Deebee watched Enfri die. She felt her die.

    Desperately, she reached through the bond, searching for the presence that she had grown accustomed to feeling on the other side. Where once there was an untapped reservoir of ether, Deebee now felt... nothing. Enfri was gone.

    "No," Deebee told herself. Her useless, human eyes were becoming impossible to see through once more. "This can't be how it ends. I won't let it!"

    Deebee pushed strength through the bond to no effect. She stepped forward without thinking. Her passage was unhindered as she went through the cave's mouth.

    The interdiction had vanished. Jin had said that it wouldn't fall until an Aleesh died within it. That must have been Enfri's plan. She freed Jin at the cost of her own life, but that alone wouldn't be enough to save the assassin. The oren's hold on her would claim Jin's life as well before much longer.

    Even now, Jin was aware of her surroundings. She reached for Enfri and drew her close, whispering her name as if that could somehow rouse her. A strangled cry left the assassin's throat. "Enfri, no," she said. "Not for me."

It's happening again, Deebee thought numbly. First Yora, and now his daughter. Why was their family cursed with such foolish nobilty? It wasn't right. Wondrous souls such as theirs were taken, and yet Deebee remained. She couldn't live through this again. Deebee turned away, unable to bear the sight anymore.

    Her eyes fell on the two bottles of oren lying beside the cave entrance. A primal anger rose in Deebee's heart. She bent to pick them up and would have crushed them in her fist but for a single realization.

    "She would have me do this?" Deebee whispered. "After all you have done, she would ask me to save you. Blustering girl. She has more faith in me than I merit."

Had more faith. Deebee grit her teeth and felt her lungs acting up. Nothing about this body seemed to work right. She approached where Jin lay, clinging to Enfri's body and weeping.

    "Stay back, creature," Jin snarled. "Leave us be."

    "I remember similar words being said to you," Deebee replied viciously. "Had you listened, Enfri would still live."

    Jin's eyes widened, stricken.

    "You hunted her, pursued her, and now you dare mourn her, assassin?" Deebee crouched before Jin and seized her by the throat. Her hands had enough power to crush Jin's neck into dust if she wished to. "You and your abominable bloodline are a plague. The sky women cure plagues, and I would do the same."

    Jin didn't struggle. As the breath was squeezed from her, she gave no resistance at all. Perhaps too weak, but Deebee realized that Jin simply didn't possess the will to fight back anymore. She was broken.

    In that, at least, dragon and assassin were the same.

    Deebee shifted her hand to grip Jin's jaw. "I won't give you what you want, assassin. I won't take the life she gave hers for."

    Forcing Jin's mouth open, Deebee poured one of the bottles of oren down her throat. Jin gagged and tried to spit it out, but Deebee clamped a hand over her mouth and forced her to swallow. "Live," Deebee commanded. "Tell your king that you've accomplished your mission."

    Jin pulled away from Deebee's grip and coughed. She gasped for air while Deebee took Enfri up in her arms and carried her out of the cave.

    "Wait," Jin said, gasping. "Don't take her."

    "She does not belong to you," Deebee said coldly. She refused to look back.

    The sound of scrambling over stone. Jin went for her sword and brandished it at Deebee's back. "You will not have her!" she shouted.

    "No," Deebee whispered. She looked down at Enfri's face. The girl looked peaceful. Her green eyes were closed as if she had only gone to sleep. "She was ever only her own. I loved that about her. I suspect you did as well."

    Deebee felt hollow. Worse, she felt what strength she had left leaking away, as if she were a flawed vessel that slowly emptied through tiny cracks. Perhaps soon, nothing would remain.

    Even now, the oren would be strengthening Jin's body. Not only were the pains of withdrawal taken away, but the horrid concoction would be working its magic within her. Strength and ether. She was becoming dangerous again.

    Deebee had no more fear of Jin. The worst she could do would be to send Deebee to the Beyond. That wouldn't be so bad. This world had nothing left for her.

    She descended from the cave, and Jin followed. The assassin was still hardly able to stand. She stumbled in Deebee's wake, begging her to stop and allow her one more moment with Enfri.

    Deebee shed her human body and became her true self. She held Enfri in a single claw. Deebee looked down at the tiny thing in her palm. The girl appeared so small and fragile.

    "Dragon, stop!" Jin pleaded. "She can't be. It was a trick. Enfri is clever. She found a way through, and this is just some herb that makes it appear she's dead."

    "Have more faith in your spell," Deebee said. "Only death could break it. You crafted it masterfully."

    Jin shook her head in denial.

    "Essenroot and nightshade. The sky women were careful with its use. One drop is the difference between salvation and death. Enfri drank it all. She was fearless."

    On the southern horizon, Deebee's keen eyes spotted a cloud of dust. Her vision attuned to the great distance and spied five dark figures riding for Marwin as if all the winds were at their backs.

    Maya was at their head, and Gain was right behind her. The other three, Josy, Tarlus, and that enigma Dashar, raced to keep pace with them. They would arrive at Marwin within the hour to collect Jin.

    "Your family comes for you," Deebee said to Jin. She turned her head to look sidelong at the assassin. "What shall you do? Attempt to slay me as well, so your treachery is complete?"

    Jin wavered. Her black hair was unkempt and her eyes appeared like the empty sockets of a skull. The sword fell from her hands as she dropped to her knees. She bowed her head, utterly defeated.

    "This isn't what I wanted," she whispered.

    "I know," Deebee sighed. "How ruinous, that you only learn it now."

    The leaking of strength from Deebee's body was only getting worse. Grief was a curious thing. It stole her vitality and made her wish to sleep for a hundred years. A familiar pain, but one quite unlike when Yora died. That had been sudden and brutal, a complete severing of the bond in an instant.

    This was far more insidious. Perhaps it was the nature of the death that made it seem so lingering and torturous. Rather than being cut away, it felt as if the broken bond was draining her of everything she was. The last of Deebee's strength was fleeing from her body and spiraled howling into the void on the other side.

    She looked down at Enfri and saw her in a new light.

This was your plan? Deebee thought in wonder. So much I had yet to tell you, and yet you still did this? My beloved, I will forever be in awe of you.

    Deebee couldn't honestly decide if she wanted Enfri to stand in front of her so she could embrace her or strangle her for being so reckless.

    "Where will you take her?" Jin asked. "I would... I want to..."

    "I am taking her away," Deebee said. "Remember what she was, Jin Algara. Enfri was a sky woman, a healer, herbalist, and midwife. When you think of her, look up. That is where she shall be."

    Deebee beat her wings and took to the air. Behind her, she left the assassin to her misery.

    She flew as she never had before, in truest form with all her power at her command. Deebee pointed east and sped faster than the dawn. Her flight carried her over miles of sand and stone, over the abandoned villages of the ancient Aleesh, and the borders of the Espalla Dunes. Before the sun sank beneath the horizon, she at last came to her destination. Deebee could think of nowhere else to go.

    Deebee brought Enfri home, to her place on the desert's edge. She flapped her wings as she came to rest on the sparse grass and took on the form of her human body once more. Deebee knelt before Enfri's old door with the girl cradled in her arms.

    The animals in the pens had panicked when a titanic silver dragon dropped from the sky. They settled when they saw their young master and returned to their feeding troughs as if nothing at all was wrong or untoward. The dimwitted beasts acted as if they felt there was no cause for worry.

    "Enfri," Deebee said to the still form in her arms. "I'm so sorry it came to this, love. After all we went through together, I kept one more secret from you. Forgive me."

    She brushed golden hair from Enfri's face, and she felt more of the wretched tears on her cheeks.

    "I never told you the truth about the bond between us, of where it comes from. It was a dangerous secret, love. I feared even the whisper of it, of what could come down upon you should anyone ever learn the truth. A deadly secret, one that all the Five Kingdoms would tremble at if they suspected or believed. The bond... it never came from me."

    Deebee bit her lip, and allowed herself at last to hope.

    "The dragon bonds are the elder magic of Shan Alee, as osteomancy is for Althandor. It was Yora's magic— your magic— and it connected you to me from the moment of your birth. As you took your first breath, you reached out to me with your nascent magic and bound our souls as one. You can never know the joy I felt to experience twice something the mighty thought lost for centuries."

    She bowed her head and rested it against Enfri's chest. Deebee was tiring. Her strength was fading, but it made her spirit soar to feel that weakness. The weakness wasn't the sign of something lost, but of something being taken.

    "You once said to me that our bond must require trust. Please, come back to me. Take everything I have if you must. I can feel ancient magic raging inside of you, the essenroot stoking it like a fire. Everything Mierwyn did kept your power frightened away where you couldn't reach it, but you've finally set it free. Use it, Enfri. Be who you were born to be. Be better than those who held it before you. You are my sunrise, my Opal Knight, my daughter of the heart. My empress."

    The elder bloodline of the Dragon Emperors ran through Enfri's veins, binding her ether to the world. Though her body had died, with the dragon bond as her tether she hadn't yet slipped into the next world where even spirits couldn't go. She wasn't lost, only misplaced, and she took healing to correct the damage the anesthetic was doing to her body.

    Reaching through the bond, Deebee felt a burst of golden light as if the sun had broken through a sea of clouds. In her arms, Enfri drew in a long breath of air.

    "You said," Enfri murmured, "that there'd be no more secrets between us."

    "Enfri!"

    She spoke as if her mouth was full of wadded cotton. "Blustering lizard. I wasn't sure... that it would all work."

    Deebee froze. "What? You mean to tell me you literally killed yourself, and you weren't absolutely, blazing certain it would pan out?"

    Enfri covered her ears. "Winds, there's no need to shout." She opened her eyes, bright and green, and looked around her. "We're home?"

    "Fast as I could get you here," Deebee said while wiping her eyes. "When I realized what you'd done, I knew I had to get you away before you could come around."

    "Jin," Enfri whispered. She sat upright suddenly, her expression panicked. "Winds, where's Jin?"

    Deebee felt a weight approaching to smother the joy she felt at seeing Enfri alive. "I'm sorry, love. I had no choice but to leave her in Marwin. The other assassins will have found her by now."

    "I have to go," Enfri stammered as she tried to stand. "I need to go to her."

    Deebee held her back. "No. She believes you're dead. Soon, the king will as well."

    Enfri looked up at her with grief in her eyes.

    "They will never come searching for you again," Deebee told her. "You're safe from Althandor forever."

    "What will we do now?" Enfri asked. "Leave? Find somewhere else to hide?"

    Deebee worked her fingers through a two-point somatic. The execution was clumsy. Five claws were infinitely better suited towards this than four stumpy digits and a blustering thumb. The spell cast, Deebee drew forth the object she had sequestered away into a small pocket of the Weave.

    Enfri's eyes goggled as a bookcase appeared as if from thin air. She had always been so impressed by the tiny miracles a dragon was capable of. "The Aleesh journals?"

    "Since you can now retrieve your Grandmother's notes," Deebee explained, "these weren't quite so vital. Still, I thought you'd like to have them to expand your knowledge of herbs and the natural sciences."

    "Why?" she asked. "What are we going to do?"

    "I promised you before we left here, didn't I?" Deebee helped Enfri to her feet. So strange seeing her with a straight back. Jin deserved thanks for that. Enfri would no longer live with chronic pain, wear an iron trap of a brace, or ever have to drink that awful raspberry leaf tea again.

    Enfri furrowed her brow. "Promised what?"

    Deebee opened the door to Enfri's home. She was momentarily startled to see that the roof had been mended in their absence. Deebee frowned as she pondered who might have done it.

    "Deebee?"

    "Ah, apologies. Distracted. Magic, girl. I think it's past time for you to buckle down and become an arcanist. I've a feeling I already know the answer, but have you put any thought towards which of the five paths you'd prefer to study?"

    Enfri's gaze lingered on the roof for a moment; she apparently noticed the oddity as well. A grin split her face as she nodded. "I've been told by two people I love that I already speak as one. I'll be an alchemist."

Fitting, Deebee thought with a smile. She had been one of those who told her that. Who was the other? No matter.

    Of course, alchemy was a different path from being a wizard, so Deebee had concerns of how effective she could be as a tutor. In any case, she'd give it her all. There were a few things she could teach.

    "Get settled, love," Deebee ordered. "I'll bring in the books and start the translation. In the meantime, we'll start at the beginning." She cleared her throat as she helped Enfri into Janwyn's old rocking chair. "First, I'll tell you of the Ethereum..."