It wasn't hard to find the demon. Its waves of toxic energy were blanketing the landscape for hundreds of miles around, so thick that even when they were ten minutes away from the creature, the Knights couldn't see the colours of each other's ancestral spirits. Only the Princess was visible, glowing like a miniature sun. She was charged with all the power of the Knights now; she could use all of their powers as effectively as they could themselves, and the light streaming out from her diamond armour was a complete rainbow.

The others still had their own glow of power, but it would take some effort to make out the intertwined ethereal streamers that trailed behind them in orange and green, purple and blue, and pink and yellow. None of them could make out the presence of Cyradin through the demon's darkness, but they knew he had to be here somewhere.

The demon took the shape of some kind of creature, but it shifted so suddenly and so often that it was hard to make out what it actually was. There were times it looked like a giant spider, or a mile-long slug, or some kind of octopus. It had the multifaceted eyes of an insect, and tentacles with suckers, that much was clear. But when it seemed to have jointed limbs, there were corroded copper gears visible under the surface, and layers of something that defied all description. A dozen mouths decorated its body, and there were teeth and claws that seemed to come from all directions in the darkness. When they cut it, it oozed slime rather than blood, and the slime became a swarm of fist-sized wasps when it was exposed to darkness. The stench of the thing was enough to make some of them sick, but they kept pressing forward because they knew that this was a final battle, of sorts.

If they didn't win here, they wouldn't get another chance to fight Cyradin. Even one casualty would leave them with two Knights missing from the team, and that was too great a handicap to win against. And waiting for their next incarnation would be impossible because the Enemy could manipulate the crystal computers that restored their memories. He would have a newly incarnated knight, whether Jack or Alex, fully grown and on his side within months of their birth. If they didn't win today, the Rainbow Knights would be enslaved within a hundred years, and even the Immaculate Princess couldn't fight against that. So today was their only chance.

"Princess!" Cyradin Belmadir strode out of the darkness. Ammadrine couldn't see the colour of his ancestral spirit, but she knew he was there. She recognised him. It only took her a moment to realise that he had dispersed his own spiritual energy into the demon's aura, to hide himself from the others. And now, the blackness he had taken into his heart was being beaten and spun like diamond, making a tent of ethereal cloth around them that none of the others could sense them through. "I knew you would come for me."

"Madir," she growled, "How did you do this?"

"How?" he was wearing crystal armour now, like hers. Every part of his body was concealed by chrome tracery and blue diamonds that made him look almost like a man made of ice. But Ammadrine had spent most of her mortal life fighting alongside Knights with the same kind of armour. She could tell that the blue-steel glint from the visor was the external consequence of a raised brow beneath. "I expected you to ask why. That's always what you asked when one human king or another thought of betraying you."

"I already know why. You're selfish. Even back on Mimas, the world we called our own. You heard that I wanted to have emotions like the workers, whose function wasn't so exactly fitted to the major strands of destiny, and who could make their own choices. And you heard the rings of destiny answer, that I would be able to live eternally until our technologies found a way to give me that freedom. You decided that if I was going to have emotions towards any individual, it would be you, and with that idea in your mind you never grew out of the larval stage's obsession with your progenitor. You were insane by the standards of our people, Madir, and even reincarnated in a new world, you couldn't get over that childish infatuation. No, I want to know what you did to me, and how deep into our computers your treachery runs."

"Let me show you," he grinned, and the clash of weapons against chitin around them faded away.

* * *

"I made it for you," Belmadir gestured to the figurine. "It should allow you to be human."

"I can't be human," Ammadrine answered, staring at him from the window. "I shouldn't even be here. I need to save my people, and that means fighting away the demons. It's my fault they're here. It's my fault Evi died, and now he'll be born out of sync with the others for at least three lifetimes."

"So what are you going to do?" he asked. His voice was calm, none of the maniacal chuckling that had characterised his presence at Council meetings before they banished him.

"I'm going to fight. Alone. I don't need to see anyone else. If I don't face them, I can't have feelings for them. I'll be untainted, exactly the perfect Princess that Destiny says I should be."

"There's another option."

"To be sealed away? No. The people need me. I'm the only one who can close the portals, and keep those things from–"

"You don't have to be. This totem is designed to allow you to live in a different way. It isn't death, despite its connection to the infinite circuit. You could be human."

"What?" she spoke without thinking, that was the last thing she'd been thinking. Especially from the traitor. "Why would you even say–"

"They expelled me while you were sealed away in your emotionless exile, not speaking to anyone. You never heard the full story. The totem seals your spirit, yes, but not forever. It would be kept in a shrine, where the worthiest of the humans could pay homage. The totem doll would be connected to the crystal systems of Atlantis, meaning that when necessary any of the Rainbow could use a lesser form of your powers. And maybe each other's too, if we are close enough in location and in mood."

He looked the Princess up and down for a moment. She didn't seem impressed, but she hadn't stopped him yet. That had to be a good sign.

"And when your powers are needed, you could enter into an exchange. A human could take on the form of the Immaculate Princess, coupling your powers with human ingenuity and unpredictability to better fight the demons. And in exchange for a few moments of power, you could use their body for a day, or a night. You could feel what it means to be human."

"In exchange for my powers..."

"Yes. It is a high cost, the Council said too high. But Princess... I love you, even if you can't admit it. I want you to be happy. Maybe if we can choose your vessels well, it might be possible."

Ammadrine put a hand to her chin, diamonds clinking softly together. She was deep in thought, but they both already knew what she was going to say.