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Vann’s vines were continuously replenishing against the rot. Amal unapologetically speared one of its legs so she could hold another. Fern did the same with her mace. And both of them had given her dry looks when she protested and told her to heal it if she had a problem.

But, stars and arses, she was so tired. They all were. The less she had to fix, the better.

A howl and snarl had her head snapping up, Thad and his pack of Wolflords heading off yet another wave of Forgotten.

They didn’t seem quite right either. Quite...done, as it were. Instead of the ghostly, bark-like skin she’d come to expect, many of the monsters were still fleshy. Soft. They bled as much as they went up in shadow and smoke upon their deaths. Some only had half a mouth full of needlepoint fangs, or one ember eye, one still their own. Others were missing their talons, wielding their bare fingers as if they didn’t realize they were lacking.

Okthana must be getting desperate. For what, Lunara had no fucking idea—all of this was beyond her.

“Are you actually going to heal this cunting bucket of troll piss or can we fucking kill it?” Fern shrieked over the mayhem.

Lunara pushed her power out, searching again for the mind hiding within. Hard to do when the damned thing didn’t have a head. Through muck and mold, she trudged her way deeper until she reached a shining knot of raw magic. Ancient and infantile at once, it writhed in three-fold coils. Tangled and snapping and⁠—

A gentle soul cried out from the depths, feeble, sickness tinging his essence in shades of black and grey, and Lunara gasped.

Sweet baby Sisters in a cradle.

Lunara set Illamiata free before she lost sight of it, prismatic hands reaching inside the dreadbeast to grab hold of that begging spirit. “I got him!”

She wrapped her arms around him and pulled, torching the rest of it.

Her screams split the falling dusk when they traded their power and pain, her flesh and sinew feeling every lick of that cosmic inferno. Every merciless cauterization. Still, she chased the ooze and shadows, those abominations shrieking as they died, and carefully deconstructed his deformation before knitting his body properly back together.

Whoever he was, this poor creature had been incredibly ill before his transformation, his body being eaten alive by…by…

Weeping, fucking moons. It’s the same as Meliora.

Not the hints and similarities she’d encountered in Brand and Fern—even Thaddeus—but exactly the same. Whatever Meliora had been plagued with, this creature had as well, but worse. So much worse. Fortunately for him, Lunara was a far better healer now than she was then.

By the time she rose back up to the real world, it was into utter chaos.

Lunara was half kneeling, half sprawling over a rail-thin male, her head bobbing with every sawing inhale of his lungs. Shouts and curses bandied overhead, steel clanging, but the only sound she cared about was the steady, stable thump of his heart beneath her ear.

She did it.

“Welcome back, my friend,” she rasped, little more than a croak. It was agony to lift herself enough to look at him, something off about the way her body moved. Or…didn’t. “I hope⁠—”

What the…?

He was covered in blood, smeared across his torso as if he was sweating the stuff out. She lifted a trembling hand and⁠—

Ah, shite.

It wasn’t him who was bleeding.

Crimson welled from her pores, hot, the tang of iron and magic on the air.

Not good.

Lunara collapsed back down, unable to spare the breath for an apology. There were no words for the pain. Not with the way her mind was detaching from her body, a cold haze creeping over her limbs. Not as the force of her life eked out drop by ruby drop and she went slack, her lids sliding closed against her will.

“Fern,” she whispered, hoping she was heard above the din of battle. She needed a gift before she went and traded her life for a damned experiment. “Hedda. Amal.”

Well. Didn’t see this coming. At least it was successful?

Somewhat of a moot point if she wasn’t around to save the rest of them.

Shite.