Temperature rose in a radius around her body. Zirien's shoulders tensed, though he kept moving forward. Behind them, Streed muttered something about the air growing thick and heavy.

  Zirien stopped at a fork in the passage. He placed his palm against the vine wall. Magic glowed faintly beneath his skin as he communed with the living structure. When he looked back, his eyes found hers immediately.

  "The change won't wait much longer," he said quietly, pitched for her ears alone.

  Swift-River gritted her teeth. "It has to wait. We're not safe."

  But even as she spoke, her wings budded. The sensation crawled across her shoulder blades, an itch she couldn't scratch, pressure building beneath foreign skin. She forced herself to breathe through it, to maintain Zirien's rhythm. In for four counts, hold for four, out for four.

  The technique failed. Heat spiked, and she gasped.

  "Left passage," Zirien said, decision made. "There's a larger chamber ahead. Better air."

  They stumbled forward. Miikka's weight grew heavier with each step, or perhaps her strength simply gave out faster. The passage widened into a cavern, vast and open after the crushing vine tunnels.

  Swift-River's legs gave out. She lowered Miikka to the mossy ground before collapsing beside him. Her chest heaved. Each breath burned.

  Around them, the others staggered into the chamber. Hours of flight had drained them all. Iandel collapsed first, his burned shoulder finally giving out. Streed dropped beside him, ribs heaving. Zirien remained standing, but barely. His healing magic had run dry hours ago. All he'd managed since were minor cantrips to keep them conscious and moving.

  Faces sagged. Iandel found water and passed it around with shaking hands." Miikka's fingers twitched against the moss. His eyelids fluttered. Swift-River watched his chest rise and fall, each breath less ragged than the last. Whatever Ruby's ritual had done to him, distance was loosening its grip.

  His eyes opened. Unfocused at first, then sharpening as consciousness returned. He stared at the bioluminescent ceiling, confusion crossing his face before memory caught up. His body tensed.

  "Easy," Swift-River said, though her own voice shook with the transformation pressure building in her chest.

  Miikka pushed himself up on one elbow. The movement cost him. He grimaced, one hand pressing against the burn marks on his chest. When he spoke, his voice came rough, barely above a whisper.

  "Need to tell you something." He swallowed hard. "About those Life-force jars."

  Swift-River tried to focus on his words, but the transformation surged again. Her vision doubled. For a heartbeat, she saw two worlds overlaid: the cavern around her and something else, somewhere darker, colder. A chamber filled with robed figures.

  She blinked hard, forcing herself back to the present. But her body betrayed her. Wings erupted from her shoulder blades, not fully formed but present enough to tear through the back of her tunic. Scales spread across her chest, her ribs, glinting copper in the bioluminescent light.

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  "No," she hissed, trying to pull the change back. "Not yet."

  Zirien knelt beside her. "You can't fight it anymore. The transformation is coming whether you will it or not."

  "We're still exposed," she argued, but the words came out with an edge of desperation.

  "Then we control it instead of letting it control you." Zirien extended his hands, palms up. "Let me anchor the magic. We'll attempt a guided transformation."

  Swift-River looked at those offered hands. Callused from shaping bark and stone, marked by decades of druidic work. Steady. Her own hands trembled.

  She placed her palms against his.

  Magic rose between them. Druidic power from Zirien, draconic fire from Swift-River, both currents seeking harmony. The heat in her core intensified, but the wild edge softened as his power wove through hers.

  Their eyes locked. He was in her mind. Not intrusive. Present. A second consciousness bearing the weight with her. His breath steadied hers. His heartbeat synchronized with the thunder in her chest.

  Then the vision seized them both.

  The cavern vanished. They stood in a chamber carved from black stone, torches casting harsh shadows across robed figures arranged in a circle. At the center, a silver-haired figure held a staff that pulsed with familiar authority.

  "The cleansing progresses as planned." The speaker's voice carried conviction that allowed no doubt.

  Recognition prickled across Swift-River's scales. That voice. That particular cadence of command. It pulled at something buried, a memory half-surfaced then sinking again before she could grasp it.

  The robed council bowed in reverence. "The orc populations have been accurately catalogued, Master," one said. "The census records are complete."

  "Excellent." The silver-haired figure moved to a table where maps lay spread across polished stone. Populations marked with red symbols. Territories designated for "relocation." Swift-River's stomach clenched as the scope of it crystallized.

  "Orcs are merely the beginning," the speaker continued, tracing a finger across the map. "By winter's end, the realm shall be pure. No more mongrel bloodlines. No more corruption of the ancient ways."

  Genocide. They witnessed the planning of genocide.

  "The druidic resistance grows bold," another council member ventured.

  "Let them." The silver-haired figure smiled, and something in that expression froze Swift-River's blood. "Every act of defiance provides justification for what comes next. We need only patience and the willingness to see this through."

  The vision shattered.

  Swift-River gasped, hands still locked with Zirien's. The transformation remained incomplete, suspended in a half-state. Wings half-manifested, scales scattered across straining skin, fire burning in her throat with no release.

  Zirien's eyes mirrored her horror. "Did you see..."

  "All of it," she whispered.

  Her body shook, no longer from the transformation but from the revelation crashing through her. Someone orchestrated everything. Someone with power and authority enough to command a council, to plan elimination on that scale.

  And the transformation had left her more unstable than before. Fire crackled at her fingertips. Her wings twitched, trying to finish forming. The dragon aspect clawed at her consciousness, furious at being denied full release.

  "By winter's end, the realm shall be pure." The words echoed in her mind, spoken in that too-familiar voice she still couldn't quite place.

  Zirien's hands tightened on hers. "We need to get you somewhere safe. Somewhere the transformation can complete properly."

  "Sporran village," Swift-River managed, fighting to keep her voice steady. "It's closest."

  But even as she spoke, her vision doubled again. The chamber. The maps. The silver-haired figure turning, and for just a moment, she thought she glimpsed their face.

  Then the image vanished, leaving only fire and fear and the terrible certainty that they'd stumbled into something far larger than Crimson Ruby's rebellion.

  Something that wouldn't stop with orcs.

  Something that saw her kind, Zirien's kind, all mixed bloodlines as corruption to be cleansed.

  Swift-River looked down at her half-transformed hands, at the copper scales gleaming between stretches of bronze skin, and wondered if the monster they'd seen in that vision had already marked her. Already whispered her name in the dark. Already added her to whatever list it kept of things to destroy.

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