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They burst through the front door, upsetting the loosely stacked log walls. All was the white and grey shades of the Ghostwood, pale and fading even when new.

She wanted to set the whole fucking thing on fire.

In the single bed, Dauwyn was still as the death coming to claim him, breaths barely strong enough to rattle in his failing lungs. Runa wasn’t exaggerating. They were down to minutes.

She crouched on the floor beside his cot, gripping a jaw that had once been strong. “Dauwyn, my darling, you must rouse. You know the rules.” She jostled him, slapping his emaciated cheek. “I need you to answer me.”

It was best not to look too closely at the relief that flowed through her when his lids fluttered.

Dauwyn slid his clouded eyes to her, the motion obviously paining him. The blackened veins crackling out from their corners throbbed, devouring just a little more.

Fucking Waste.

None of them asked to be cut off from the other realms and stricken with the disease. Half these creatures were supposed to be as enduring as the rest of Bordoroth, but most of them didn’t make it past their first century anymore. The others from the west beyond Urk’s Pass stood no chance whatsoever.

Not without her help.

“You know what hope I offer, Dauwyn, little though it is. I cannot promise your return, but I swear I will do all in my power to make it so. Do you wish this for yourself?”

She willed him to accept but said nothing more. Okthana never turned them without their permission. After all the suffering they faced, they deserved the choice. To go to the Veil and find their eternal rest, if that’s what they truly wanted.

Dauwyn’s nod was so slight that she might have imagined it, but Okthana didn’t care. She’d take it for the affirmation she needed.

Her umbra gathered. Drawing up their dark power from the distant Bore, they descended on Dauwyn like a horde of carrion birds. They tore and cut and consumed, refashioning his flesh until he became something more lasting, her tether flaring in his chest.

The connection sputtered to life between them, the threefold magic between Okthana, Dauwyn, and the Bore solidifying with a drumming beat.

Another poor soul attached to her own.

“Welcome, my beloved one,” she crooned, running a hand over what was once Dauwyn’s arm, now a razored talon to match his brethren. “You are reborn.”

He clicked down at her, nuzzling close, and she relaxed the tiniest bit—a true desire to be changed, then, and not just her own wishful thinking.

“Come, darling.”

Okthana’s claws dug into her palm as she led him from the wreckage of their cottage and set the umbra to fixing it. She was going to find a way to destroy Jettus for what he’d done, both to her people and her precious Brand.

Brand watched the final sliver of the larger moon disappear behind the Serpent Sea, then peeled himself from the balcony.

He’d forced himself to look upon the Horned City until he fully absorbed its state. Until the wreckage no longer crippled him, but strengthened his resolve, a sort of reconciliation taking place between the disparate parts of himself.

Lunara helped him through it. Brand felt that truth all the way to his marrow. The faint spark and pull in his chest, the fiery string tied between them, carried him through the worst of it. Kept him warm and fighting.

Until it suddenly stopped.

Brand released slow breaths and searched for the flare of connection, the all-consuming knowing of another creature, for the hundredth time in as many minutes. Once again, he was met with nothing and wanted to scream at the sky.

The mate bond was there somewhere. It had to be. He sensed its birth when that flicker of his greater half emerged to cradle his agony, the faint whorls of power like a beacon calling out to her. Lunara’s arrival seconds later confirmed it.

Now, he was left utterly bereft, aching for something he couldn’t hope to name after its swift and silent disappearance.

Lyriat was right. Brand was never alone because he was mated. Truly. Blessedly. The one thing he ever wanted from life was his…even as it wasn’t. Not really.

Brand scrubbed both hands over the stubble on his face, the prickly bite centering him. He was both thoroughly spent and entirely new. And it was time to plot a course forward.

First, he’d find a way to help. Moving stone. Digging. Passing out food. He didn’t care what the task was. His people deserved for him to sweat alongside them.

He swallowed back a rush of nerves, knowing they’d look on and wonder why their Son refused to command his power over the earth. Why he didn’t unleash his rage and use his greater half to help them.