Page 64 of Salvation
Dante writhed on the dirt floor, hands clutching his head, his mouth open in a silent scream. And Nicky…god, Nicky wasn’t moving at all. Her brother. The last living member of her family.
“Storo!” Sakura’s voice cut through Alex’s horrified paralysis. The huge Anferthian squeezed through the doorway followed by Ita. “I need you two to hold Healer Dacian down.”
Storo and Ita immobilized Dante’s arms and legs as Sakura collapsed to her knees at Nicky’s side. Her fingers pressed against his neck. “His pulse is weak, but he is alive.”
Relief washed through Alex. There was still hope. Sakura leaned forward and kissed Nicky’s forehead, then looked up catching her gaze. “I need your help, Alex.”
“Anything. Just tell me what to do.”
“We must try to heal them, if we can,” Sakura’s even, white teeth worried at her bottom lip. “It should work. We are both Terrian. Dante is nearest to the end, we’ll work on him first.” She moved to their mentor’s side. The healer struggled against the strong hands pinning him. “Sit across from me. Have you ever touched the source of your healing power?”
It could be touched? Alex frowned. “I don’t think so.” Puzzlement came through her link with Gryf. “I have never heard of such a thing.” Good. Now she didn’t feel so bad.
“Then I have something to show you, but we must do this quickly. May I have your permission to scan your body?”
“Um, okay.” Something weird was about to happen, but she shared Gryf’s curiosity.
Sakura reached over Dante to grasp her hands. “Follow me in.”
Alex sunk into herself and awareness of all her body’s functions filled her. The chambers of her heart opening and closing, blood rushing through her veins, arteries, capillaries, the silence from where her appendix had been the first fifteen years of her life.
“Stay with me, Alex,” Sakura murmured, leading her passed all the surface info and deeper. Deeper than she’d ever been. “It is right here. Do you sense it?”
A gradual awe rose. Warmth from what she could only compare to a light bathed her soul. It was beautiful.
“Yes, it is,” Gryf brushed her mind. “I never suspected such existed.”
“Neither did I.”
“I wish we could stay longer, but Dante and Nick need us, now,” Sakura reminded her in a gentle tone.
Right. There was a job—two jobs—to do. Two lives to try and save. Alex surfaced, her gaze once more locked with Sakura’s.
“You will have to empty all of your source into Dante, then into Nick, if we are going to save them.”
“W-what?” Empty it? So it was gone?
“And once it is gone, how will you get it back?” Gryf asked.
Sakura’s fingers squeezed her hands with a gentle pressure. “It will be scary, but it is the only way.”
Scary wasn’t a big enough word to describe the anxiety coursing through her now. “This is how you and Nicky healed the others?”
“Yes.”
And they’d gotten their Gifts back. Alex swallowed hard, then nodded. “Show me what to do.”
After their hands had been placed in a manner Sakura seemed satisfied with, the younger woman lowered her chin, her gaze somehow more serious than before. “Now, reach inside and draw out you Gift. It should flow into your hands, then it will wait for your command. On my signal, we will say ‘purify’ together, and then...it will be out of our hands.”
“Okay.” Facing the Anferthian coalition, or being shot at by assassins seemed a lot less terrifying than draining every last drop of her Gift into someone else.
“But, you will survive this,” Gryf told her.
Yes, she would. Both Nicky and Sakura had, more than once. If they could do it, so could she. Reaching deep she pulled at her power and it flowed through her and into her hands.
“Now,” Sakura said.
“Purify!”
