I close my eyes, struggling to grapple with forces I barely understand as I reach for the corruption within the dragon. And I pull.

Nausea rocks me as the first waves of it enter my body.

Fuzzy images and memories that aren't my own flash through my mind. Ancient battles. Elementals fighting elementals. Then the first tethered primals. A powerful woman and a smaller version of the serpent I see now. The two of them fighting side by side for centuries. And then…

Betrayal.

Broken tethers. Broken oaths.

Everything after that is twisted by the black film, and I sense the tragic awareness of an ancient intelligence confined in its own mind—unable to reach out and stop its own body from wreaking havoc for centuries Of watching powerful friends and allies suffer the same fate.

But that corruption is reaching into me, now. It's trying to slither under my own skin and coat me. Claim me.

"Unbound," the voice comes into my head more clearly than before. "You will destroy yourself if you don't release it. Use your gift. Channel it away from yourself as I cannot."

My mind is already slipping, but his words register. I try to not just draw in the sickness like poison from a wound. I try to push it outward. To vent it.

Tendrils of black drift out of my body, curling like snakes.

They try to slither back into my body, to drive themselves under my skin. But the dragon closes its eyes and breathes out. Cool, refreshing magic washes over me and the black tendrils flake away as they flow from me.

I lose all sense of time as I keep pulling from the beast and it keeps washing me in that refreshing magic. Minute by minute, I sense the water dragon diminishing in size, but I also feel the corruption fading both from it and from me.

I can’t say how long passes before I realize I'm no longer looking at a massive, corrupted dragon. Before me stands a sleek, powerful water elemental, perhaps a third of its former size but whole again, its scales gleaming like polished sapphires in the strange light. Its eyes are clear now, revealing an intelligence and wisdom that takes my breath away.

It lets out a deep breath filled with so much relief it nearly breaks my heart.

"Unbound... You have freed me from my prison. I was once known as Typhon, first heir to the water throne and ruler of the tides. I owe you a debt, and you may name your price."

I hear metal clashing nearby as if people are fighting.

Then a deep shout of pain and desperation. It's close, and it's unmistakable.

Raith.

"We have to help," I say. “Help me save him. The one who just shouted."

Another voice echoes through the forest, this one weaker than before. Raith is running out of time.

"He needs our help," I say urgently.