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“Where is Kacha?” I asked, my voice low, my throat sore from the smoke.

“When I am safe. When you have let me rejoin His Imperial Majesty or let me go.” The man made it to his knees, crouched on the ground, his head bowed.

So he was no fool. The position would give him the ability to move quickly, even if in the imperial language of motion, it was seen as begging.

He lowered himself even further, pressing his forehead against the ground.

“You protect His Imperial Majesty as I wish to. Please, let me serve him and then he may dispose of me as he wishes,” the soldier said.

There was no sweetness in his voice, none of the malicious manipulation that I had grown used to when hearing imperials beg for their lives. My vision wavered, the pain pulling everything into sharp focus, even as it made it hard for me to concentrate on what I needed to do.

I stepped back from the soldier, forcing myself to make a decision. The forest magic woke as soon as I brushed against it. It had tasted the blood.

Riini and the other children sacrificed pieces of themselves, and perhaps that was how it had been for generations of elves. They cut off pieces of their own memory, skills, even their own flesh.

But this was a swamp, and I knew what sacrifice it craved.

Opening up what was left of my magic, I offered the bodies of the soldiers. I had killed them with my own hand, sacrificed them so that Tavornai might heal. They had burned these trees, and now their bodies would make it right.

The soldier made a noise that was almost inhuman and jerked back, his eyes going wide and horrified as he realized what I was doing. The land itself rose up, the bodies sinking down into the damp, soft earth. Green moss rose around us, spiraling out from where each of the bodies had lain, circling ever closer to the burned trees until the first of the spirals hit one of them. The tree exploded into life, the cracked, blackened bark falling away to reveal fresh growth.

I wanted to repair what Kacha’s men had done to the forest, and for the price of their lives, the forest eagerly listened. Around us, fresh green regrew, and leaves danced in the air, forming the massive forest dragon, its mouth opening wide, yawning as it exhaled fresh flowers.

Kacha’s soldier was running, his feet sinking deep into the earth, his breath panicked as he held back a scream, but it was too late. Vines rose from the earth, binding his wrists and ankles, pulling him down to his knees.

He continued to struggle, his eyes wide as he looked at me in horror.

“What are you?” He practically screamed the words. “You are no man. You are not even a northern barbarian. What kind of creature⁠—”

He was interrupted when General Saxu’s men arrived, out of breath, their skin darkened by soot. They stared around us, and the one who had been acting as commander shook his head before bowing to me.

“Consort Airón. We have already had this discussion once.” He stopped there, and I had to appreciate the nuance in his words. Lugotu was a competent man. It was how he and all the men serving under him had survived the times when we, vastly outnumbered, had engaged with Kacha’s men. Even now, faced with something that went against every belief held in the Imperium, he went with understatement. In that, he was very like his general.

“You said last time that I wasn’t allowed to disappear,” I said sweetly. Gesturing around myself, I grinned. “As soon as you saw the fire go out, you immediately knew where I was.”

“You burned your arm,” Lugotu pointed out.

“I had a minor altercation with some flames,” I agreed. “But I won. And look what I gained in exchange!”

Lugotu glanced at Kacha’s soldier. From his pursed lips, he recognized the man.

“His Imperial Majesty is going to be furious,” Lugotu said.

I nodded, crossing my arms and then wincing at how it pulled at my unhealed skin. I would have to do something about that before we saw Tallu again. There was no way he was going to let me continue if I came back injured. The soldier stared between us, his brow getting tighter and tighter at the casual way Lugotu addressed me.

“He is a monster. And you ally yourself with him?” the soldier shouted. “He is in contradiction with everything the Imperium should stand for. And you let him walk among you? You let him practice his despicable magic?”

Lugotu’s face stilled, and I tensed, feeling something like pressure as I waited to see what he would do. Then he turned away, gesturing at two of his men. “Bind him. Muffle his mouth so that the traitor cannot spew any more lies.”

One of his men unwound a rope he had had coiled around his back while the other tore a strip of fabric from the prisoner’s shirt. Kacha’s man struggled, screaming obscenities at me, his face going red.

“And you! You are no soldiers of the Imperium. You are less than worms. General Kacha is right. You need to be crushed. You will be crushed!” His words were cut off, becoming grunts as the soldier gagged him, tightening it so that the corners of his lips were pulled back in a macabre smile.

Lugotu looked down at him disdainfully. “And what would someone who has risen up against the emperor know about the Imperium? The only traitor here is you.”

The forest seemed to sigh in relief as it finished consuming the offering. Closing my eyes, I asked it to release the man before we had to cut its vines loose, further damaging it. The vines slackened off his wrists and he fell forward, quickly captured by one of Lugotu’s men, who pinned him to the ground as another bound his wrists behind him.

“Your Highness, what are your orders?”