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Okthana paced within the shadowed tree line of the Ghostwood, waiting for the first of Bordoroth’s forces to show themselves.

There was no doubt in her mind that Brandir would be among them, most likely on the front lines. He was good and honorable that way. So different from the others, even if he was confused at present.

She didn’t believe for a second that he’d actually betrayed her. Still, the death of the Sorcerit bitch would go a long way towards curing him of his distraction. That bloodsucking leech had clung to him long enough. Mate or no, it was time for Lunara the Moonweaver to take her place in the Veil so Brandir could focus on more important things.

The only reason she’d taken even a scrap of advice from that uncanny arsehole at their last meeting was because he gave her the means to see it done. She didn’t like sacrificing her people to accomplish it, but what choice did she have?

Their plan still made no sense to her. Dumping her beloveds back on the Forgotten Lands’ decrepit soil was doing the opposite of what they thought it was. If they wanted to be merciful, they’d stop slaughtering everything that looked different from them and share some of their verdant fucking land.

Her people had been starving before they were changed—it made sense they were ravenous now. It wasn’t their fault they saw roaming cattle and fell into a frenzy. And sometimes mistook the Wolflords for the same. They spent half their bloody time as animals, what did they expect?

Why did no one understand that?

Okthana fell into the umbra and headed a few miles south, carried on the wind. There was no telling where Brandir might finally appear, but she would be ready and waiting. She couldn’t risk crossing into Bordoroth until she laid eyes on him and had a reason. Until she was sure that the blow to her energy and power would be worth it.

Just as she landed, some of Jettus’s Forgotten creatures were flung back on a wave of Sorcerit magic, crashing through the trees above her head.

Her lips curled seeing them struggling in their bonds, utterly mindless. They were as duplicitous as their maker, the bastards—wreaking havoc when they were supposed to be helping her beloveds reach the Westriver until she could enact the next part of her plan.

Between Jettus, the impotent Bore he’d made and ‘gifted’ to her, his betrayal in possessing Brandir too soon, and that infuriating, shite-licking, Fae-shapeshifter-fuck, everyone she’d ever counted on in this stars-forsaken place was a bloody useless arsehole. Meanwhile, she was at their mercy. Crippled by treachery over and over. Forced to wait and wonder like an idiot when she could be doing something.

Okthana forced the scream that wanted free to leave her as a shuddering sigh. Again. And again. It would ruin everything if they⁠—

Her gut twisted with stunning violence and Okthana crumpled, helpless against the invisible hand reaching in to wrench her innards out. Pain so blinding she was rendered mute, unable to loose any sounds of agony.

A single spark of that threefold magic battered against its confines before it was torn away from the others within her. Not to die—that was a feeling she knew all too well.

No, this one was…was being healed. Saved. Just as she’d been trying to do for decades.

The Bore’s darkness within their connection was seared away to nothing, Okthana’s umbra next, until all that was left was a timid, burgeoning spirit.

Dauwyn’s.

A ball of heat crawled up her throat, burning through tissue and cartilage, bursting free and disappearing into the growing night. Okthana had just enough presence of mind to command one of the umbra to follow as she doubled over, retching.

The dutiful crow shot after it, cawing. A blink and she saw as it did, Thodelebor’s ravaged fields blowing by in a blur below. A line of tents and fires next. Up the emptied swath between their forces, and⁠—

There.

Innumerable corpses formed a raised ring around roughly a quarter mile of land, the sprawling destruction like a crimson starburst of blood and severed limbs. Wolflords stood as sentinels at its perimeter, prowling, their keen eyes searching the darkness as they guarded those within.

A clash was taking place with two of her beloveds. The warriors were ruthless in their dismemberment, and the Nachthellians’ shields held fast against the explosions as her people reverted back to themselves. But Okthana only had eyes for the lone figure beyond them, embracing Dauwyn’s fully restored body amidst sparkling, prismatic light. That tiny orb of pure energy went straight to its master, and Dauwyn heaved in a gasp that Okthana had no choice but to echo.

How? How?

The light faded and revealed…

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Brandir’s mate. Lunara the Moonweaver. The one she’d ordered everyone to slaughter.

Fuck!

She dug deep and wrenched at every filament within her, crying out through their bonds.

Home! Home, now! Come to me!

Okthana collapsed, the dead, papery leaves of the Ghostwood doing nothing to cushion the blow. Rolling onto her back, panting and blinking, she searched the faraway stars for answers. For anything that would make sense of her jumbled, racing thoughts.