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The trace soaked into her skin, changing her hand to a shade of purple so dark it was almost black. The smog continued to climb up her arm, now visible to eyes other than her own. When it all settled, her hand and forearm were skinny and withered as if the limb were suffering from gangrene.

Luka’s mouth dropped when she lifted it. “What’d you do?”

“I borrowed. I thought if you could do it, I could.”

“It looks like it hurts.”

“It doesn’t, but it’s strong and hot. Like something’s squeezing me.” She inspected her arm. Even her nails were brittle from it. “Find me a tree, a small one with a faint light.”

Lily followed him a short distance from their small clearing, and he patted the smooth trunk of a skinny birch, frail from lack of sunlight compared to the ones growing before it. She placed her palm against it and released the pressure, watching her arm fade back to its natural color, and the trace fed into the tree. From where her hand touched, the bark darkened with an outline of her hand like a burning hole in parchment, racing up and down, silently searing the tree before her eyes. Luka backed away, and Lily stumbled forward as the tree vanished, leaving only ash sprinkling to the forest floor.

That’s better. She did that, exhausting her own energy a few days ago, and it left her body feeling as if she spent a minute sprinting. With a borrowed aura, it took nothing. She inspected the soil where the tree was and the surrounding area, noticing it was still fresh and unmarred as expected, leaving no new necro aura in its place.

“That’s what you’re supposed to do to those trees?” Luka asked, shaking ash out of his hair.

“Something like that.” Lily looked over the marks of her influence over the last few days. Divots in the woods where trees stood one moment and were gone the next.

It’d take her days killing the land just from the energy expended alone, and that would be the least exhausting way to do it. Maybe she could put the effort into some trees and most of the soil? Either way, it would take time to eradicate the entire orchard. Time she didn’t have with Kyer’s short month-long window.

Damaging the soil was starting to become unavoidable.

“Do you have to?”

Lily pried her attention to Luka, his air not nearly as sprightly as it was five minutes ago. “I do,” she said.

“Because of me.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Luka gripped the inside of his elbow, averting his gaze.

She dropped down to his level, wrapping his hand in her own. “We have to do what they ask, and if this is what they want…” Her gaze fell on the pile of ash. “I know it may not seem like it, but they want our Flares’ bond fixed too.”

“I don’t understand how this is supposed to help.”

“You wouldn’t. Not yet,” Lily said, eyes drifting to the vice on his own arm and wishing she’d been given a touch to heal instead of kill.

She told Kyer and his crew everything she knew, but she’d been procrastinating asking Luka to play his part. He didn’t like talking about it, and Lily didn’t like making him. She couldn’t imagine being so young and subjugated to such torture.

“Luka,” she started, tightening her grip and tracing circles over his hand with her thumb, “can I show someone your arms?”

His eyes widened, and he thrashed his head back and forth. He tensed in her hold, but Lily didn’t let go. She hadn’t brought up the topic since the one time she could get him to talk about it months after they arrived on the peninsula.

“I know, bug. I’m—”

“I don’t like them!”

“I know, but these people are good. They want what’s best for us.” His breathing quickened, and Lily waited patiently for him to calm down, squeezing his hand. “Do you trust me?”

“Only you!”

“Okay, okay,” she hushed. “It’ll be quick. And it will only have to be to one person. I trust him like you trust me. He helped me a lot when I was about your age. I think if we show him, you won’t ever have to go back to Ironfall.”

Luka watched her intently. “Is it the one who smokes all the time?”

Lily laughed. “No. You haven’t met him yet. He’s very busy, but a good man, I promise.”

“Then why is he making you do all of this?”