Moxle Dilation activated when Ryn violently erupted in flames, and I immediately ran for Aiden. I wouldn’t make it. He was too far away, and I still hadn’t practiced increasing my acceleration with my second-evolution body. As the Amplification demonstration showed—having a core didn’t make me stronger until I learned how to use it. So I could only watch as the flames blasted toward him.

  Kline had to make a split-second decision then—warp to me or Aiden.

  He was a good little warrior, understood the full nature of the situation, and warped to Aiden, pulling him out of the way. Then, I wrapped myself in Kira’s aura as I was blasted with the flames.

  The aftermath was gruesome.

  My entire body lit up with third-evolution flames, and while my superhuman body and aura made me twenty times more durable than normal people, it still roasted my skin off in the split second it took to create an oxygenless domain to snuff out the flames. Then, I hit the ground and blacked out from the pain.

  2.

  Aiden rushed to Mira’s side. Or, rather, Kline warped the two to her. The sight left cool saline pouring through his veins. Mira was a ward victim of third-degree flames, a tangled mess of black and red and purple patches that would need to be wrapped to prevent infection. Skin graft after skin graft—she went from the most beautiful woman in the universe to a person children would be afraid of.

  And it was all because he didn’t stop her.

  Aiden couldn’t believe that Kline chose to save him—him. What type of cruel joke was that? Kline, her most valued protector. Did she demand he do it?

  Aiden looked at Kline, and his perspective switched. Kline wasn’t pacing back and forth, yowling in stress. He had a hard look on his face. Once Aiden followed his eyes, he understood.

  Kai was the first on the scene. Suspiciously soon. Or rather, understandably soon. Chances were, the two were together, and Kai went off to do his sword training not far away. Aiden would normally feel at least a slight pang of irrational jealousy, but not today. He just felt remorse.

  “What happened?” Kai screamed.

  “She was doing amplification training with the lurvines' fire magic… she had far more power than she realized.”

  Kai stared at Mira’s burnt eyes in horror, and then he snapped a venomous gaze on Aiden. It only lasted for a moment, and then his body relaxed helplessly. Something that Aiden really liked about Kai was that he wasn’t one to blame people for accidents or things out of their control. He blamed specific people and particular institutions. Aiden wouldn’t be the brunt of it.

  “It must be her new core…” Kai muttered. “We need a healer!” He shot up.

  “There’s no need.”

  “No need… what?” Kai tried to present Mira as proof of Aiden’s stupidity, but he could only gawk as her eyes healed themselves in real-time. Her skin regrew in beautiful waves, and dirt poured out of her muscles before they stitched themselves back together. “What’s happening?”

  Aiden shrugged. “Mira hides anything that could be detrimental to the forest, and well… if people knew she could heal this quickly….” He ran his thumb over his neck. “Game over.”He collapsed backward, staring at the swaying canopies between deep breaths. “Just be happy about it. And oh…”

  Kai looked at him. “What?”

  “Don’t tell her you saw her like that. Mira’s just as self-conscious as I am.” He turned his gaze back to Mira. “She’s just far cooler at hiding it.”

  3.

  I woke up in Kai’s house. The moment I saw where we were, I laughed.

  Kai looked up from the stew he was making and rushed over. Kline jumped onto my stomach and swiped at him, only to be swept up in the man’s arms. My little warrior was so shocked another human dared to manhandle the “the Rawkan”—the most feared entity amongst harvesters—that he yowled and floundered like a dying fish until Kai dropped him. Then, Kline jumped on the bed, staring at me, as if asking permission to kill the man—or at least demanding that I swing the sword myself.

  “Oh, come here.” I giggled and scooped up Kline, who yowled and cried and then emotionally rubbed his cheek on me, just happy that I was alive.

  “Oh, thank God,” Kai said, sitting down. Kline shot him the stink eye. I chuckled.

  “What?” Kai asked. “You keep laughing like that. It’s making me feel bad.”

  “No… It’s just… a few days ago, I’d be at Felio’s house after that. Three days later, people just casually let me go to your house.”

  “Oh, it’s anything but casual. Look outside.”

  I pressed my fingers against the bed and activated Wood Wide Web. Malo, Cassain, and the rest of the heavy hitters were standing outside, and many were whispering, probably about me being awake and whether they should tell Felio.

  “Yep,” he said when he saw my expression. “I give it five minutes before Felio and Jaylin return, for the fourth time.”

  I laughed. “Then why’d they even bring me here?”

  “Well, I think it’s because you were fine. Kline wasn’t freaking out, so they wanted to give the illusion that I’m chivalrous.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “Oh, I am. But it hardly counts if a gaggle of girls is forcing it.” He sighed. “But I mean… It’s ideal.”

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  I giggled and rubbed my face, taking a deep breath. “How bad was it?”

  He forced a smile. “If you’re saying, How badass, the entire town saw it. The fact that you would’ve burnt the whole forest down with normal flames is like… legendary. You’re practically a myth.”

  “No, you goon. I mean, how bad were the injuries?” I ran my hand through my silky hair to make sure it was there, and probed my face. It seemed normal, but the way his face cramped said it all.

  “Let’s just say… You look beautiful even when you’re injured,” he said.

  I smacked him playfully, and he flashed me a cheeky smile.

  “Jerk.”

  “What? What do you want me to tell you?”

  “Nothing. I wish it didn’t happen.” I rolled onto my side. “And don’t you dare remember what I looked like. I’ll pike your body on the Wraithwood gates as a warning.”

  Kai grinned. “You’re a charmer.”

  “I’m very charming, thank you very much.”

  Kai wrangled with Kline to get closer, and then the door burst open.

  “Oh my God!” Jaylin screamed. “She’s healing, and the first thing you do is try to shmooze her?”

  “Successfully shmooze her,” Kai corrected.

  “Get away, fool.” She grabbed his shoulders and pulled his back, letting Felio rush forward. Poor Felio. That woman had enough emotions for the rest of us. She stood at my bed, fist against her chest, eyes trembling, searching for words—failing to find them—and when I said, “I’m… fine,” her eyes burst like a broken water main, and she jumped onto the bed, hugging me and sobbing.

  “What were you thinking?” she sobbed.

  I hugged her back, physically uncomfortable from the strange angle. If I were a normal human, I’d just be smothered, but I casually sat up in a sit-up and pushed her onto the ground so I could actually hug her. It didn’t stop her sobbing.

  “I’m sorry…” I said.

  “No, you’re not! You’re always rushing off. Doing dangerous things. Leaving. You know what we’d do without you? Nothing. We’d slowly wither away and rot!”

  “I never knew you were so dramatic.”

  Cassain walked up. “I think what the mistress is telling you is that she’s very happy in Wraithwood, and that’s mostly because of you.”

  I looked at Jaylin and saw her lips quivering. It seemed the flower children loved their new home, and I was synonymous with it. No… more than that, I was Felio’s first friend, and she was the best friend I’ve ever had. I loved the girl. If I had to choose between booting her or Kai out of Wraithwood—bye Kai.

  Of course, I was queen, which meant I’d never had to deal with that scenario. Still. Felio was precious to me, and I hated to see her cry. I also hated that I couldn’t say, I’ll be more careful. She was family—and you don’t lie to your family.

  I hugged her tight, released her, and hugged Jaylin. I then accepted hugs from Cassain and Asail, Felio’s guards, whom I had grown close to. Then, I got an eye roll and a “Seriously? You can’t even use your core once?” from Tyler before he hugged me. Sarah shyly did the same. I had to have dinner with her. It was freakish that Tyler hadn’t properly introduced me yet.

  At some point, I just had to push my way out of Kai’s house and say, “Let’s hold a public dinner or something. God.” And that’s what we did.

  We held a dinner so I could explain what happened, and Kai was right—I became a myth, at least in the soldiers’ eyes. They couldn’t stop laughing.

  “And Ikala thought he could win!” one would say, and then they’d roar with laughter until someone said, “Nah. She didn’t even know she could wipe him off the map!” and it’d get even louder. It turned out that it was hilarious that I had been a second evolution for a hot minute and hadn’t even used a spell. Upon reflection, that was really strange. I was the only person who was running around without magic in Wraithwood. I was morphing and tempering my body and working on bringing beasts back from the dead. So, I guess it was kind of funny—in many ways.

  I then drank and lamented that my core was cleansing toxins too fast to get drunk. I vowed I’d find poisons that could supplement alcohol, and we called it a night.

  I spent the night with my family, cuddled up with Kline, Sina, Dain, and Ryn. It was fluffy heaven. My life was complete.

  Now, you’d probably think I’d learn my lesson from melting my skin off and terrorizing the town, but I went ten miles into the border territories to keep practicing the next day. The time was nearing my return to Hellfine, so I couldn’t just show up saying, “Tah-dah,” and expect Reta to concede. Sina and the lurvine needed to prove that they could be better than normal soul beasts, and at present, they kept exploding whenever I summoned their magic. It was… cool. They were like homing missiles. But something felt wrong about using my family as suicide bombers—even if they were immortal.

  Five days in, I had full control of the amount of mana that went in them and practiced their teether, allowing them to go about a football field away before I made them erupt in flames that attracted and terrified beasts. Some third evs attacked us; that was good. I was running low on cores, and Kline was always hungry.

  Yet I was stagnating, so I reached out to Aiden, who said, “No,” “Absolutely not,” and “Just stop,” before saying, “Ah, come on,” and “Alright, I’m down there anyway.”

  The next day, he showed up with twenty third-evolution beasts in tow.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” I said as Kael led the pack, walking like a god amongst beasts.

  Aiden smirked. “These are just the third evs. I got about eight hundred contracts.”

  “How?” I cried.

  “They come to me. You convince one, and they convince their pack.”

  “No, I mean, how do you have eight hundred contracts? Isn’t that like… gonna make your head explode or something?”

  He laughed. “I’m not sure whether to be flattered or offended. I mean, Mira—I have a god. I’m drowning in diamond requests. I mean… have some faith.”

  I blushed and looked away. “I’m sorry for questioning you.”

  “Oh, whatever.” He turned to his horde. “Go love ‘er up. This is your queen.”

  Kline suddenly hissed in his panther form as massive creatures five times his size surrounded me. Kline was terrifying, but Kline was a sweetheart when it came down to it. Aiden must’ve communicated that because I was swarmed by the massive creatures lying down to… kneel to me. Or something. I petted all of them and giggled.

  I was worried that Aiden was going down the path of bloodshed, but it turned out that he was just finding out how to best work with animals in this strange and terrifying forest.

  “So… what can I help you with?” Aiden asked when it was over. “‘Cause it won’t be Amplification.”

  “Well, it will, but a different kind,” I said. “I want you to teach me about physical enchantments.”

  “Oh… now that… is going to take you a skill. But I will show you how it works.”

  “On Sina?” I mused.

  Aiden’s face paled when he realized that I wanted him to test whether his enchantments could withstand an explosion.

  “Seventy meters is my maximum explosion radius,” I said casually. “If you can enchant at a hundred, we can do this all day.”

  He grimaced.

  “I also brought… this.” I pulled out a portable ward.

  “Now… you’re speaking my language.” He laughed nervously. “Okay, let’s see how it works.”