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“Any updates?” I asked, trying to keep all the emotion from spilling out. Even the hour I’d been apart from her to address Mydusia had filled me with stabs of pain that were only easing now that I brushed my knuckles over her forehead.
“It’s just as we suspected,” Nara said with a frown. “Her newest magic is too much for her current body to handle. Usually, the overload of power would drive a human to insanity or worse, but in her case…”
My head snapped up. “In her case what?”
“Barberro sees bascite making strange formations,” Barberro answered instead, squinting down at Rayna’s fingertips where the skin was most translucent. “Her innate power—still shapeless—fights back with ferocity that will…”
Here, he trailed off too, and I’d never seen such a large creature look more frightened as he winced at me, tattoos scrunching on the top of his head.
“Spit it out, Barberro, or I’ll ravage your mind so hard you’ll be—”
“Ati, ati, no need for threats, my friend.” Barberro blew out a breath. “Your vigate’s innate power fights back with ferocity that will kill her if she doesn’t mature soon. She needs faerie strength to survive it.”
Every other thought rushed out of my head, bleeding onto the floor.
Nothing could keep me from my vigate now—except for death.
No. She couldn’t fucking die. It wasn’t a possibility. I wouldn’t allow it.
“We’ll destroy her brands,” I said gruffly, eyeing her right shoulder. She’d be devastated to lose her Wild Whispering, and the Mind Manipulating helped her protect herself, but maybe we could get rid of Object Summoning and Shape Shifting before she overdosed on all the bascite swimming through her veins.
Even as I thought it, Jagaros’s own thoughts flared. With a flick of his tail, he transformed into the form of his brother—face paling, as if he’d forgotten, for a moment, that this replica was all that existed of Kanuk now.
“You cannot destroy her brands,” he said. “It won’t work.”
I stared at him, already reading the truth in his mind but refusing to believe it. Jagaros turned to his healer and said something in Ranuqian. She nodded, replying in the same language. “Alanha kroki va roi corpivascu…”
The exiled ones are dying one by one. Destroying their brands didn’t nullify the magic in their veins—it merely nullified their magic’s outlet.
This… this was why we hadn’t seen a single exiled one here in the Uninhabitable Zone. They’d all fallen ill. No longer monsters, but succumbing to the overdose of power anyway.
“So we’ll have Sasha and Sylvie summon the bascite out of their veins,” I said immediately. “And Rayna’s, too.”
At this, the healer’s expression shifted. She seemed to understand me enough to give a thoughtful nod and mumble something akin to, “My own magic could not heal them, but perhaps that cloned magic could.”
Nara, however, shook her head.
“It might work for the other exiled ones, Coen, but what Barberro has described to me when he looks at Rayna’s blood…” She placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Her innate power isn’t just fighting the other bascite. It’s clashing. Almost like the force of a magnet, drawing all the magics together, smashing them into each other so hard that they merge. I don’t think Sasha and Sylvie will be able to pick and choose which type of bascite they remove. It’s either all or nothing.”
I stood up, clawing my fingers through my hair and spinning away. Forcing myself to breathe as deeply as Rayna herself was right now.
To save her life, we either had to remove all her magic—even her innate power—or… fuck, I couldn’t even allow myself to form the thought.
It didn’t matter. At that moment, the bead of warmth in my heart sparked with life, and I whirled back to the bed moments before Rayna’s eyelashes fluttered.
When her eyes opened, determination blazed back.
“Or I go to the original Esholian Institute,” she finished for me.
CHAPTER
63
RAYNA
“No.” Coen shook his head. “Absolutely not.”
“It’s the only way to guarantee I find my catastrophic event,” I said, sitting up on my elbows, “and become a fully-fledged faerie.”
