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Lilith’s humor turned red, pushing against the Serpent’s embrace like a bagged rat. “Who are you to tell me what my purpose is?”

Jarek didn’t keep his mouth shut for long. His guilt over his past didn’t mean he should dismiss what was expected of her now. “I was raised to understand the history and the essence of all of the Flares. The Guardian’s purpose is to breathe life; the Wraith’s is to destroy it.”

“What’s your point?”

Jarek scoffed, annoyed. “The point is, you do everything in your power to keep the Wraith’s nature bottled up despite the fact that there’s an expanding section of Eocera void of death. Void of that balance you claim to be able to restore. Whether or not you manage to reconnect the Wraith with the Guardian using Luka, you can’t ignore that forever. You have to set a boundary.”

Lilith didn’t respond right away, staring at the horse’s crest. When she did speak, the vitriol in her voice was defeated. “You want me to tear it all down too.”

The answer was clear in his mind. It had been since he, Amalia, and Kyer discussed what was to be expected of her when she returned.

Yes.

What his home had become frightened him, more so that its rot was leaching into the rest of the continent. He wanted his father’s legacy ripped out from under his successors and the Failen he once knew to thaw with the restoration of the Aithre Domain.

Using a Flare’s magic connected this plane to that of the souls. That was the purpose of Escardians before Valen’s era—to spread their influence across Eizreth. With the bonds severed, users might have found a way around the damaging effects to the body using escence, but their magic couldn’t connect to the Aithre. Even if there were souls under the northern mountains, they couldn’t cross without a bridge.

While the soul shortage was catastrophic in the Reatian Empire, that disrupted connection affected the entirety of Eizreth. For almost three hundred years, the Gnaw, Allay, and their blessed had been the sole forces keeping reincarnation from ending completely.

And though the Wraith’s absence was felt more than anything else, fear was fading from the north with it. The influences of life and curiosity overwhelmed the will of the people. They marched on, incapable of understanding they would eventually run themselves into the ground. Perhaps they did, but they certainly weren’t afraid of the inevitable.

Problem was, Jarek hadn’t a damn clue if the Diseased Serpent was capable of breaching the Aithre. The Gnaw and the Allay could, and though Amalia insisted she be on the front lines of her own war, Minerva persuaded her against it. Their bond was too important to risk.

That left one very reluctant, very infuriating vessel left. A vessel whose predecessor had leveled entire towns singlehanded. Who was beyond capable if she would just do it.

Loathe as he was to admit it, Jarek needed Lilith’s help. He needed the other severed Dusk Flare. This was their duty. Their responsibility.

But the way she responded—with her eyes downcast, sadness trying to break through the Serpent’s hold—lured back that pity from earlier. But this onset came from a place of sympathy—an understanding of not wanting to be reduced to someone else’s weapon.

“I guess it doesn’t matter at this point,” she muttered to herself.

Jarek realized he never responded when maybe he should have. He knew there was nothing he could say that would change anything and wasn’t going to bend so much he’d break simply because he felt bad.

Lilith let out a dry, humorless laugh, fully shaking herself out of her sorrow. “I thought you were incapable of caring about things like that without a heart.”

His gaze shifted away. “Is that your next question?”

“Actually,” she said in a way that insinuated it never was, “I’m more curious about what I did to your arm.”

He flexed his weakened fingers at the mention of it. “You’re obviously aware of my affliction.”

“Vaguely.”

That’ll have to do. “I think you severed the connection keeping my body alive, and the only way to reestablish it was to heal it.”

Her focus tightened. “I can’t heal.”

“Poor word choice,” he said. “You can’t heal, but you can resurrect.” Lilith’s features perked; her eyes glistened, and she almost smiled at him. Jarek grimaced. “Don’t look at me like that, Evelian. It doesn’t suit your face.”

“I could never do it before.”

“Have you tried on anything other than a plant or an animal? You can’t resurrect that which can’t carry a soul.”

“Fair, but doesn’t resurrection require taking a soul directly from the Aithre? That didn’t happen considering you’re”—she swirled a hand in the air, looking for a word—“not dead. How can I bring back something already alive?”

Alive is debatable. “Since I already have a soul, when you hit me, you used the Wraith enough to break the Serpent’s protection keeping me alive. It shattered in my wrist, then slowly traveled up my arm. If it was left to fester, I suspect it would’ve killed me eventually.”

Lilith’s face continued to twist with confusion. Jarek cut her off as she was opening her mouth to fire more questions at him.