The Nightmare landed gently on the roof of the Palace of Torture, somehow, the suns still setting behind the mountains. Venger dismounted and then helped Sheila down. For a moment, she wondered if he would fly them down to the lower rooms. Then, she felt the familiar disembodied feeling of teleportation. When they rematerialized, she was not entirely surprised to see them standing in the middle of the Hall of Sorrow.

It was just as she had remembered it. The skeletons of past queens were lashed to the pillars and a column of light shone down upon the altar where Venger had taken her as his queen. Sheila felt a familiar fear well up inside her, but she did her best to push it aside. If she was going to do this, she couldn’t let that paralyzing fear rule her. Instead, she let her pent up anger free, finding strength in it.

She turned to look at Venger, who seemed to be mentally undressing her. "So you have me back. Now what?"

Venger gestured towards the altar. "While we must wait two years for the next opportunity for transformation, we can renew our ‘marriage vows’ to each other. Or if you prefer, we can return to your suite. It is exactly as you left it."

Sheila laced her arms behind her back and meandered towards the altar, acting a bit more unconcerned than she really felt. She was hoping that the dark lord could not see her fishing for her bag of Transference Powder under her cloak or how she was covering her hands and arms in the sticky substance.

"Perhaps," she agreed, still walking towards the altar. "Or perhaps we can end this joke of a ‘marriage’ now."

She turned suddenly, eyes ablaze with anger and something more. Her feet were set apart in a wide stance and her arms crossed in front of her. There were no traces of the orange gel on her arms, but she could feel her skin burn where she had coated it in the substance.

"You will not defy me, Queen Sheila," he hissed. "Did your previous time with me teach you nothing? I am your master, you lover, and your god. I know what turns you on, what you long for and desire. Do you think your dear ranger could say as much?"

She shrugged. "Hank’s not a part of this. This is just between us. That’s the only reason I came with you tonight, you know, to be free of you once and for all."

"You’ll never be free of me!"

With that, he sent an energy loop flying in her direction, but Sheila deflected it with her own enhanced magic hands.

"How?" Venger snarled. "How do you turn aside my magic? You are no magician."

"I learned a few things in Zenghai," she leapt aside as he struck out again with his magic. "But for everything the Healers taught me, there was one thing I had to figure out on my own."

She disappeared under her cloak, the powder enabling her to use her weapon successfully now. Venger whirled around, searching for her. He never saw her reappear behind him. She let out a good swift kick to his ankle and the dark lord’s knees buckled as she hit a vulnerable spot.

He growled and pulled himself to his feet, grabbing for her as he went. She neatly dodged him and resumed her defensive stance, hands in front of her for protection.

"What is it you learned?" Venger snarled. "That you are still no match for my power. Run all you want, my queen. I will still capture you in the end."

He lobbed an energy ball at her, which she easily caught. She held it only for the briefest of moments and then tossed it back at Venger, fire seeming to light her eyes. He moved aside, but not quick enough. The ball caught his right shoulder and he gasped in unaccustomed pain, his own magic more than even he could bear.

"No!" she spat. "I learned that I can still love you and not be with you. Loving you doesn’t make me like you! It doesn’t make me evil and twisted, much as you wanted me to think so!

"But mostly, love doesn’t mean control. I love you but I can’t and won’t try to control you! I would never do that! That’s what makes us different, and that’s why you’ll end up alone in the end."

Venger stopped his attack and stared at her, his mouth agape. She had just admitted she loved him. It was something he had never expected her to say.

"It didn’t have to be like this, you know," she continued. "I saw the other part of you, the one you think is dead and gone. He’s not; he’s still alive in you. Only you make the choice, day after day, to keep him buried.

"I love that man, the man I know you were and can be again. We could have been happy. We could have been together if you would have changed. I would have stayed; I love you!

"We might have spent our lives doing all those things you know I like, feeling that power and lust. I would have borne you the son you want so badly! I’d have given you fifty children, if that’s what you wanted! But not anymore."

"You ask for something you know I cannot give," he whispered, no longer trying to recapture her. "I have no control that part of me anymore."

"Bull! I saw you do it over and over while I was here. You just don’t know you did! All those times you were kind to me, healing my hands, that night we made love in your bedroom… You told yourself it was all part of your evil overlord plan, but it wasn’t! Your old self had power and control over the evil.

"I saw it with my own eyes! I saw you, the way you used to look! So don’t tell me you can’t be that person. I know differently!"

Her chest was heaving, and her breasts straining against her tunic. Her anger and passion made her cheeks flush red; her eyes sparkled a brilliant sapphire blue. As far as Venger was concerned, she had never looked more lovely or more desirable. Yet, he knew he would never have her again, at least not the way he longed for.

He sighed again. "Even as much as I love you, my sweet, sweet Queen Sheila, I cannot defy the Dark Ones. They would kill me first before letting me go. And that, I think, you do know I have no control over."

"I know." Her voice was still hard, but her posture had relaxed slightly.

"So this is it then?" He hung his head, defeated in a way Sheila had never seen before.

"It is. Venger, you no longer hold any power of me." Sheila reached into her cape and pulled out the Teleportation globe Presto had given her. "It’s time for me to go back to my friends, back where I belong."

She grasped the sphere and prepared to place her other hand on it, completing the circuit that would activate its magic.

"Wait!" Sheila looked up to see Venger approaching her. This time, however, she felt no fear, only a deep sense of loss for what could never be.

"Take this, please." From somewhere in the folds of his cloak, he produced the gold and silver crown she had worn on the Day of Sorrow. It glinted in the fading light cascading through the Great Hall

She reached out and took the crown he offered her, turning it over and over in her hands. It was the only piece of jewelry she had worn here that she had not taken with her during her rescue.

Venger cleared his throat. "Please keep it. Place it with the other jewels; they too are yours now. I hope that one day you will not look back on that crown with such harsh memories as I am sure you do now."

"Actually, I don’t." She looked deep into his fiery red eyes. "I have some good memories from this place too. Even from the Day of Sorrow."

She backed up and swallowed hard. "Next time we meet, all bets are off, aren’t they?"

He nodded. "As you know it must be."

"Very well. Good bye, Lord Venger. I wish this could have ended differently. I love you." It was the first time she had ever addressed him as lord and it touched the small part of good inside him. He smiled and tear sizzled down his cheek.

"As I love you, Queen Sheila. Always remember that." He turned away and did not see her vanish as she teleported back to her friends.