Steeling herself, Marina again presses down on Adam’s injury. She squeezes her eyes shut and concentrates, fresh sweat dripping down the sides of her dirt-smudged face. I’ve seen Marina heal a lot of injuries before, but this is definitely the most effort I’ve seen her expend. Adam’s body slowly begins to regenerate, until another section of his insides sparks and disintegrates, looking like the fuse of a bomb burning up inside him. When that’s over, though, the rest of him heals normally.

It takes a couple of minutes, but Marina finally gets Adam closed up. She falls backwards onto her butt, breathing like she’s just finished sprinting, her hands shaking. Adam remains on his back, running his fingers over the skin of his abdomen that minutes ago wasn’t there. Finally, he props himself up on an elbow and looks at Marina.

“Thank you,” he says, locking eyes with her, his face a mixture of amazement and gratitude.

“Don’t mention it,” Marina replies, catching her breath.

“Um, Marina . . . would you mind?” I gesture to the piece of metal still sticking out of my leg.

Marina groans from the exertion, but nods, maneuvering around so she’s on her knees in front of me. “Do you want me to pull it out or . . . ?”

Before she can finish, I yank the jagged piece of shrapnel out of my thigh. A fresh spurt of blood trickles down my leg. The pain is bad, but Marina quickly numbs it with a blast of cold before using her healing Legacy to close me up. Compared to putting Adam back together, it takes no time at all.

When she’s finished with me, Marina immediately looks back at Adam. “What was that when I was healing you? Why was it so hard?”

“I . . . I don’t know, exactly,” Adam replies, staring into the distance.

“You started to disintegrate a little,” I say. “Like you were dying.”

“I was dying,” Adam says. “But that shouldn’t happen to me. The vatborn warriors you’ve faced turn to ash because they’re made entirely from Setrákus Ra’s genetic experimentation. Some trueborn, like me, receive modifications that would cause them to disintegrate when they die. I haven’t received anything like that, though. At least . . .”

“Not that you know of,” I finish the thought for him.

“Yeah,” Adam replies, looking down at himself like he suddenly doesn’t trust his own body. “I was in a coma for years. It’s possible my father might have done something to me. I don’t know what, though.”

“Whatever it was, I think my healing burned it out of you,” Marina says.

“I hope so,” Adam replies.