To my utter relief, she jerks up, eyes wild and plump and black again as she looks around like she has no idea where she is or what’s going on. Her skin is still sallow, but the skeletal hunger in her cheekbones is gone, and her neck wounds are dire holes that will leave scars, but nothing fatal.

“What—” The princess blinks at me. Black eyes full of suspicion, of pride. She’s back. She’s herself. “What are you doing here? Where—”

“There’s no time,” I blurt, blood bubbling out of my nose. “This is the Tree of Souls. You can use more magic here. Use it, teleport away. To Pala Amna.”

She looks me up and down, at my mangled body “But—”

“I’ll be right behind you! Hurry!”

It’s just a second. Just a blink. But I know. How could I not know? She was my witch; we have history. She hurt me, I hurt her. But she led me here in the end, didn’t she? Her sheer determination to make the world better, no matter how misguided, led me here, to the Tree of Souls. It led me to make things right, once and for all. Varia held my hand, didn’t she? The whole way. She was the one who helped me stop the song.

“I know you wanted to do it alone.” I wheeze a laugh. “Change the world. But Fione’s waiting. So. I’ll take over from here.”

It’s just a second, but her onyx eyes soften. “You—”

“Go.”

Varia is her brother, but she’s not at the same time. She doesn’t linger, ever. No waiting for that one. Things to do, people to see, lives to change.

But she lingers now, face broken and soft as she says, “Don’t you dare die.”

All the animosity between us, all the history. It pivots on those words, and I smile. She’s there, and then in a faint popping noise, she’s gone.

And I’m alone.

“Never alone.” I can hear Evlorasin’s faint voice outside, struggling. Injured. “Never-goodbye.”

Through the massive holes in the cave’s ceiling, I see the Tree start to glow. Hundreds of feet up, and through the darkness, the Tree of Souls grows hard, full of color, real. A pure white streaked with rainbow like oil, like blood, branches regal and extending for what seems like forever. Roots below, extending forever. Connecting us all.

And it all starts to glow.

It’s a hum. A hum that reverberates in my insides, in my unheart, replacing the hunger, blowing it out and away like a sweet wind. No more guilt. No more anger. No more pain. The golden flowers become real, whole, shining like little suns in the darkness, their faces bobbing even more happily in an even more joyous wind.

Wind I can feel now.