“RAYALE!” the voice thundered at him.

He sat still in his chair. Today? He was about to suffer. He was, in the darkest corners of his heart, afraid he might die. He had no idea what was going to happen next, or if he could spin the wrath he was about to experience into something more positive. His heart thudding in his chest makes him feel really alive as the many-colored entity entered his cell again.

He continued to yell, the sound painful in Silver’s skull, “It is a mess. She has been freeing the Mystics!”

“I know. She… cut the Moryshin bond blessing I gave her.”

He screamed, just incomprehensible rage. Silver put his hands over his ears, as if that would help to dull a sound that was coming from inside his head. “FIX IT!”

“I cannot,” Silver said softly. His brother’s entity turned toward him in a way that chilled him. His heart raced. They say you are most aware of being alive right before you die. “There is not a mystic left in that forest either of us can reach now. I did not expect her to free them.” But I do not feel bad that she did, he realized with a cold thrill through his middle. He had drifted a long way from the original vision they had for this world. “She is still powerful, we can still bind her to a liana.”

The looming darkness closing around him from his brother paused.

Silver’s mouth felt dry. “We’re in this far. The mystics won’t live forever. Once… things are repaired between us… don’t you think it will be worth it to reclaim that much power?”

“I do not know,” he said, a bit more calmly. “It will take maybe thousands of years to clean up this mess. I am… increasingly infuriated at the situation.”

Silver nodded. “I understand, but I still think it is the most practical thing to do at this point. Even with the loss of the order in this forest, we can still reclaim a lot if we don’t give up yet.”

“I suppose there is logic in it.”

And so Silver tried to work out a new plan with his brother, but it felt obvious to him that right now if Bane got a chance? They were definitely starting their plans over.

***

In the end, Taj ended up going with Nauru and Miri to get Honor. Sasha and Raisa had to be left behind. They simply did not have the strength to keep going at any kind of difficult pace. Nakai stayed with them, doing a lot better after Taigan’s help so that they were not on their own if something happened.

Taigan was very worried about Taj, he could feel the pain that his liana felt, and it was only Taj reassuring him that the forest was quiet, that they would be fine, that let him entrust his liana to Miri. The pup was young, but she wanted to help, and she was bigger than most dogs. So, he strapped some cloth around her neck and shoulders so that Taj could hang on without hurting her, and they let her leave.

Then, Bazil had walked himself, Amalia, and Nekana into the shade of a tree that felt like it swallowed them.

He apparently had to have certain doors in certain areas. They tried to come out in the valley where the Moryshin usually was, but apparently, the tree that the shadow was attached to had burned or died and was not casting enough shade. So, Bazil had to let them out near the den. There were no wolves from the other pack, and nothing here had been burned. It felt weird to see it so untouched like they had not spent nearly the last two days frantically running from place to place.

When the shadows that had engulfed them released them, both he and Amalia seemed to take a desperate breath. It had been an odd sensation, The shadows had felt like they were pulling him on the surface and deep through his body. Earth storage does not work on living things, but I wonder if it would feel like this if it was.

Puzzling over the magic left him as they looked toward Miron. Even from here, they could see that the town was burning. “I will lead the way, Taigan… come here,” she crouched down. “Amalia, Bazil, catch us as you can. Stay together. I still don’t know what is going on with Connall’s pack.”

“Sorry,” Bazil said. “I have never needed an entrance or exit from the shadow on that side of the river.”

“Do not be sorry. No one was planning for any of this. I … cannot feel any presence of a Moryshin here, can you?”

Her two children focused and Taigan watched them shake their heads no. “So what does that mean?” he asked as he climbed up on Nekana’s shoulders. “That… they are both gone?”

None of them knew. Nekana did not wait for more questions, they ran toward Miron. She outstripped her injured children, and Taigan had to hang on for dear life against her neck.

***

The snapback of breaking that blessing threw the two of them bodily apart. The monster collapsed in on itself, bones clattering to the ground, the horn that had been in Rosalea’s mouth near its chest. It put back its head and screamed a nonstop ear-splitting noise that hurt in her skull so much she felt faint with it. The humans close to her started screaming in response, hands over their ears, they had no resilience to whatever magic-mental attack this was. She needed to make it stop, to kill this monster.

How do I kill something that seems like it is already dead?

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She realized as she was looking around, that she could see the glow of magic everywhere. Waves of red heat floating into the sky from burning buildings were almost blinding to her eyes which had almost forgotten how to see magic. The smoke made her eyes water in addition to that, so she spent just a heartbeat or two blinking and struggling to adjust. In the meanwhile, the humans screamed in pain, and the noise continued.

She did not know why she suddenly seemed connected to her magic. She could only guess it was because of whatever that God’s blessing had been connecting her to the Moryshin, and his magic. Since she had been able to cut that away using the linking magic natural to the Moryshin, she had finally reached her true self. She was in her true form with her own magic.

The sound persisted. She could barely focus and think. All right, maybe… if I bury it and crush it?

She pulled on the earth, making a deep rip and the thing fell into it with a lot of the darkness that oozed around it. But Rosalea slid forward with it, it had a hold of her somehow with the darkened magic. “You cannot deny me my dragon’s soul. You cannot deny my vengeance. I will not die like this.”

He was trying to pull her in with him… she was confused about it as he pulled her toward the edge of the hole she had made. She had cut herself free, right? I became not a Moryshin’s equal, but just a mystic, and I suppose that makes me the only mystic here he can bind to him.

She searched with her death knife for something to cut, but she simply couldn’t see the bonds like she had before. She couldn’t see the one between them. She started to feel herself sharing his pain, similar to the bond she had once had with Fen. Not with this thing, she thought. I am not going to let him hang on to me.

She pitched the earth up beneath her feet, bracing off of it, but she could not stop the feeling of Jahra pressing a connection between them. She worked on internally focusing to attempt to ward him off with her Ieshan magic. It started to slow him, but she felt a lot of strain from the non-stop mental shriek the thing was emitting, and he was climbing out of her hole. She was trying to attack, and he was easily defending and just counter-attacking.

Then, from the smoke and over the wall, came a white wolf. Her mother. With her, Taigan. Water fell from the sky in a heavy splash, washing out flames and smoke. Rosalea coughed, the heat smothering her abating, the smoke billowing as things hissed and went out. Rosalea pulled more earth up beneath her feet, straining back, as if she could physically break the barrier.

“What’s happening?” Nekana asked.

“He is building a bond with me, and I do not know how to stop him. I do not know how to kill him. I cannot figure out what to do!”

Her mother looked down into the hole and a shiver shook the wolf from top to toe. Rosalea knew she was a bit bigger than an average wolf, but she was less than half the size of her mother. “Taigan, grab onto her with healing magic,” she said, backing away, her hackles all standing up.

Taigan was on her mother’s back, and as they had come up to the mental scream, he had his hands over his ears, as if it could help. But he still heard her and slid down immediately and ran to Rosalea, wrapping his arms around her neck. They both froze together. Taigan hung on so tight she lost track of every sense, it was probably what she needed at this point. Here, the sound somehow did not follow, the healing magic stopping their internal time.

When Taigan let her go, the hole in the earth was shut. The pressure was gone. There was no more noise. There was a sensation of relief in the air as if death was not feathering into it from the old Moryshin.

Nekana, Bazil, and Amalia were all there. Amalia wagged her tail as soon as Rosalea looked at her, shoving her face against hers. “You are terrible, and I’m so glad you are all right. You are officially the worst trouble sister, Raisa will be pleased to hear it.”

Rosalea accepted that, and the affection made her heart feel full. She was glad that Taigan was still hanging onto her.

Nekana moved to her other side. “You… somehow set us all free? He couldn’t make a bond with us?”

“I… tried,” Rosalea said, not sure how the wolf was going to feel about that.

She just smiled. “It was lucky; he could not compel any of us before Amalia and Bazil shut him in with earth and shadow.”

“Do you think, he will just be trapped forever?” Rosalea asked uncertainly.

Nekana was uncertain. “He looked dead to me. I do not know what he is, but the malice he had cannot last forever.”

“He will not get out,” Amalia said with a huff, nuzzling, “and I agree, he will calm and let go. There is nothing left to hang onto.”

Rosalea was so relieved that she could cry about it. Taigan squeezed her, with his arm over her neck, and three wolves crowded around her. “You did well,” Nekana praised her.

Rosalea closed her eyes. She hoped that she had, but it relieved her that breaking the bonds that constricted everyone’s freedom, including her own, seemed to help. Oh, right, the humans, she thought, hearing them moving into a tighter group to avoid the smoke and the wolves.

But Carnelian’s spell would just be mind magic. She pressed her nose to Taigan, “Hold still.” She closed her eyes, reaching into the magic she had once used to compel Ulric not to touch her again, and found a red string floating from him to the south. She cut it.

He staggered against her, “That’s been taking up so much space in my brain,” he said, leaning on her. “I could feel this pressure to go back to Miron. I had to tell it again and again, I had every intention of doing just that. I was only exploring… it pulled on me.”

“Dragon town spell,” she said, “I have a bunch more to cut. Can you help me keep them calm?”

He smiled, “You want a shape changer to calm regular people down?”

“I know a wolf cannot do it given how much they have been shooting at us.”

He patted her shoulder and nodded.

Surprisingly, the people of Miron were at this point so overwhelmed, none of them even tried to raise a bow at her. She was able, one at a time, to wag her tail and make cute noises to put her nose against each, and cut the bond free.

“You are free, you can leave,” Taigan would say.

And that was what most people did, moving to where they could salvage whatever they could, and they would head back toward Myraduil, away from the monsters in the forest.

A few of them thanked Taigan and Rosalea. Most just wanted to get away before another horrific event happened. The town emptied out; no one had any desire to stay where death and wolves did battle.

Near the end, she saw an old friend, following a woman with her saddles full. “Nira!”

The horse snorted at her. She wasn’t so thin, but she did look tired. Rosalea was amazed she was all right after the dragon attack months ago. She whinnied recognition of Rosalea.

“I am going to go with my new person; we get along now. You wanted me to find a home, before.” Her voice was polite; her body language was polite.

Rosalea nodded. “Yes, I did, so please, have a good time with your new person. I am just glad to see that you are all well.”

The horse turned back to the woman she was with. Rosalea felt a little thrill. Magic back to something she was more used to right now, and, I can hear and use mindspeak again!

Things began to wind down. Rosalea did not feel tired, but she could see everyone around her was tired. “Where is Taj? Raisa? Sasha? I want to try to help them now.”

So, with that, she and the wolves left the smoldering remains of the emptying town of Miron.