Page 36 of Salvation
“How do we do this?”
The question he’d been asking himself since he’d dropped his guitar on the bed and ran out of the cube to find her. “That’s the problem. I don’t know that either.”
“I thought so.” She sighed. “Time to improvise, then.”
The corners of his mouth twitched upward. “I think I love working with you.”
Her cheeks turned pink. “You are okay too, Nick.” She shuffled her feet, then cleared her throat. “Let us start by centering ourselves. See what comes to us then?”
“Works for me.” He closed his eyes, and willed the tension in his shoulders to ease. A half dozen heartbeats later, a sense of calm washed over him. A sort of balance had been achieved and his Gift was waiting for the next step. He reached deep to touch his Source of Peace, and the power of his Gift surged through his veins until it tingled in his fingertips, ready to be released. So, that was it. They had to go all in.
“Sakura,” he kept his voice soft and steady. “when you feel centered and calm, go to your Source and bring it out.”
A small pause. “I do not know how.”
“Just touch your Source and you’ll feel it happen.”
A moment later she gasped. “I have it. Now what?”
Nick suppressed a humorless chuckle. Like he knew? He slit his eyes open. Their hands glowed golden with the combined light of their Gifts. All it waited for was their command. A single word was all it would take to unleash it, but what was the word?
“Nick,” Sakura whispered. Her eyes weren’t open as far as his, but the same light shone in them. Then she mouthed a single word to him.
He nodded. “Together, then.”
“Purify!”
The air in the room thinned and a crack reverberated against his eardrums as his healing powers were sucked directly into Storo’s body; like water into the parched ground. Drained away. There was nothing left inside him but an aching emptiness. Alone. Bereft. Tears gathered in his eyes. This should be his dream come true. His unwanted Gift had left him, but now it felt so…wrong.
He stared down at the still unconscious Storo and swallowed hard against the unbidden panic rising in his chest. Jesus, if it didn’t come back then he and Sakura might have accidently created the very first Anferthian healer.
He glanced up, meeting her stricken gaze. Shit, this loss of power probably had a more devastating effect on her than him. She lived to heal.
Storo’s body twitched, glowing faintly from within. The ill Anferthian’s neck arched and his roar echoed through the room. What was going on inside him? Would their combined power heal him, or kill him?
“What can we do to help?” Desperation edged Sakura’s question.
“Hell if I know. Just keep your hands in place and…I dunno. Pray?” This was redefining “winging it” in his mind.
Her mouth snapped shut, then she nodded.
As suddenly as it had disappeared, his power surged out of Storo’s body, traveling back up his arms to lodge in its accustomed place, warm and reassuring.Thank God!
Something had changed about it, though, but he couldn’t spare the time to analyze what was different.
Sakura exhaled a sigh. “Was that it?”
“Jesus, I hope so.”
“Me too,” Storo croaked. “I do not know what you did, but it felt like liquid fire burning my veins to ashes.”
Relief surged through him at the sound of his friend’s voice. “We need to run a probe, Storo. We need to know if the illness has been eradicated.”
The Anferthian nodded, giving him a weak grin. “I am in no condition to stop you, even if I wanted to.”
Extending his senses, Nick traveled the workings of Storo’s body, searching for any hint of what had made him so deathly ill just moments before. There was nothing.
“It is as if he were never sick,” Saku said a moment later.
