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“Fenrir,” Orpheus finally snapped, “Who’s that?”

It took Fenrir only a second to come alongside him and breathe, “Daedra.” Then, louder, “Daedra, over here!”

Fenrir waved to the group of white cloaks, one answering his wave with a pump of their fist. Daedra. Orpheus knew that name: Gwen’s friend, another Myrkur, and the hunter Atticus had sent after Fenrir. But Fenrir didn’t say Daedra’s name with the kind of heat the person who had tried to kill him deserved. Fenrir said her name with excitement, and there was a story there Orpheus desperately wanted to hear. Some kind of path through this devastation that Fenrir had already mapped, where an enemy had become…if not a friend, then at least an ally.

Then a blast rocked the square, and Orpheus could only cling to Fenrir while the world around them shook apart.

Fire engulfed the square—real fire. One massive orange and white-hot wave that crashed into the Prometheus and wrenched out a scream. He saw it now, hidden by Sanctuary’s shadows, the iron lung belching smoke, mist cleared from the city blocks behind it. Mist Orpheus now recognized as a sibling to the dust that plagued the Rim.

Again, the iron lung filled, and again, it blasted a wall of flame at the Prometheus. And Orpheus watched with tentative hope as it staggered backwards towards them, towards the chasm, towards a chance for them to maybe repair the damage that each side had done to each other.

“It’s going to fall,” Fenrir whispered, voice awed, breath held.

Another column of fire erupted, and then the Prometheus’ shadow fell over them. Fenrir took his hand while the soldiers at their backs inched away. Embers rode the wind, the creature’s hands clutching its face, the last remnants of Orpheus’ chain dragging link by clattering link, its heel sliding back to send chunks of obsidian tumbling over the chasm’s edge.

But just as it had in the Rim, the iron lung sputtered dead, mist cleared of the square and the surrounding city blocks, empty of the fuel the cannon needed to create its fire. The Prometheus wiped at its face to stare down the white cloaks, recovering faster than Orpheus’ fatigued mind could come up with a new plan, but not too fast for Fenrir.

“The chain!” he gasped, “Orpheus, I need that chain!”

He didn’t think. He didn’t question. Orpheus reacted. Fingers flexed at his hip despite how the cold fire inside him sputtered, dragging the last of his strength to lock onto the remnants of the frozen chain still tangled around the Prometheus’ throat. One. Two. Three swings and Fenrir leapt up and caught it, hitting the ground hard and then pulling with all he had to give.

Maybe the Prometheus was too strong to topple. Maybe it really was healing faster than they could wound it in any meaningful way. Or maybe Fenrir was simply as tired as Orpheus was, because when sweat began to bead across Fenrir’s forehead, Orpheus knew his strength alone wasn’t enough.

“Help him!” he screamed at the gathered soldiers, scrambling for the chain. “We have to help him!”

He may have been the first to reach the chain, but he wasn’t the last. Farris and the soldiers fell in behind him, Red a breath behind, the chain bleeding frost across all their hands while the fever in Orpheus’ veins made his vision swim. But when his grip faltered, the chain didn’t give. Dozens of eyes narrowed in strain behind him, muscles flexing with a combined strength that outstripped anything one of them could have achieved on their own. Even Orpheus. Even Fenrir.

“It’s working!” Fenrir shouted over his shoulder, “Keep pulling!”

Footsteps pounded, white flashing in Orpheus’ peripheral before a familiar blonde head pushed in behind him. Gwen gasped when she grabbed the icy chain, eyes sparkling with an adrenaline only a won battle could bring, but it wasn’t her alone who arrived. Serval appeared down the line, wedged between two Empire soldiers whose own scars nearly matched his, Duluth not much further, taking up the tail of the chain to wrap it around his waist. Even Atticus arrived to help, head downcast, face smudged with soot, shoulder knocking Orpheus’ when he shoved in between him and Fenrir.

And when a woman with the same skin and eyes as Duluth slid into place next to Red, it was Fenrir who laughed, “Daedra, you dog.”

“This does not negate your promise, Ama!”

“Sorry, Daedra.” Fenrir looked at Orpheus. “The only promises I’m keeping anymore are to him.”

Fenrir grinned, and Orpheus sputtered, his grip on the chain slipping again. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t make a difference. The line took up the slack, Empire and Sanctuary alike working together to defeat a shared foe that cared not for their past transgressions against one another, who killed who or what sins their ancestors had committed. It was something out of a storybook. A happy ending Orpheus wasn’t quite convinced he deserved but wanted anyway. And maybe it wouldn’t last. Maybe, if they all walked away from this alive, the wounds they’d inflicted upon each other would open anew and they’d go right back to blaming one another for the state of a world none of the people on this chain had any real hand in creating. But for now, they came together. Worked together. And if just one of them remembered this moment the next time they held a sword to their enemy’s neck, maybe that would be enough to change the trajectory of fate for all of them.

“Pull!” Fenrir roared, and as one, they did.

Links rattled, the chain went taut. And the Prometheus’ balance shifted, enough to shift its heel back to take its weight.

It wasn’t obsidian it met—it was the open void of the chasm.

“Again, pull!” Fenrir repeated, and one more pull was all it took. All they needed.

The Prometheus fell. Down into the chasm, if fell.

Like a sun moving too fast across the sky, the Prometheus’ shadow arced over them, body tipping backwards to crash against the edge of the chasm, obsidian shards tossed up in its wake. Its shoulder hit first, then its head. Eyes like the void caught Orpheus’, one hand lifting as if to take him with it. But he was out of reach, and the Prometheus’ momentum too fast. It slid past the edge with one last desperate scream, then was gone.

Gone. Gone. Down into the violet unlight it disappeared, chain snaking through his and the soldier’s hands fast enough they all leapt back. And across the rattling chain, Fenrir’s eyes met his. Wide with adrenaline, they caught the light, shimmering with a glee Orpheus felt bubbling up inside him.

They’d done it. They’d won. They’d survived.

The chain snapped taut before the relief could settle in.

“All hells,” Fenrir half laughed, a wave of mirrored voices rippling through the square. Tension spiked, peaking with the rattle of the chain the Prometheus hung from, a chain now snagged in one of the smaller fractures branching out from the chasm. Victory suspended impotent, the soldiers’ eyes flicking back and forth before landing on the strangers within their midst, suspicion and fear taking place of the hard-won camaraderie that had been there a heartbeat before.