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This time, the word slammed down like a hammer before me. A finality in the statement that made Mydusia’s lie-detecting magic recoil, slipping back through her veil into the eyes I couldn’t see.

“Very well,” she said finally. “I think it is time for you to come home for the indefinite future, General. Your next mission will take place here.”

She gestured toward the diamond-paned windows behind her… in the direction of the original Esholian Institute crouching among the Sorronian hills behind the palace, like an animal on the verge of attack.

Whatever Mydusia had in store for me, it wouldn’t just be about overseeing the Institute and the faeries searching for their innate power. No, from the tone of her voice and the way her mouth had twisted into a smile, I knew that defeating Dyonisia was merely a warm-up act compared to the rest of her plans.

But worrying about it could wait. I had a vigate to go wake up, and there was no power in this world that could keep me from her now.

So with a bow so low I could see my smirk reflected in the polished floor, I uttered the same words as last year.

“As you wish.”

The Uninhabitable Zone looked different without Dyonisia’s mist enveloping it. The whole island looked different—brighter, less hazy—but this place had changed the most.

As I strode toward the domed palace, humans and faeries teemed on the walkways winding this way and that, all of them pausing to incline their heads at me when I passed through. Even a few younglings scampered after each other, shrieking with giggles while flurries of brightly-colored birds chirped out songs overhead.

Songs Rayna would understand when she woke.

Through the palace doors and the gleaming entrance interspersed with palm trees, I increased my pace up a curving stairway until I was on the second floor, windows thrown open to the brilliant blue of the sky.

It was here that Jagaros insisted was the best place for Rayna right now, in a room constantly monitored by his finest healer, an aging faerie who…

Glared at me when I slipped inside.

“Vuli orga mynoplit ni unst… avi simpaya?” she grumbled in Ranuqian. It was close enough to my home language that my Mind Manipulating could interpret the rest: How many times do I have to tell you… only three visitors at a time?

Right. She’d already shouted herself hoarse when Rayna’s father and what seemed like the entire Wild Whisperer sector—including a few sneaky animals—had tried to squeeze around her bed.

Now, there was only Nara and Barberro, inspecting her as I’d asked, and Jagaros in his tiger form.

The reinstated king of the island hadn’t stopped pacing back and forth since the moment I’d laid Rayna in this bed. He hadn’t left her side even when I’d had to deliver my promise to Mydusia, and for that I was grateful.

As for me…

“I don’t count,” I told the healer, and moved past Nara and Barberro to bend at Rayna’s bedside. I didn’t bother declaring that she and I were one now. There was a shift in the very air between us, like the fabric of the world had bent to shape us together—something even an old faerie could sense, for the healer grunted but didn’t argue again. Or maybe she was just grateful I hadn’t materialized out of thin air again. The first time I’d done so, I’d quite literally heard the thump of her heartbeat stutter and knew that if I scared her again, there might be another death on my hands.

I didn’t want another death on my hands. I only wanted to use them to stroke Rayna’s cheeks, my breath twisting in a fucking knot at the sight of her.

Her eyes were closed, eyelashes fluttering in her sleep. Her curls were splayed all around her, chest rising and falling evenly beneath the sheets. I’d already cleaned up the blood staining her skin, and Jagaros’s healer had sucked away the bruises with her magic, but there were still a few things that couldn’t be fixed through normal means.

Things that did more than fill me with rage. Things that made me want to claw through my space between worlds and tear it all down for what had been done to my beautiful, brave vigate.

Her fingertips, for one. With her hands clasped over her stomach, most of them were raw, oozing where Gregor fucking Bilderas had cut her nails off.

The thought of her being tortured made an animalistic tremor rack through me, and even Jagaros stopped his pacing for a moment to side-eye the predatory snarl building in my chest. I wished I could have tortured the man back. Killed him more slowly.

But even that couldn’t compare to what had been stamped into her right shoulder, burned into her skin.

A fourth brand.

Through our new bond, I knew it had happened right before the temple. Dyonisia Reeve had forced the brand—Shape Shifting—onto my vigate, knowing full well it would be too much, that it would most likely turn her into a monster like the ones she’d let loose on Hallow’s Perch and so many other villages.

Only, Rayna hadn’t turned into a monster. Instead, she’d shifted her fingers without any instruction or training. Made them appear whole and unharmed until the moment the newest magic had pulled her into this unconscious state.

How? I wished I knew, but Rayna herself hadn’t even known. And while she was unconscious, all I could sense was the flickering of dreams through our bond and the warm glow of her presence nestled in my heart.

If only she would open those gorgeous eyes and look at me.