As the final echoes of Agith'tai's laughter faded, Parni hurried to the broken form of Kosuira. A mere twitch of the Staff of Nicator turned her shackles to dust, and he scooped her into his arms.

After glancing around Agith'tai's tomb for a final time, Parni made a cutting motion with the symbol of his office. The tip of the staff traced a doorway in mid air that looks out upon the Sangre Plains. The pair passed through the portal.

Atop a windswept hill a crowd watched on as Parni deSangre spoke to Kosuira as she lay crumpled in his arms, "Our work never quite completed, my protege. We were never a meld, our years were ever writ in dull grey and chill blue."

"We spoke, taught, learned, and shared, but we never knew.

"Is it now too late?

"But you were my light among a world of shadows. I would burn Seleucar twice over to spare you this end."

Kosuira's only response was to draw a final, rattling breath. The child sorceress succumbed to her wounds upon the deSangre plains, in the arms of her guardian.

Parni paused and stared down at the corpse in his arms. Slowly, the ancient man turned his face to the skies.

The growing mutter of outrage in the crowd silenced again as the Tsol'teth addressed the very heavens, "I believed losing my right to die was the worst the Logos could curse me with."

"I was wrong.

"I refuse to be robbed again!"

The last spawn of Nicator raised the staff above his head, madness writ clearly upon his face.

"Them," Parni gestured wildly about himself. "So she may live! A feast for Death!"

The Staff blazed incandescent in his grasp, a twisting streak of liquid light that bathed the deSangre Plains in a judgmental glow.

All the land felt their life drain away, age encroaching at a terrifying rate. Muscles grew weak and thoughts clouded with senility as Kosuira drew an incomprehensible breath.

But the light of the Staff winked out, the weapon of humanity refused to be turned to such selfish ends for more than a moment.

A ragged scream of loss tore from Parni's time-ravaged throat as he cast caution aside and threw open his own mind. The subsequent jolt of power wracked the world as all living beings were thrown into a torrent of shared memory and sensation. Reality clouded with an agonising grief and a grey pall of utter loneliness, and was lit only by a gleaming strand of ice blue hope.

Inept at the meld, the world bore mute witness as the telltale threads of Kosuira and Parni deSangre finally shared a meld. Without pride or shame all was bared; the fall of Seleucar, a child's relief at being rescued in the snow. The recollection of lives shared, in lessons, in cold caves.

Kosuira's tiny hand shifted, her pale knuckles turned white as she briefly squeezed Parni's slender fingers. But the utter joy, the meld, proved a momentary victory as the bright child's mind faded; from blue to grey, to gone.

As the stolen life expended, Kosuira once again slipped into death, leaving the mad Emperor without a kingdom to grieve alone upon his namesake's plains.

~ ~ ~

Leaning heavily on the Staff of Nicator, Parni stood and stared down at the corpse of his apprentice.

Sorrow laid heavily upon his tones of steel and stone as he addressed the gathering, the Tsol'teth, and the world in turn.

"They have played us well indeed.

"Hear me, Tsol'teth!

"No-one ever accused Parni deSangre of not understanding spite.

"You struck at me for daring to teach mine the arts that I have more right to than your bastard amalgamations.

"You left me to live in the light, scorned by and absent of the melds you share.

"And yet I am your blueprint?

"I think not.

"I shall unwind all you have accomplished. I will share your secrets. You too will feel the glaring light of loss."

The grieving wielder raised the Staff of Nicator. For a single, terrible instant, Parni deSangre held the entirety of Achaea in a meld, all minds linked to his in a steely vice.

"I gift you knowledge, Achaea. Do with it what you will.

"Command of the shadows. The forbidden arts of bending time to one's will. The lost art of Terminus.

"The arts of the Depthswalker, as passed down by the Overlords three.

"Maybe one of you will survive.

"As for you, my abhorrent kin...

"Enjoy these, your final days of mortality.

"I shall tear down all that you have built.

"From your greatest warriors to the lowliest child.

"As before, so it will be again, naught but rubble will remain.

"Achaea, your ignorance will not frustrate my vengeance.

"These Tsol'teth are driven not by rage or madness.

"Clear purpose and calculated risk incite their every move.

"The Blue Fang spoke of the Endbringer's doom through his determined plots.

"Make your preparations well lest you be unfit for my needs when the time comes."

Parni de Sangre paused. A tear falling unheeded from his severe expression.

With a sweeping gesture of his Staff, Parni deSangre shaped a mausoleum of ice to entomb the frail remains of his protege.

Perhaps Seleucar's Doom spoke next to himself, maybe the words were for Kosuira encased in the ice she loved so well, regardless all gathered heard him, "The light is forbade to me, the last flicker of hope now snuffed."

"I have no more stomach for this parade. I shall go home, and then, into the dark."

Parni deSangre drew himself up to his full height and spoke a single, terrible word of power.

The ancient Tsol'teth faded from existence.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Summary:
Parni deSangre took Kosuira out of the cave to atop a hill in the Sangre plains. The girl succumbed to wounds inflicted by Agith'tai, at which point Parni drained the life of all in Achaea in order to rewind his protege's timeline, returning her to life. Achieveing something they had strove for for years, Parni and Kosuira's minds melded. The poignant moment was a brief one before time returned to normal, death claiming the sorceress a second time. In his rage Parni deSangre promised the Tsol'teth of the Underrealm a war, and gave the knowledge of the Depthswalker class to Achaea. In a final act before departing for his home and the dark, Parni deSangre constructed a tomb of ice about Kosuira's body, safeguarding her atop a hill in the Sangre plains.