Standing in the air above the gate, Jade gazed out one last time at the city she’d come to save. The glow of windows and magic lights was nothing compared to the behemoth of a tree that shone like a beacon against the backdrop of the mountains. Lines of light outlined the streets, but the basaigh was the only glow in the forest of the city. It seemed to reflect off the mountains behind it and dim the stars in the sky. Gazing behind her, she could make out the giant mountain that sheltered and hid Abala from her in the far distance. The walls of the city felt like the sides of a tupperware, holding all the bustle in and sheltering it from the great unknown beyond the gates. To the east, she could make out the faintest glimmer that she knew to be Abhain.

She took one last deep breath, memorizing the sights of the city at night. She didn’t know when she’d ever make it back, but it wasn’t a place or an experience she could forget. Sinking slowly to the ground as the time approached, she smiled as Stephen approached, asking quietly, “Looked your fill?”

Smiling, she nodded. “Yes. It’s time to see if I can do this.” He nodded, following her as she turned and walked towards the arch in the middle of the square. Derrick was there at the side, speaking to Eric as he gave him last-minute instructions. She blinked as she realized that there was only one other person by the gate: Brady. Glancing between him, Stephen, and the king, she asked, “Wait, is this everyone?”

Brady gave her a small smile as he came toward her, putting a gentle hand on her good shoulder, “It was going to be just the three of you until I insisted. Given your injury, we thought it best not to overtax you if possible.” She gave him a weak smile. So he really had noticed earlier. Quietly, he asked, “How bad is your shoulder?” He’d obviously chosen his handhold well, staying away from her injury. Hah, the joys of perceptive teachers. Stephen was paying close attention to her answer, obviously wanting to know as well.

Letting out a small sigh, she told them honestly, “It’s not great. I’m not going to be able to use my left arm for much of anything serious in the near future, until I can figure out how to heal some of the raw damage that was done.” Eric and Derrick had stepped closer, and she could see Eric’s face clouding over in anger. He hadn’t seen her in person since that morning, and he was obviously taking it personally.

“I shouldn’t have left you with that dragon.” His mutter was heard by them, but thankfully they were far enough away from the guards that they wouldn’t hear.

Moving towards him, she gave him a one-armed hug that he turned into a bear-hug, enveloping her as she said quietly, “You didn’t know, and this is still better than the alternative, so you can’t blame yourself. I made the decision myself.” Pausing, she turned in his hug to look at all four men. “None of you could have changed my mind, and we can’t change the past, so there’s no point in dwelling on it. I know better now: you play with dragons and you get burned.” She was trying to lighten the situation, but she felt the tug of her ring as a call came through. Instead of letting the guys answer her little quip, she picked up the call to see the dukes. “Hi! Are you ready on that side?”

“Yes, we’re ready. Are you sure you want to do this? We’ll be able to open it on our own tomorrow.” Duke Liam asked, obviously still slightly concerned.

Smiling, she shook her head and Eric sighed, letting her go. “No, I want to go home now. I’ll open it up momentarily.” They nodded, and she handed the mirror to Stephen to hold, since well, she only had one good hand at the moment. Setting her fingers on the stone, she reached into her well of magic, connecting to the network that existed in the frame of the arch. It was easy for her to feel the gate’s desire to bridge the gap, and she simply started the process, supplying the power. She felt it connect, the portal opening and the wormhole taking shape. On the other side, she felt Dukes Liam and Donnelly join in, stabilizing the connection from their end.

“It feels perfect.” Duke Liam’s voice carried, and Jade smiled at her group.

“Me first, then.” Before anyone could object, Brady waltzed through the portal, and about two seconds later, she heard his voice from the mirror, “No worse than usual, come on through!” Stephen made a motion to Derrick, who took the initiative to walk through, with Stephen following a half-beat behind after handing her the mirror. She clutched it in her bad hand, willing herself not to drop it.

Giving one last look to Eric, she spoke softly, “I’ll see you soon. Take care.” Mentally calling her little ones, the ten of them fluttered over, attaching themselves to her hair as she took one last look at the city, then stepped through the portal. There was a weird moment as she maintained the connection even as she went through it, and she had a slight moment of panic that she was going to drop it, but then she was through, stumbling a little as she came out on the other side.

Once she was was completely through, she stood and gave the dukes a smile and a nod, and all three of them let the magic drop, the portal snapping closed behind her. It was only then that she was finally able to look around the square. There was a contingent of guards restricting access into the square, but beyond that, she could see people gathered. It seemed the extra security for the king had drawn attention, and now their faces watched expectantly as whispers flew.

“The traveler came back!” One voice in the middle of the crowd cried out, having spotted Jade. The cry was echoed, and Jade inwardly winced as she forced herself to straighten and wave with her good hand.

Out of the corner of her mouth, she asked her companions, “Any idea if it’s like this the whole way back?”

Duke Liam patted her bad shoulder and she had to control her instinct to wince and shy away as he said, “Don’t worry, the guards will make a path for you.”

She managed a small smile for him as she slipped innocently away from his hand and said, “Oh, I’m not worried about that. I can just fly above them. I was just hoping the refugees had been taken care of.”

“They’re fine, and they’ll be able to go back tomorrow. You don’t need to worry.” Duke Donnelly replied, and she nodded, turning to look at Stephen, Brady, and Derrick.

“So uhm, I kinda want to go straight back, if that’s okay? Do you need me to drop you off somewhere?” She smiled hopefully at them. She wanted to go home. It was a little strange that there wasn’t more of a welcoming party for them here though. She’d kinda expected the queen to welcome her husband back. She was a little distracted by fluttering as Ramoth and Rio hopped down from her hair, moving onto her left shoulder like little sentinels.

“If we’re here, they’ll stop touching you.” Ramoth informed her, and she sent a wave of love to her little ones. Before she’d figured out how to hide her weakness, they’d come up with a plan to help her. She was honestly just…so blessed that she’d bonded with them. Her eyes watered a little as she looked back to find Derrick dismissing the guard and Brady looked back as he mouthed ‘see you tomorrow,’ before he seemed to vanish into the throng.

“We’ll be going to the Green Dragon with you, if you don’t mind bringing us along.” Stephen said with a smile, his eyes showing a bit of strain as he watched her fellacai’s antics, and he inconspicuously put himself a little more between her and the dukes. He’d noticed the hand then, and maybe something of the repressed shudder in her expression for that brief moment. Nodding cordially to the dukes, he said, “Duke Liam, Duke Donnelly, thank you for making sure everything went well.”

“It’s our duty and pleasure. Get some rest.” Duke Liam smiled warmly at her, and she nodded to them before she and Stephen stepped aside, with Derrick joining them after a word to the Dukes as well.

“Ready?” She asked the two men, who nodded. The guards nearby looked a bit antsy at seeing their king take off without protection, but really, there wasn’t much better protection than the spymaster and the traveler, if you asked her. That wasn’t even counting her littles. Lightening their gravity, she lifted them up with an air bubble, shooting them into the sky before turning towards her home. The streets below were lined with lights, the castle and Dracona glowing in the distance. The walls of the city were brightly lit, beacons shining down into the darkness and illuminating the world outside the fortifications, at least for a little while.

The men were taking in the view as she guided them swiftly to their location. It wasn’t hard to find, partially because there were quite a few guards in position on the street and roof of the building. Jade paused before going down, asking, “Am I missing something, or is this going to be the norm from now on?”

Derrick coughed, then said, “My family may have commandeered rooms here for the night.” Oh, so that’s why they weren’t at the gate, they were waiting here!

With a huge grin on her face, she replied, “Well then, we shouldn’t keep them waiting! Why didn’t you just say so before?” She heard Stephen muttering about ruined surprises, but she didn’t care. Instead of aiming for the roof, she set them down directly in front of the door. The guards, who’d been startled at first, quickly made room for them as Jade set them down, normalized their gravity, and let go of the wind. Before either men could say something, she bounded for the door, throwing it open as she called out, “Honey, I’m home!”

Scarcely had the words left her mouth before she was pulled into a hug. Her little ones scattered into the air, all except Ramoth and Rio, who staunchly stayed where they were and started squeaking angrily when people got too close to that shoulder as a warning. She was pulled into the warmth of the common room, Jessica and Kaylee fussing over her like she’d been gone for weeks, rather than two days. Stephen and the King entered after, with people bowing to them, but for the most part she was being patted on her good shoulder as she was dragged past happy faces.

“Welcome back.” The words were repeated as Jessica herded her upstairs while Kaylee retreated to the kitchen, and Jade just waved at her friends as she was brought back to her room.

Jessica gave three sharp raps before the door was thrown open and Jade was half tackled by three overenthusiastic bodies trying to hug her. “Woah, it’s okay. I’m here.” She managed to get her arm around them, hiding the wince of pain that took as Hunter, Hayden, and Tisha clung to her while Jess supported her from behind to stop her being knocked over.

“I knew you could do it.” Hunter’s whisper was soft, buried as his face was in her shoulder, but she let her head drift down, resting against his. The pain was secondary the comfort of loving bodies pressed all around her. Even Ramoth and Rio had been forced to flee to the top of her head in alarm with the three of them being so grabby, and she could feel their annoyance as they squeaked at the kids imperiously.

“What’re they so upset about?” Tisha asked, finally letting go of her and looking up at the fellacai on her head.

From behind her, Stephen answered, “You’re hurting her injuries. So why don’t you let her get inside the room first, and then we can talk.” Jade winced as the three kids suddenly pulled back, horrorstruck that they were causing her pain, and she gave them a soft smile as she reached up with her good hand, patting each of them on the head.

“It’s fine. Let’s go in.” As soon as there was enough room, Ramoth and Rio returned to her shoulder, squeaking angrily at the guilt-stricken kiddos. Jade smiled down at them and said, “Enough, they didn’t know.” She was really hoping to keep news of her injury to a smaller group of people, but whatever. They backed into the room and she followed, Derrick, Stephen, and Jessica on her heels. Jess took one look at the crowd in the room, smiled at Jade, then closed the door after the last of her little ones flew in behind them. She assumed Jess was heading to the kitchen to help Kaylee.

“Jade, you’re back.” Ashanna came forward, giving Jade a half hug as she avoided the shoulder her littles were so jealously guarding. It was brief, but warm, before Ashanna turned and let her husband wrap his arms around her.

Cami came forward, pulling Jade over to her bed where she was sitting with Victor and Will, sandwiching Jade between them as she said, “We were so worried, but what’s this about you being hurt? Do we need to call a healer?”

“No fair, I wanted to sit next to Jade!” Tisha was pouting, but the twins pulled her to sit with them on the bench that had mysteriously appeared in her room. The rest of her little ones were settling in their tree, obviously tired from the activities of the day, and Jade glanced down at Ramoth and Rio, mentally urging them to go get some rest as well. She was fine for now. Getting the message, they finally abandoned their post, heading for the tree with a last admonishing squeak at the trio.

Smiling at the royal family, Jade spoke softly, “Haaaaah, there’s really a lot to go over, but the short of it is that I’m fine, for now. I was attacked by a spirit and it was infected, but a dragon burned out the infection. The thing is, well, it was still a burn. So no more infection, but my shoulder spirit is a chunk of charred flesh right now, so it’s a bit sensitive.” There. That was simple enough to get the message across without having to do a ton of explaining.

Victor snorted from beside her. “A bit sensitive. You’ve been trying not to use it at all. Just how badly is it burned?”

She winced, then gave a half-shrug. “Like I said, charred meat. I don’t know if it can be fixed, it’s kind of hard to experiment on your own spirit and nothing before the fire was working.” She paused, seeing their expectant faces, “And yes, I did try a bunch of things before the burning, haven’t had much of a chance after. So for now, don’t worry about it. It’s not gonna kill me, it’s just annoying.”

“Did you say dragons burned you? You were fighting dragons?” Hayden asked curiously. Jade sighed, slumping to the side and resting her head on Camille’s shoulder while the girl wrapped an arm around her, being careful of her shoulder. Things were so crazy, it was apparent that news hadn’t been passed down to all of the royal kids. Victor and Camille seemed to know something, but the rest looked puzzled.

Heaving a sigh, Jade shook her head as much as she could without moving it from Camille’s shoulder. “No, I wasn’t really fighting them. I sort of made friends with them for a bit, but dragons don’t really make human friends, and I learned that the hard way. I’ll tell you all about them another time, I promise.” Maybe when she’d had a little space to come to terms with their draconic nature and pride. Victor took her hand from the other side, squeezing it reassuringly.

“Is there really a whole swarm of fellacai living in Mianach now?” Tisha’s voice was tinged with wonder as she looked longingly at the settled little ones, and Jade couldn’t help but smile. She really needed to bond Tisha with a few of her own.

Determined to take this happier change, she replied, “Yes. There were actually a few different swarms that were brought to the city when their queens were killed, and mine helped calm them down and bring them onto our side. I couldn’t bring them back, but, we…I even managed to transform some of them into new queens.” She didn’t want to think about Briar’s help. Didn’t want to explain it right now. Smiling, she pulled out the peach tree, letting it fall gently to the ground. There were fewer blossoms on it than before, but it was otherwise unharmed. “I even recreated a tree from my old world.”

From beside her, Victor’s low voice rumbled, “Sometimes it’s not about trying to fix something broken, but starting over and creating something better.” He could obviously tell she was troubled about something, probably thinking it was the old queens, but she smiled nonetheless as he tried to comfort her.

That was, until Ashanna wryly added, “And that’s why you have a younger brother.” There was dead silence, then a cacophony of laughter as the siblings turned as one to rib their oldest brother for his mum’s burn.

Will was the loudest of them, hooking his arm around his brother’s neck in a chokehold as he laughed at Victor, “Hear that? They couldn’t fix you, so they tried for someone better!”

He obviously wasn’t expecting his father to chime in with, “And that’s why you have two younger brothers.” The twins glanced at each other and then started cackling while Victor and Will began to tussle on the bed. Then, seeming to come to a consensus regarding their young brothers, each turned and pounced at a twin, mussing them up and giving them noogies. She supposed that was universal sibling rivalry.

Thanks to those little quips though, the atmosphere had lightened up considerably, and Jade just watched with a tired smile as Stephen answered the brief knock at the door, letting Jess and Kaylee bring in food and pile it on her desk. They didn’t dare stay long, and Stephen gave her a brief pat before he followed them out the door.

Having let go of their royal dignity for a bit, Tisha and Derrick had joined the boys in their tussle as the kids argued that they were the best iteration of their parents. Ashanna had slipped over to her side, nudging Camille out of the way and taking her place as she shooed her to go play with her siblings. Cami gave her a long-suffering look, then went to go put her brother in a headlock.

Hugging Jade against her, Ashanna whispered softly, “I’m sorry they weren’t what you expected. I wish you hadn’t been hurt like that.” Jade glanced up at her, eyes questioning as Ashanna gave her a sad smile, “I saw the way you looked at him when you called. I may not know everything he did or said to you, but I can recognize heartbreak when I see it.”

Jade paused, then buried her face in Ashanna’s shoulder, turning in fully as the older woman hugged her. There was a strange sense of security in her embrace as Jade wept silently, finally letting go of the emotions she’d been holding in. The crushing weight of failed expectations. Her relief at finally being able to relax, and the feeling of family as the rest of them tried to lighten the mood behind her. Where she was able to let go of being the traveler, and just be a girl who was missed by her…family.

She felt a warm body slide in behind her, hugging her and her mom as Tisha whispered softly, “Hey, we’re here for you.” One by one, she felt more hands piling into the mix as the whole family ended up in a group hug. She was laughing as she cried, feeling overwhelmed by so many different emotions.

Jade might not have a dragon to confide in, but she had a new family who loved her. And that, that was worth the world.

It was several hours later before she was finally in her room alone once more. She had cried, she had hugged, they’d eaten and she’d been given even more food in preparation. When she finally sent the last of them out, Ashanna had kissed her on the forehead and told her to have sweet dreams.

It wasn’t time to dream yet, though. Sitting on the edge of her bed, Jade stripped down as she erected a wind bubble around her to block out any noise she might make. Preparations complete, she pulled up her blue dots, going through the day. She ended on the two dragons, before finally choosing charisma and dominion from Tadashi and clicking accept, ignoring Xuxianara’s box.

The pain ripped through her as the siphoning began, and she was glad she was sitting down on an older blanket she’d appropriated for that purpose. Her pores began to ooze, impurities forced from her skin. She hadn’t thought she had many of those left, but perhaps all the food she was ingesting was the cause. Unlike in the past when it had been a dirty black mud, it was more like a creamy puss, which was…just as unpleasant as it sounded.

When a minute had passed and the first round was over, she groaned, knowing she wasn’t going to be sleeping much for the next four hours. Cleaning off the gunk with a thorough wave of water, she shrugged a robe on for decency and walked over to her desk, sitting down to munch on more food after she’d dismissed the bubble.

She paused, her head tilted as she considered the room. She was…more aware of things than she had been before. It was as if she could feel the very world around her. Even without activating her mana sense, she could feel the magic pulsing like a heartbeat through the atmosphere. Her awareness didn’t extend very far, but it was a perceptible difference to her.

Pausing, she pulled up the yellow dot in the corner of her vision.

Alert. You have siphoned a species ability incompatible with your body. Correctional action has been taken. Special ability Domain has been added.

Unable to contain her curiosity, she pulled up her special abilities list and clicked on her new ability.

Domain: Your presence shifts the world around you.

Well, it seemed she really was going to change the world.