The body language of the armoured figure as it came straight up to him was all the confirmation he required to make identification. There could be no doubt and that stark realisation left his entire body aching, a loss of strength far more profound then the attacks of weakness he had suffered before. In front of his eyes flashed that moment that had been burned into his memory.
He had looked into her eyes as she had died; saw the surprise, the fear, the despair and then finally oblivion as her life drained away. In his mind, it had been the only thing he could do. He was an emperor and she had betrayed him. He could not play favourites.
But eternity is hard to live alone, even when one sat upon the throne of a mighty dynasty. More than once Kain had been tempted to, in some way, use the paradox history altering affect of two Reaver’s to change her fate.
As the two of them stared at each other, the three others in the chamber watched with some interest. Ashar stood there with polite attention, while Ezekiel looked a little irritated at the interruption in the series of events. Ewoden, still collapsed on the ground from his battle with the Hylden possessed horde, looked around at them with a stunned sort of amusement.
Kain ignored them all. Right now he had eyes only for the figure before him.
-
“My queen, or she who could have been my queen. The only soul, the one person in all of Nosgoth who could conjure remorse of guilt from me, was her.”
-
The armour, faceless but in some subtle way able to give hints of expression, turned to look up at him with a creaking noise of metal on metal. The armour had adapted to take on the resemblance of the body she had had at the time of her death.
“Do you remember me Kain?” She asked. At the sound of her voice he flinched visibly. She tilted her head to one side, regarding his reaction.
“Do you remember what you did to me?” Kain forced himself to look directly at her, stomach clenching involuntarily.
He was disgusted by his sudden weakness. He was Kain, lord of Nosgoth, above and beyond all restraint. Even Umah would get no sympathy from him. 
The lie made itself stick in his brain. Who was he trying to fool?
“If you are who you seem to be, do you really need to ask that question?” He asked instead, putting on the best facade of angry resentment he could muster. The indignant bravado had no real strength behind it. If she called him out he felt it would falter in an instant.
The armoured figure stared at him with moment for a long moment and then looked off to one side.
“No.” She said with a thick layer of spite in her voice, her tone hard as ice. “Only I would never have you forgetting, not even for an instant.” Kain set his jaw tight and rigid in defiance at the implications of that, some real anger feeding itself to his defence. 
“Are you that cruel?” He asked with some spite, fangs barred. “That you would condemn me to eternal guilt and faltering irresolution?”
Wrath had made his tongue unguarded and he realised he had just admitted that he felt those emotions out load. He clamped his lips down shut, but not quick enough to prevent the words from escaping his mouth.
Umah, for there was no doubt that it was her now, cocked her head to one side and from her there emanated the intense feeling of displeasure and disappointment.
“Only so long as you seem hell bent on making the same mistakes!” She snapped at him, raising a gauntlet up to his face. She pointed an accusing finger at him, violating his personal space. Her very essence seemed to hum with a barley suppressed rage, far surpassing his own in its intensity and burning furiousness. Kain flinched back from it perceptibly. Seeing his reaction Umah pressed on with her words, not giving him a chance to recover.
“I told you once that there are those that are simply your allies, not your betrayers”. She reminded him with mocking scorn. “But you didn’t listen to me.”
With a sweep of her arm she gestured out around them, indicating the place in which they stood and the situation they were in all at once.
“Just as you will not listen now, not even if it means your own survival!”  
Kain cast a sidelong glance at the others and then back to her. Her mere presence was offsetting his mind, making it hard for him to coordinate his thoughts and feelings into a coherent pattern. It was a whirl of chaos inside his head to the point where he felt as if he was outside his own body, observing the events unload as if he were reading a novel and the plight of the characters. He seemed to have no control over himself, stuck to a script.
“You cannot know what I have been through to get to this point, Umah.” He was saying. “Events have not given me reason to trust others with their own motives.” He looked accusingly at Ashar over his shoulder.
The Hylden king tilted his head back in amused surprise.
“Even when those motives benefit you?” He asked incredulously. He held out his hand. The fragments taken from inside him, the remains of the tablets of Dark Fable were still lightly swirling over his palm, tightly condensed into a small vortex of gravel.
“I have a means of healing you, Instructions on how to proceed against our mutual enemy, handed down from Ba’al.” He gestured with his other hand towards Umah negligently. “And restored to you the one being you feel you wronged, so that you might have an opportunity to clear your conscience.”
His tone took on an incredulously sort of exasperation.
“What more could I possible do to earn your trust?” He asked. Kain narrowed his eyes and pushed his lips tightly together. He started when he felt Umah’s hand upon one of his talons. Turning back sharply he turned to see her grasping his hand, gently but with great firmness.
“It was Ashar who kept my mind sane while trapped n the Nexus Stone’s vortex.” She said to him, the helmet turned up perhaps unconsciously intending that he look into eyes that were no longer there.
“He explained much about you to me, your nature and your mission.”
The vampire’s expression turned even more grim.
“And what do you think about it?” He asked. Umah seemed to consider her answer, pausing for a long moment. Then she replied with a hurtful non sequitur.
“I would be lying if I said I didn’t resent you.” She said and Kain stiffened a little. “Who can ever entirely forgive their killer?” Kain was about to respond but she held up her free hand cutting him off.
“But before I make any final judgement on that, there are some things I want to ask you. Issues I need resolved.” She stated and her tone was final, commanding. That she spoke to him thus took him a little aback. It was the commanding tone of voice from a person secure in their authority.
He was so engrossed in the situation that his usual and natural disdain for being ordered around and lorded over seemed to have been negated.
Her grip on his talons was as unyielding as her attitude and manner.
“What did you do to the Cabal, in the end?” She asked in a slow deliberate tone. When Kain merely stared at her, not saying a word in answer she persisted with some vehemence.  “Did you destroy them; did you have them swept aside to solidify your dominion?”
There was venom, scorn and resentment wrapped up in each word. This time Kain met her gaze, holding himself steady and unyielding, his back stiffening not with resentment but with some pride.
“No.” He said shortly and was rewarded by seeing her posture lose some of its rigidness. He leaned forward and lowered his tone to a neutral one of indifference.  “I exiled them.”
He was almost glad to see her resolve and angry posture lessen even more and he pressed into that, deciding it was her turn to feel a little guilt and doubt.
“You thought me a callous butcher, Umah?” He asked with some anger in his eyes. “I spared Vorador and his children and sent them to a remote island chain with enough supplies to cultivate their own settlements.”
He lifted his talon out of her grasp and held it pointing directly into the faceplate of her helmet where he imagines her eyes might be. “And I did it all to keep your damning condemnation of me out of my soul.”
Umah said nothing to this, her armoured body held rigid and unmoving. The silence dragged on for quite some time until Ezekiel cast a glance at Ashar, looking amused.
“It would seem this pair have trust issues.”
“Silence human.” The vampire snapped back at him.
Ashar slumped his shoulders and shook his head.
“We are running out of time, Umah.” He reminded her with some urgency in his voice. She snapped her head around to glare at him, responding to his interference with just as much vehemence as Kain had Ezekiel’s.
“This is something I have waited centuries for, encapsulated inside the stone.” She spat at him in fury.  “Don’t deny me now.”
Kai considered all the emotions he had felt about Umah before and after her death. Through a quirk of fate he had been the one to vampirically sire her and it had created a bound between them, intensifying the emotions he had felt for being the cause of her death.
“Just what do you want from me?” He asked, not knowing quite what else to say. She turned her head back to look at him with a creek of metal on metal.
“Many things.” She admitted.  “Some of which you can’t give me.” She raised her hand up to chest level.
“I want to see my father, Vorador, again.” She uncurled one finger from her fist. “I want a body of flesh returned.” She uncurled another finger. “I want to see how my brothers and sisters of the Cabal have fared.” Three fingers were held up. “I even want to see the world you fashioned for our kind.” With four fingers held up she leaned forward to the point where his face and her metallic head were only a few inches apart.
“But first and foremost...” She began and her voice took on an expectant tone that left him feeling even more uneasy then before. “I want to know if you were serious.”
Kain blinked.
“Serious?” He repeated, not understanding. “Serious about what?” Her stance radiated disgust for his lapse.
“Do you not remember?” She asked with scorn. “I was not so blinded by grief and pain not to take in what you said.”
Quickly she took hold of his chin and tilted his head down so they were at eye level.
“I could have been your Queen.” She said. “Was that offer sincere, or just some cruel joke to rub salt in a fatal wound?”
With a flash Kain realised what she was talking about, remembering that after he had dealt that fatal blow to her already fatally wounded body, he had admitted to her that if circumstances were different she could have been by his side as his queen, an empress to help him in ruling his dominion.
“Well?” She asked him again with more intensity when he did not reply. “Answer me, you who gave me the dark gift!”
Kain stood there staring at her for a long silent moment before, unbidden, a large grin parted his lips. With his fangs bared in mirth he began to slowly chuckle.
“Ambition, Umah?!”He asked incredulously, barley able to control his chuckling as he lifted his head up and away. “You, a mere soul entrapped in metal aspire to rule with me?” The mere idea was a tantalising jest, the sense of humour of the fates visible once more. She stood there, rigid and determined in defiant expectation of his mockery.
“That is if your own ambitions haven’t diminished?” She asked him and her voice had a certain amount of humour in it as well. “Kain, ruler of a restored Nosgoth?”
Kain chuckling began to increase, eyes suddenly alight with a devilish sort of pleasure.
“You denounced my goals as avaricious.” He reminded her, still grinning. “It was the very reason you stole the Nexus Stone from me!” All the guilt and doubt gave way to an intense almost giddy sort of glee. He felt unburdened and the sensation was euphoric.
“Was the experience of entrapment within enough to change you so?” 
Her stance was now jubilant at his reaction to her suggestion.
“Suspended in oblivion, the only thing that keeps one going is a sense of purpose.” She stated, placing her hands on her hips.
“The Sarafan Lord is dead, their power crumbled. Vampires are free and if you do not lie, my brothers and sisters are alive and well.” Her helmet glanced down, looking upon her current vessel; a body of armour once worn by men who had devoted their lives to destroying the vampire race.
“I have no intention of staying in this pitiful state forever.” She said with conviction.
“One way or another, I am going to reclaim what I have lost and take more in payment for my inconvenience.”
Her head snapped up sharply with a clatter and she swept up a hand to point directly at the centre of his chest. “I will not have my chance squandered by your quick temper!”
Kain finally could not contain it anymore. He let his head roll back and he roared with laughter, shoulder and chest heaving. His laugh echoed through the forge chamber and out into the corridor beyond.
“Yes!” The vampire proclaimed. He took hold of her hand in his, his talons closing around it and let his grin speak his feelings for him.  “I like it!”
Umah gripped his own hand back in return, not in a regular handshake but rather in the fashion of the contact confirming their mutual understanding of each other.
“You, old man!” Kain said, looking sharply at Ezekiel, who’s eyes widened in surprise at being addressed so suddenly. “You say you have my heart?”
The old man blinked and then smiled, his beard bristling.
“Ready and waiting.” He said, tapping his withered chest with one emaciated hand. Kain let go of Umah’s hand and walked towards him.
“Then your burden is lifted.” He stated, still grinning; some of his old youthful energy and vigour returned and reflected in his expression. He almost felt like a young fledgling again, energetic and filled with vitality and purpose.
“I will be taking it back now.”