Episode Thirty The Energy Transfer

D eklan

After slipping off the leather bag he wears across his chest, he pulls down Mirron's heavy layers of furs to expose the wound. He closes his eyes, sits on his heels, and breathes. I watch him for a moment, not understanding what's going on other than the monks' promises that they can help my mate.

For the first time since I ran through the mouth of our cave, I glance at my mate. My body shudders and I can't keep my palm from slamming over my mouth to keep from groaning in anguish.

He is pale. So pale.

He's motionless except for his breathing. Normally my enormous mate takes deep breaths in through his nose until his belly expands, then exhales. How many millions of peaceful breaths have I watched while he slept? None looked like this. Shallow pants through parted lips. They have an odd cadence—labored.

Until this moment, my gaze has skirted the wound itself, but I force myself to inspect it. The meat below his skin is exposed, although I don't see blood. Just a deep, round hole where flesh used to be. The jagged wound is edged with singed brown hair.

Whatever did this was powerful. It had to come from Up Above. Hot rage seethes through me so swift and forceful it's like a thunderbolt. I want to kill those from Up Above. I want to kill them all.

I force my attention back to the present, opening my eyes to watch the healer.

His eyelids are fluttering in his deep-set eye sockets. Changing his position, he sits on his ass, legs crossed, knees out. Setting the back of one hand on each knee, he begins to mumble words I can't understand.

Craning closer doesn't help me discern his words, some of which are spoken on the exhale, some on the inhale in some bizarre incantation.

Then I feel it. It's like the very air around us buzzes with power. Little zaps of energy feel like they're biting me. It's not pain, although I'd endure anything for my mate. It's like bees are landing all over me. Even inside of me.

Maybe I'm losing my mind, because I see something appear in the healer's palms. The palest blue light shimmers to life in each hand, then becomes brighter and brighter. The increase in light seems in rhythm with his breathing, as if he's powering this phenomenon with nothing more than his breaths.

Slowly, he smashes his palms together and the two rounded balls of light combine into one larger, brighter orb. It's pulsing, throbbing, clearly growing more powerful with every breath.

The healer's chanting is louder now, completely spoken on the exhale. It's a song with a rhythm that soothes. It lulls me, pulls me in, until the song is inside me, curling and circling, sparking something to life deep in my heart.

The words aren't confusing anymore. I understand every one of them. Great Father-Mother, hear our prayer. Great Mother-Father, heal the sick. Great Father-Mother, giver of life. Great Mother-Father, perform your will.

It's beautiful. It's the loveliest tune I've ever heard as it swoops inside my flesh and anoints something deep in my soul.

Whatever power this is, it's speaking inside my mind. I don't need Reese to interpret because everything is written so clearly on my heart it's as if I've known it forever. Even as the chant whispers to me, promising me healing and rebirth for my mate, it reassures me that life is just an illusion. That Mirron and I will be together forever and always.

It is with the peace of this thought that I lean forward, as instructed without words, and place one hand on Mirron's heart. At the same moment, I touch the fur over my own heart.

A crackle of power erupts through the rock underneath me and stabs through me. It's pain that's not pain as it bursts into sparkles of light inside me. They touch every inch of me from the soles of my feet to the tips of my fingers to the top of my head.

It's the oddest combination of pleasure and pain and pressure and… presence. The assurance as real as I'm sitting here that everything will be okay whether or not Mirron makes it through this.

I'm led to open my eyes and I see the blue blast of power flickering all over Mirron, inside and out. I'm so happy he's receiving this, too. He'll know everything is alright, even if he must leave this plane of existence and move to the next.

The power of the blue light changes from blasts to pulses to shimmers, then fades to little sparkles, then disappears.

Someone eases me to the furs. Oh, thank you, thank you, I think, but I'm too tired to speak. Maybe they can hear me like I just heard all of that in my head. Gentle hands press me against my mate, then tuck furs under my chin and around me.

I hope Mirron lives through this. But if he doesn't, I'm reassured by the knowledge deep in my bones that I will join him in the afterlife.