Page 64 of Calling of the Crown

“You’re hurt,” Rune gasped with wide eyes. His clawed fingers pressed gingerly to the teeth marks on my chest before moving to my hips where the skin had been shredded. His face went ashen, and his fox ears pinned all the way back. He recoiled as if I’d shocked him. “I hurt—”

“I’m fine,” I quickly reassured him. I sat up to grab his hands, which he clutched to his chest in an effort to keep them away from me. I slipped my hands into his, and I squeezed them as I pulled them to my own chest. I pressed my forehead to his and smiled. “I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt anymore, and it will heal in no time.”

He swallowed hard. “I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted to be this fucking monster again.”

“You don’t have to be. Everyone is okay.”

He looked around us at the fiery scene. A tree crumbled near us, sending a gust of black smoke and embers into the air. His shoulders slumped with remorse. “This place isn’t.”

With Rune safely back in my arms, I finally surveyed the damage around us. There were no lively greens or vibrant island flowers anymore. They’d been lost to the roaring orange flames and consumed by the gray ash. The island was indeed dying, but it wasn’t completely lost yet.

“That’s not true,” I finally said to Rune.

I closed my eyes and looked within myself for that connection to water. I’d been too focused on finding Rune before to worry about anything else, but with my Fox now back in my arms, I found the clarity I needed to help the island. As soon as I found that cord, I reached out to the distant waves surrounding the island, and with my mental guidance, the sound of rushing water headed toward us.

I opened my eyes just in time to see the water sweep along the ground like a flood, climbing up individual trees that were still being eaten by flames, and over us, cleaning us of any signs of the fire. As soon as the water swept over me, the wounds on my thighs and breasts closed, and the burning in my throat from the smoke soothed into a distant memory. When the water drew back the way it had come, the land revealed the barren, dark landscape that was left.

Rune’s jaw worked as he surveyed the naked trees. “What have I done?”

The anguish in his voice made my heart clench painfully. I looked around at what had no doubt been a beautiful place before, and I couldn’t help but feel sad over the loss. Rune had been blinded and taken over by his grief, and the loss of self had made him ruthless. He’d needed some way to release those raging emotions inside him, and he did that by burning everything in his path, regardless of what that would mean later.

I placed my hand on the tree he’d pressed me against earlier to pay my respects to the dying land. As my palm pressed into the crisp bark, I felt something. It was like faint static tickling my palm, so soft I nearly missed it. But as I focused on the feeling, I knew it was real. Honing in on the sensation made it stronger.

Save them.

My eyes widened at the faint whisper that seemed to come from everywhere yet nowhere at the same time.

I turned to Rune and asked, “Did you hear that?”

He glanced around us. “Hear what?”

Heal them.

Use me.

Realizing the whispers belonged to the water, I furrowed my brow in confusion. My hand was still pressed against the tree, and as I felt the static tingle grow fainter beneath my palm, everything inside me seemed to freeze. I looked at the trees all around us and recalled something my mother had said.

Water was everywhere. Including in plants.

Looking back at the towering tree above me, I realized what I was feeling had to be the water within the tree. And if there was water …

“Water is life,” I whispered.

I took a deep breath and focused on the tree beneath my hand. I reached out to it and the water running through it. When I released my breath, I pictured the bark hardening into its rich brown color and the vibrant green leaves resprouting in healthy foliage.

The tingles beneath my hand turned into a full vibration as the crumbling layer under my palm hardened. I watched with wide eyes as the tree began to regrow, starting at my hand and working its way up and around. The color returned to its trunk and limbs, followed by emerald leaves sprouting right before my very eyes.

And it didn’t stop there.

The ground beneath my knees became soft like a bed of clovers, and when I looked down, the earth began to regrow green and lush, crawling along the ground toward the island’s edges. Some trees stayed broken and lifeless, and patches of ground remained charcoaled beyond repair. But any tree or inch of ground that still clung to life regrew with vibrant rebirth until all you could smell was fresh dirt, pine, and the ocean.

Rune’s wide eyes found mine, and his mouth hung open in shock. “How did you do that?”

Still trying to wrap my mind around what I’d just done, I gave a slow shake of my head. Laughing softly, I repeated, “Water is life.”

Judging by the dozen or so dead trees and scattered patches of scorched earth, I gathered that water allowed me to heal and give life back when life wasn’t already lost. Those trees and clumps of burned land had been dealt a deadly, irreparable fate, but for the rest of the island that still had a chance to regrow, the water flowing within it allowed me to help it.

I can’t give life, but I can heal.

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