Van shook her head “This is some kind of illusion! You’re trying to trick me!”

She thrust her unruly sword at the Everblood. “Show me your true face and stop fooling with my emotions, you scum!”

The Everblood flashed sorrow in his blood red eyes. “Vanessa, remember what I asked of you before I was attacked? To follow the knight’s code and I live, fight and die a good man? I couldn’t live up to it…”

Van’s eyes widened. This was the first time she had ever seen an Everblood express remorse.

“For the rest of my life, after Kayleigh died, my actions haunted me,” the Everblood said. “I had stolen the lives of thousands and that included the very rose I fell for. The King gave me a mansion that rivaled the size of his castle, but material wealth is worthless when weighed against love…”

Lance paced back and forth, talking to himself and looking down. “If anything, the mansion only served to remind me of the deeds I had done. It never satisfied me. Nothing satisfied me at all.”

“If…you really are my master,” Van asked. “How did you become an Everblood? I saw you die.”

“Ah yes,” Lance said, looking up from his downcast view. “That was not the first time the robed stranger approached me. He was getting fed up with the utter incompetence of Rosemary and Bunting and needed someone of far higher expertise.”

“Why would you…” Van started, but she quickly realized his answer.

“He promised me the one rich that didn’t exist in this mortal realm: resurrection.”

Van swallowed hard. “For Kayleigh…?”

Lance gripped his white gloved hand tightly. “Not just for Kayleigh. For every soldier and islander who fell during those blood soaked wars. I have vowed to return them and restore my good name…”

“So when you died?” Van asked.

“When that masked man stabbed me, he handed me a blood stone, a miraculous item I hope to use to restore everyone.”

Van turned her head to see Antonio standing with a grave expression on his face. “Senorita,” he said. “Tell him the stone cold truth about those blasted rocks.”

“Master,” Van pleaded. “Bunting used a blood stone to restore Antonio’s mother but it wasn’t her. It was someone entirely different.”

“Ho ho ho,” Lance laughed. “I thought you were wiser than that Van. “I’m only using the blood stone to restore their bodies. My employer is going to retrieve their spirits directly from the soul void.”

“The soul void?” Everyone exclaimed.

A large dark shadow with nothing to cast it appeared beside Celine, and a robed figure rose from it. Shrouded entirely in black robes, the only visible appendage was a large pointed nose sticking out from underneath its hood. At least Van thought it was a nose, it looked more like a break. In its arms was a slender woman in a leaf green dress. Flowing white blond hair filled with a rainbow of roses draped over her face.

“Nevermore!” Lance cried. “Have you done it?”

“Who is that?” Van exclaimed.

The hooded figure removed his hood to reveal the face of a large raven with buldging white eyes and dark red pupils. A twisted smile curled from his beak.

“I am an ambassador of the dark realm…nevermore!” The bird squawked before sheepishly grinning. “Sorry about that. It’s a nervous tick.”

“I see you are avoiding my question, Nevermore,” Lance growled. “Is she whole again?”

Nevermore released Kayleigh’s body into the air. It floated upright but her hair still hung over her drooping head. The raven clicked his beak and the head gazed upwards causing everyone to scream. Her empty eye sockets gave a hollow gaze and her teeth displayed a skeletal grin.

“Not yet,” the ungainly raven squawked. “My master has one last request and he will retrieve her spirit from the void…nevermore!”

“And that is?” Celine demanded.

“He wants you to kill Prince Cyrus and his allies. Like those roses in your true love’s hair, they have been a perpetual thorn in his side.”

Van watched as Celine gazed on her and all of her friends. To her, his red eyes didn’t suit him at all. She missed his gentle and wise dark eyes. Van raised her sword at her former master. “I challenge you to an honorable knight’s duel.”

Celine’s red eyes shifted to Van and he chuckled, “Very well. I respect that you’ve continued following the knight’s code where I’ve been lax.”

He drew his split blade, which stretched and moved like a demon’s mouth. Van now knew it was a bladeling from the way it organically moved.

She drew her own, but already it seemed to cower in fear over the vicious demon’s mouth. It darted away from the opposing sword whenever she thrust it.

“I see you have a bladeling too.” Celine laughed. “A doddering, feckless one. What happened to the handcrafted blade I gave you, Van? It suited you much better.”

Van frantically swung her blade in order to block every deft blow. Van jumped backwards and held her blade defensively in front of her. What was it Teela had said about controlling this blade? She remember the multi-beast speaking about fostering a relationship with the it. Was it too late?

As her master gazed at her with harrowing eyes, she thought to herself, Bladeling, I have not gotten to know you personally, but if I’m going to die, this might be the only chance I get. What is thee name?

“Me Clink-Clink,” A high pitched, slightly cute voice responded. Van thought it sounded like the voice of a puppy if puppies could talk.

“Clink Clink?” Van said to herself. “That’s an interesting name for a sword.”

“Why?” The sword responded back. “When you swing me, I go clink-clink.”

Even in the face of death, Van gave a small smile. She liked how blunt the blade was.

“Well, Clink Clink?” Van asked “Why won’t you fight for me?”

“Because grey beard has a big scary sword. He goes KLUNG!”

“Ho ho ho,” Celine laughed as he finally moved in on her. “A true knight doesn’t tarry in the line of battle. Each of their decisions are swiftly carried out.”

“Please,” Van begged the blade. “I’m going to die. We’re going to die if you don’t fight for me.”

“Only if you find out what we bladelings like most…” the sword teased.

Lance approached with his blade leveled right at Van’s waist. Van swallowed hard, she felt beads of sweat drip down her brow. Her finger nervously rubbed against her blade’s hilt. Suddenly she heard a cooing noise and her weapon curled up like a cozy kitten. “You found the spot,” it sighed. “I’ll help you for now!”

The blade sprang out and Van angled the blade expertly at her master. Control had returned to her movements and she quickly rolled out of her master’s way and swung her sword at her Celine’s cape. Celine looked behind him as his cape fell in ribbons to the floor.

Van swung more and more using every horizontal and vertical swing her master taught her. With gritted teeth, he was now on the defensive. Van remembered the last time she attacked Celine with ferocity. His sword quickly ripped a hole in the dimension and aimed directly at her back. Van spun around and swung a pentagram in the air. The portal closed right on Celine’s Time Ripper.

Her master struggled to pull the sword free, and seizing the opportunity, Van angled the sword right at his chest.

Nevermore squawked in response. “Looks like someone will never see the light of their love’s eyes again!”

Celine’s forehead wrinkled and a furrowed scowl came over his face. He spat in anger. “Vanessa, you owe everything to me. Without me, you’d be nothing more than a child beggar, starving in the gutter. Your life meant nothing until I came along and give it meaning. Stand down, you dirty street rat.”

Vanessa trembled. When he spoke, Celine didn’t look or sound like the man who took her in and cared for her. It was a monster in his place. Celine quickly pulled his sword from the void and effortlessly swung his blade as Van hastily tried to block it. Her concentration shaken, the bladeling faltered and flew from her hand, clanging to the floor.

Van watched helplessly as her former master pointed the tip of his wicked blade at her throat. It sniffed her neck like a rabid wolf ready to draw blood.

“You could have stood down,” Celine said coldly. “What words shall mark your grave?”

Van’s eyes rejected the darkness and shone brightly even on the vestige of death. “No matter what you’ve said to me. I believe the light of your soul is hiding in the shadows, master.”

Recoiling in shock, Celine stumbled backwards, his demonic red pupils dilating in horror. Van quickly grabbed her bladeling and handed it to Celine.

“Look at yourself,” Van said. “Is this truly what you wanted to become…even for her?”

Van watched as her former master saw his ghastly white face and blood red eyes in the reflection of her sword. He closed his eyes in resignation. “Going to such dire lengths to right those wrongs…” he said. “That is not the knight’s code.”

Nevermore began to cackle. “Even if you killed the girl, it wouldn’t have mattered Celine. The golden link to retrieve souls from the void is broken forevermore. but now your life is eternal, Celine. You will have to live with the guilt over the thousands you slaughtered.”

The bird’s eyes grew increasingly deranged as Celine listened in horror. “Men, women and children put to death not for their sins, but for what they believed. Every single soul in hell will scream your name, sending you eternal torment forevermore!”

Nevermore snapped his fingers and Kayleight’s corpse erupted in blue fire. Her features burned as easily as the leaves of a tree. “She will love you…nevermore….” he squawked.

As the bird’s squawking grew louder and louder. Van’s master slumped to his knees, dropping his blade. Van quickly grabbed it and with both hands over her head, threw it with full force at Nevermore.

The bird with wide eyes let out one last caw before dropping to the ground. Kayleigh, the raven and the Time Ripper all vanished into an a void as shadows enveloped their whole bodies. Nothing remained of any of them and Van and Celine were left in silence.

Van knelt and put her arms around her master’s clammy body. “You did the right thing by stopping,” she said softly.

“I should have known that a creature of the underworld would lie to me, but I was foolhardy. An old codger like me was blinded by love and guilt for all these years.”

“Happens to the best of us,” Van said sweetly. “And you were the best of us…”

Tears seeped from the old man’s eyes. “And you were the closest thing to a daughter I ever had. I never meant a thing I said before, please know that.”

“I do…” Van said.

“I just wish she could been here to meet you,” Celine said in sorrow. “She could have been your mother.”

A quiet chirp resonated from where Nevermore had dissolved. A blue bird fly and perch itself on Celine’s shoulder.

A little birdy told me,” the bird said in a feminine voice. “That she is not dead.”

“That voice,” Celine muttered with his fanged jaw hanging open.

The bird flew off his shoulder. In a puff of light green smoke, a woman with radiant white-blonde hair and dressed in a magnificent white robe appeared before their eyes. Her face had an unearthly glow to it. Roses blossomed from her hair, growing and falling on the floor as she smiled.

“Kayleigh?!” Celine exclaimed. “It’s not possible… You entered the soul void like everyone else.”

“Not exactly,” Kayleigh said in a gentle, airy tone. “When I died, I truly became one with the cosmos. Our spider wasn’t an ordinarily spider, she was the current earth mother.”

“I never knew this,” Celine stammered.

“You never asked!” Kayleigh giggled.. “She was quite open about it when you ask her.”

Kayleigh lifted her glowing white sleeve and continued as her husband stood dumbfounded, “When the plague came, she gave up her essence to protect me and I became the new earth mother in her place.

Celine’s voice wavered as tears rushed down his face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“That foul raven,” Kayleigh said with a frown. “He captured me immediately after I took a corporeal form. All I could do is send subtle signs to cry out for help. I tried to make roses bloom in your garden as a sign, but it’s really hard to coordinate them to spell out words.”

Van smiled and put her arm around her master again. “But now we’ve set her free.”

“We have…”

“Kayleigh,” Celine said, and Van could tell he still had regret. “I hope you can still look upon me, even as a monster. I’ve done countless regrettable things.”

Kayleigh stood for a while. She tilted her head back and forth shaking the roses from her hair before she finally came to a conclusion with a bright smile. “I cannot wash away your sins, but I can remove the source of your corruption.”

“The bloodstone?” Celine asked, placing his hand to his chest. “Kayleigh, can you really do that? And what will happen to me?”

“As the Earth Mother, I can restore life to you…”--Kayleigh’s face turned from her hazy and kind to solemn and grave--”but you may not exist in this form anymore.”

Celine bowed his head in resignation. “Any form is better than this.”

Kayleigh twirled her long hair and it emanated a shining white light. The sleeves of her pale robes billowed and bits of blossom leaves flew from inside of them. She closed her eyes and chanted, “Rather than take lives, you will now purify the air and allow life to continue for many years on this planet.”

Celine watched as the shining white glow emanated around his body and a bright red stone the size of a pea shot out of his chest. Slowly, his old fatherly eyes and beard were carved in a rich red oak wood. Roots grew from his legs and verdant leaves and branches sprouted from his hair.

“Wow, he’s an oak,” Oga said. “The second coolest, three letter creature.”

Kayleigh smiled at her handiwork. “Lance, you will now live forever tethered to my bosom.”

“Good going there, hombre,” Antonio said, nudging the new born oak.

“Where will you plant him?” Van asked.

“Back in the forest where we fell in love,” Kayleigh said.

“Oh, before I go,” the fatherly tree creaked. “Kayleigh…my Tiger Rose…I forgot to introduce you to Van…She’s my adopted daughter and that makes you her…”

Kayleigh held her hands to her face and gasped, turning bright red. “I…have a daughter?! Oh my word, now I have a reason to be called Earth Mother! She’s beautiful, Lance!”

Van gazed at the ground bashfully before she was glommed by Kayleigh. “Oh please call me whenever you need me. I promise that I will be able to aid you. I could even do your hair for you…”

When Kayleigh released Van, many roses stuck out of her poofy short brunette hair. Van smiled, “Who knew I’d go from being an orphan to the adopted daughter of a goddess and a tree.”

“I think you’ve got us beat, Van,” Cyrus laughed. “And we’ve all got some crazy lineages! Thank you Lance and Kayleigh.”

“Oh before you go, Cyrus,” Lance said. “Let me instill some grandfatherly tree wisdom in you. The only Everblood who remains is Rosemary”

Van could see the prince’s normally rosy hue turn pale as the oak spoke his warning.

“The vampiress has quite a fascination with you, Cyrus,” Lance creaked. “Normally, when a woman of her type is fixated on you, it’s a good thing but not in this case….”

Lance reached to Cyrus with a branch and whispered. “I would make sure you have your best tricks ready.”

The prince quickly changed expression from uncertain to confident and Van could see he had come a long way from temper tantrums and mischievous pranks to a full fledged team leader. He raised Archibald’s briefcase. “Let’s go,” he said.