Zalia’s eyes were locked onto Ro’s.

  “When?”

  “How long do you need? Hildebrandt has been ready for some time and the council of Endaria has promised aid when it is needed. A few of the other gods of nature have also given oaths to send help however they see fit. We are ready when you are.”

  Zalia met Aylie’s gaze then, as she spotted her across the room. Her eyes were wide and expression intense. There was a fire burning there, the desire for revenge for her slain family. Zalia knew she didn’t have to ask Aylie whether she was ready or not, she had been for some time. Aylie was so close to Silver rank now and Zalia was similarly close to Gold. They could spend another week or two ranking up those last abilities, but why wait? With wait awaited them in Cormaine, they would each reach their respective rank ups in short order.

  She looked to Boreal as she padded through the front door with ears perked. Her furry friend was, as always, more than ready for a little violence.

  “Okay. I’m ready, have we got a plan?”

  “Yes, of course. We shall enter Cormaine and immediately ensure that you have the time and safety to set up a Grove. I have noticed your recent changes to the protections of Nature’s Reclaim and hope that you are able to apply those same things to the Grove there. If needed, Hildebrandt will use her golden dome to protect you while you finish your ritual. It will just be the three of us, plus Boreal if she wishes. Once it is set up, the rest of our forces may join us. I cannot say for certain what kind of resistance we might meet, but my strength now is far greater than it was when we were last there. I am restored and I shall bring an end to my home’s invaders.”

  Zalia took a deep breath in, then out. She had known this day would come and had for some time. The last time she had gone to Cormaine she’d had such little power, barely able to survive the air. This time she would return of her own volition, with strength and experience born of countless fights for survival.

  “Let’s do this.”

  “As you wish. Aylie, I shall return you to Nature’s Reclaim, enter when you see the new portal. Boreal, will you be joining us?”

  Boreal let out a deep affirming growl.

  Aylie nodded to Zalia before she was swept up in the familiar green shell that Nateysta used to transport people.

  “Then I shall begin the ritual.”

  The wooden body of Ro turned to dust and a green mist flowed out of the temple. Zalia and Boreal followed to see the huge form of Nateysta apparate just as his aura exploded across the frozen north. Raw power appeared, then consolidated into runes and shapes in a complex three dimensional ritual. Zalia’s eyes went wide as she recognised bits and pieces of it, runes and formations from some of her own rituals to do with teleportation. She realised that what Nateysta was doing was a very, very advanced version of her own powers even as it continued to shape.

  The entire construct began shrinking, condensing into a huge oval that hovered a few feet from the ground. Wind and snow whipped around it, pulling Zalia’s clothes and Boreal’s fur into a frenzy.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, an image of Cormaine appeared within the oval. Where the previous portal between worlds she had seen had been unstable, flickering and much like a tear in the world, this one was clean and stable, bounded by runes so compact together that they could no longer be discerned from one another.

  Hildebrandt appeared in a flash of green light, that of one of Nateysta’s spheres vanishing, with a vicious grin on her face. She flashed Zalia a look before sprinting through.

  Nateysta followed slower, with care and caution.

  Boreal nudged Zalia’s leg, looking up at her.

  “Alright, let’s go kill some fucking demons.”

  They stepped through together.

  The red tinted air, sulphurous taste and oppressive aura. Zalia shivered but looked to her surroundings, the very same island she had arrived on the first time she had come to Cormaine. Warped, lifeless trees devoid of leaves. Shades flying through the sky, letting out their wails of despair, cries for help born from the torture that was existance in this place.

  Those shades noticed the four allies and began to flow down in a tornado made from darkness. Nateysta’s aura pushed out, slowly but steadily growing faster with each moment. The shades were blown away before it and the aura pushed out and out until it encompassed the entire island, as did Zalia’s in its wake. The trees beneath them began creaking and groaning as their trunks were restored, leaves sprouting from now healthy boughs. Healing Presence restored them to life without the oppressive aura of death that permeated all of Cormaine.

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  “Go now Zalia, I do not know for how long we will be safe from attack.”

  Without waiting, Zalia flew away on wings of mist, Boreal close behind. As she always did when making a Grove, she went to the very edges of the space she wanted it to encompass and closed her eyes.

  When she looked into the nature around her with every other sense she had use of, she found something entirely disturbing. The surface of these plants were healed, yet there was corruption still inside. She moved to a nearby tree and placed her hand on it, breathing deeply of the newly freshened air. There too, she found that corruption. Small, hidden, waiting for its time to strike back against the force of nature that was Nateysta’s aura.

  The Healing Spirit that resided within her aura stepped out, laying a limb on the tree in a mirror of Zalia. The corruption within it vanished.

  Zalia opened her eyes, only for a moment, to inspect the spirit. Its formless body faced her in turn. Her eyes closed again and she started walking.

  Her path took her along the edge of the island, quick but steady, as the spirit flickered back and forth, cleansing the corruption from everything it touched. Tree and shrub and grass, all were restored. Time was lost to Zalia as she walked, ever around in slowly tightening circles, cleansing every part of nature of the corruption pushed so far into its being by the horror of Cormaine. She sensed something else helping her, the aura of Nateysta, removing chunks of corruption from the earth and stone beneath them just as she did for the plants on the surface.

  Soon, she passed by the pillar of stone that contained the remnants of her very first Grove. She stepped inside, observing the deteriorated and rotten wood and plants that had made up the essence of this Grove. The small drips of otherworldly blood still staining the floor where a dear friend of hers had died. She knelt to touch that spot. Delphi, who would forever live on in her memories.

  Her path went onwards, through the thin tunnels and down to the larger chamber that had been her home for her stay in Cormaine. A pool in the middle and some of the plants she had grown here, still alive. The very first of her living rituals hidden away in a self-sufficient ecosystem. She brushed her hands over them, then left that place.

  When she left that cave, there was a golden dome covering the entire island, flashes of light shining from impacts on its surface. It barely registered to her though, as she finally arrived at the centre of the island and sat down.

  Change began. The edges of the island were shored up, rough and broken surfaces made to solid stone decorated with glowing depictions of Delphi and Ro-ak. It swept around the entire perimeter of the island until the border was clean and new.

  The next change began with the pillars of stone that held the island to the ceiling. They cracked and fell away, revealing thick roots that grew until they surpassed the original pillars. Far above, those roots dug into rock and stone, spreading throughout the horizon spanning ceiling.

  From the base of those pillars spread life. The ground was flattened, rivers created, houses of wood and stone created. Lush nature took hold where only death had once lived, spreading ever outwards until it reached Zalia. From where she sat, a giant many trunked tree grew up, boughs spreading out across the entire span of the island to wrap themselves around each root pillar that now held it up. She could feel the tree continue its growth underground, spreading down and out to the bottom of the island where it wrapped around in winding patterns.

  The final change was a pool forming directly under Zalia, even as she sat on its still surface. The pool was syphoned from somewhere else, the cave under the pillar. The pool that had been the collective's home and with it, a couple small forms. Glowing jellyfish and within them, tiny, tiny frogs.

  Zalia gasped, lifting up from the ground on wings of mist and landing next to the pool. She stared down into the pool, at the remnants of the collective, still alive…

  With trepidation, she reached out with her mind and sent a message.

  “Hello?”

  There were so few of them, maybe a dozen in total. Once, there had been a few hundred of the little frogs. She didn’t know if any of them even held memories of her, or whether they still spoke her language. They would have had limited ability to hold onto some of those things after all.

  Her fears were allayed when a voice entered her mind.

  “Zalia, you have returned.”

  A single frog, larger than the others, hopped out of one of the jellyfish and onto the poolside. She didn’t know who this frog was, she hadn’t ever met them specifically. Delphi had been the one sent to interact with her but they were gone still, forever.

  Hildebrandt appeared next to her in a flash.

  “Zalia, Nateysta says you need to get those defences up as quickly as possible, he can hold the demons back for a while but every bit of defence is going to help!”

  Zalia jumped up, wiping a tear from her face.

  “Right, I’m on it!”

  From the trunks of the tree around her, portals to her other Groves began opening one by one. Aylie and Lumin ran through the portal connecting to Nature’s Reclaim, staring about in wonder.

  “Aylie, Lumin, with me. Zalia, get those rituals up!” Hildebrandt said, gesturing to the two newcomers before sprinting off.

  “We’ll have to talk later, one of the collective. I have work to do.”

  With a thought, Nature’s Reclaim stopped being her Herbal Nexus. The essence of that magic flowed through Nature’s Reclaim’s portal and into Cormaine, taking hold in the new Grove. It spread out and over everything, changing the nature of the place until rituals began forming at Zalia’s whim. Layers of protection, spiritual, physical and perceptual. Smaller rituals created elementals of air and stone that rushed to the fight.

  Zalia started paying attention to what was actually happening in her Grove. Her mind rose back to reality and she found her senses met by a Thousand-eyed one with a large grouping of demons.

  She stretched her neck side to side as her sword dropped into her hand, armour apparated on her body and her bow appeared beside her. Boreal was already out there in the fight, as were her other friends. She wasn’t going to let them fight alone.