The door slammed shut with a kind of absolute finality, and the Wizard Blueraven understood in one sobering instant that he would probably not see his homeland again any time soon. Strangely enough, he didn't really mind that much. Salvar was cold. And he'd just helped murder the living god of at least a few tens of millions of people. It was probably good that he didn't go back there any time soon. Probably better still that Caden wasn't there now. In fact, the problem wasn't that Caden was no longer in Salvar.

The problem was that Caden was back in Tembrethnil Forest.

What was left of it.

Perhaps seeing the place was even more sobering than how he'd gotten here -- being teleported at the whims of a true Goddess who no longer owed him a favor. Caden looked around. The ground was still corpse-gray, and there were plants petrified all over the place. Their leaves had been blown away, and what grass remained looked like it had the consistency of dried paper and ash. Everything leaned out from ground zero -- not where Caden stood, but close enough that he still had chills running up and down his spine. He turned away from it and said, "Well, this isn't a hysterical downer at all."

A few seconds ticked by as the Wizard took off his soot-stained goggles, plundered around beneath his breastplate and inside of his coat, then took out his signature glasses and put them on.

The Elder Thayne still stood in front of him, larger than life and somehow realer than the rest of the world around her. The Wilder Queen no longer clung to a single form for the sake of on-lookers. Her appearance changed as wildly as her namesake, always humanoid but rarely human. Only the wings, massive golden shrouds dotted with stars, remained a constant. They draped over her shoulders like a shroud, and seemed to yield modesty more by chance than anything else. There is work to be done, Sorcerer.

The statement practically metabolized the alcohol right out of his system.

(Conveniently enough, it also made Caden vomit on the spot. A combination of exhaustion, undescribable dread and several types of shock will do that to you.)

It took Caden another minute or two to wipe his mouth and get the taste out. What remained was the peppermint aftertaste, and the clammy cold that he had come to associate with Necromancy. Another layer of unpleasantness. The Wizard cracked his neck a few times before asking, "Why did you bring me here?"

Because this is where you belong. You were never meant to leave Raiaera, the Thayne told him, and then Caden perceived a smile that he couldn't actually see with his eyes. You were never meant to do a lot of things.

"But here I am," he said.

Here you are.

The Wilder remained. Caden stared at her, waiting. Both of them, waiting. But it was the patience of a true God against that of a mere mortal. Eventually, Caden asked, "What do you want me to do?"

What you were supposed to.

"That tells me nothing."

It tells you everything.

"Khal'jaren's supposed to be the cryptic one, dammit," Caden spat, turned and found himself more or less face to face with Charger. His semi-trusty, quite tempermental riding ram, a gift of sorts from one of the few real friends Caden had made during his trip through Salvar. Big, white, black-hooved and curly-horned. "What the-"

He looked back and the Wilder was gone.

"Naturally."

Charger huffed.

"Seconded."