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Too many things he still needed to tell Taly but wasn’t sure how.

About her family. The shared dreams. When she projected. The bond. All were important, though none were the reason he now found himself in a training arena surrounded by stone arches, mercilessly beating the shit out of a wooden dummy.

THUD.

His fist slammed into the wood.

It hadn’t been a lie, what he’d told Taly. Not exactly.

Exercise increased his pulse, his bloodflow. And while that usually wouldn’t have done anything for him—besides make him wish he’d stayed in bed—thanks to Ivain’s new training, he could alter his body chemistry on a cellular level. Channel what little aether his body had managed to recover directly into his liver, thus isolating the poison. Making it easier to sweat out.

THUD.

After only an hour, the pain was gone, and his wounds had fully closed. The air here was so rich, his aether reserve was already close to full.

THUD.

He hadn’t even had to meditate. Hadn’t needed but the barest whisper of magic to pull at the ambient aether in the air, pushing it into his blood, his cells, and jump-starting his body’s already-accelerated healing.

It had all been so easy once he’d been able to think about thehowand thewhy, to figure out the ways his body fit together.

If only he’d been able to think this clearly when he’d been facing off with Vaughn. To feel the mistlewick venom as it saturated his blood. Itsedges were rough. It was somethingother, something that had no place inside him.

Why was it so easynow? Why not then? Why couldn’t he have figured this out when it had actually fucking mattered?

He spun and kicked the dummy, then brought up a fist.

The wood cracked.

Wood that had been reinforced to withstand a shadow mage’s strength.

His knuckles split, but he used aether to immediately heal the wound, pushing calcium into the skin as it regrew and hardening the surface of his knuckles to the consistency of bone in an instant.

Shards, why was it all so easy now?

THUD.

It felt good to hit something.

THUD, THUD.

He’d had far too much time to think over the past day. Too much time to imagine Vaughn’s face. To remember that sneer, that knowing smirk.

The things he had said. AboutusingTaly.

THUD, THUD, THUD.

The dummy went flying, shattering as it skidded across the red dirt.

Skye stood there for a moment, panting. Sweating beneath the midday sun.

He kept replaying that fight in his head. Kept trying to figure out what he could’ve done differently.

Should he have rushed Vaughn? Gone for Carin first?

The water mage had seemed like the natural target, but he’d still been beaten. He’d played rightinto the Queen’s hand, and Taly had been forced to take a life.

A life that had needed to be extinguished, but…