old-fashioned sensibilities," admitted Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death.

"The world is cruel," Zu said with a shrug. "We must sometimes be cruel to survive it."

He stepped closer and began patting down Ozyri's clothing for any concealed weapon or secret seals he could use to escape. He found a handful of knives, a round stone on a leather strap like that which Xashu wore (but which had been broken in half), and a curious device the likes of which he'd never seen before, but which burned with an inner fire and scorched his fingers when he touched it.

Ozyri struggled and moaned, his wide eyes following the device on the ground.

"Is that what lets you loop time?" Zu asked, poking the cube to roll it over.

The object resembled a hollow cube of white stone with one point sheared off, leaving a storage area inside. The outer edges were inscribed with gold symbols of which Zu only vaguely recognized a handful, the rest completely unknown to him. The interior of the cube was glowing with a fuzzy ball of blue light with tendrils reaching out from its central mass to the corners and sides of the cube, like an overly-fuzzy spider at the center of a glowing blue web.

"Do you know anything about this?" Zu asked Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death.

"It is not one of my fellow First Immortals," the sword replied, "but it is very powerful."

"I'm sorry. If they still exist, I will find them," Zu swore. "In the meantime, how do you think I deactivate this?"

Ozyri groaned and strained, but Alahira shifted her branches to hold him tighter and he subsided into silence. "That's enough out of you, my little toy," she cooed. Ozyri's eyes leaked helpless tears of frustration.

"You're really sure this is okay? Turning him over to her?"

"I do what I must," Zu responded. "Focus. How do I turn this off? And how do I pick it up without burning myself?" He already had an angry red line of throbbing pain across his palm where he'd touched the cube, and knew that he'd need to mix up a burn salve soon or it would scar badly.

"Place me upon the device, and I will seek out its purpose and design."

Zu placed Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death lengthwise across the cube, and the sword rested there for a long moment.

"It is currently bound to Ozyri's spirit. Until you break that connection, it will burn anyone else who tries to take it."

"How do I break a connection between an item and a spirit?" Zu asked, shivering at the thought. "That's possible?"

"Of course. Anything that can be made can be broken. But that's not to say that it's easy." The blade fell silent. "I am a weapon of severing," it finally said. "I can do this. If you drive me through the cube and into Ozyri's heart, both will die."

"No way. I will not see this power destroyed, it is mine by right of conquest. I will take this power for myself."

"Then the severing will be much more complicated. There is a ritual of unbinding, but it requires willing participation."

Zu looked at Ozyri, glaring as though he wanted to burn Zu into cinders with the sheer weight of his gaze. "Unlikely."

"A severing attack must be at least three times as strong as the things being unbound," warned Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death. "And this device is more than a match for me and you combined."

"Oh?" Zu glanced up at Ozyri, still strong and defiant even in the face of being maimed and imprisoned for eternity at the whims of a demon tree. "So I'm not the only one with powerful tools at my disposal."

"I'm more than a tool," complained Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death.

"Of course you are. You are as close to a mentor as anyone. Your ancient wisdom is irreplaceable to me. I will never be parted from you until I guide you to your re-ascension."

"I don't think it's possible to re-ascend," the sword said sadly. "I no longer have what was stripped from me, only a spirit remains of who I once was."

"That will be enough. We will find a way."

"Well, in all the years I've languished in your family's care, you're the first one to even care to try. Even if it is a quest doomed to failure, I thank you for it."

"I will not fail. I am unstoppable." Zu nodded, satisfied with his altruism. "Now, how do we unbind the loop cube from this idiot so I can claim it properly?"