And then...an answering rush of power. Flowing from the entire Forest toward me.

I gasp as I’m engulfed by it, the Forest’s aura no longer suffused with hatred...

...but with kindred, bolstering power, flowing into my rootlines. I close my eyes and arch back against III as I open myself to the Forest’s magic, reflexively binding my lines to it.

“No! This can’t be!”

My eyes flick open to find Vicious pointing her oak staff at me, the shoulder I slashed through miraculously healed, only a tear in her leafy garb remaining. Her fern-hued face is twisted with urgency as the wolverine by her side emits a low growl. Yvan darts toward me in a blur, his fire aura rearing as he sets himself between me and the Dryads.

“She’s enthralled the Forest!” Vicious snarls to the other Dryad soldiers. “We need to slay her! Before she can wield the branch!”

Yvan’s fire silently coils, readying itself to strike. I stare at Vicious in amazement, able to perfectly comprehend the language of the Dryads.

“No,” Pine counters, his intense gaze fixed on me. “III has accepted her.”

Overwhelmed, I rise, bracing myself against III, my transformed magic pulsing through me. I press my feet into the loamy ground, quickly gaining my footing, and find my limbs sturdier than ever before.

Rooted.

“Elloren, your fastlines...” Yvan says, clearly astonished. I meet his intent gaze and my fire aura leaps between us. Whole fire. Uncorrupted fire. Luminous green with a trace of crimson sparking through it. Raz’zor’s fire. Our horde-bond restored.

I glance down at my hands and draw in a stunned breath. My fastlines are gone. And my skin’s formerly faint green hue is now a deeper, shimmering forest green.

I’m free.

Grief cuts through my airy elation as I take in my wrists, the Sealing lines stripped from my skin, as well. Yes, I’m desperately glad to be free of my Shadow fasting to Vogel, but the loss of my Sealing bond to Lukas sends a shearing pain through my chest, my heart constricting with a lancing grief. More tears well in my eyes as I imagine Lukas’s look of vast triumph if he could see me rising here, my rooted affinity lines untethered and whole. My whole self transformed because of his sacrifices, again and again. Because of his sacrifice for the entire East.

“I’m free,” I force out to Yvan in a ragged voice, then stop and gasp.

Their language. Tripping off my lips. Dry and leafy.

Yvan’s ruddy face and the Dryads’ green forms blur. It’s like coming home, being rooted to III. Rooted to the Forest. Rooted to the Dryad I always was.

The grief tightening my heart gains potency as the impossible wish rises for Lukas to be here with me, rooted to III, as well. Rooted to the Dryad he always was.