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He gave me a little space so I could turn and climb the ladder, which I did as quickly as possible. He followed me, and we left the barn, not talking, just hurrying back to the lodge, like something might stop us if we waited around too long. And it did, just sooner than either of us could have expected. 155

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Chapter 14

Once we reached the edge of the woods, Caelan stopped dead. He tilted his head like he was hearing something from a great distance. A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature chased away the remaining heat of lust.

"What's wrong?" I asked. There was trouble somewhere. I could tell by his reaction or lack thereof.

He didn't answer right away. I started to repeat the question, and he said, "Something is wrong at the house. Namere is calling us, telling us to hurry back, but she will not say why." I didn't like the sound of that. Apparently, neither did he. He bolted toward the house.

The urgency he projected was contagious. I found myself racing to keep up, only a dozen or so strides behind him. He was probably going as fast as he dared without the fear of losing me in the woods.

As soon as we cleared the trees into the snow-filled yard behind the lodge, the door to the house opened. Namere and Thane stepped out, bundled in quilted parkas.

Caelan stopped a few feet from the porch stairs and stared silently at them while they did the same to him. "What's the matter?" I asked. I was probably being rude, interrupting the conversation just like an uncouth speaking human, but screw it. Namere answered. "Asha is fading. Something within her has ceased functioning. Her restorative powers are minimal at best."

"She's dying," Caelan said.

I turned to look at him, but he refused to meet my eyes.

"What happened?" I asked. But the weight surrounding my heart told me that I already knew.

"You," Thane answered, in a tone that walked a fine line 156

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between anger and grudging respect.

My heart sank lower. "I don't understand."

"When you touched her mind, you connected with her power and turned it against her," Caelan said, his voice shaking. "Her healing ability is part of that power."

"So you're saying I took it from her?" I asked. He nodded.

The world tilted slightly around me. I'd killed her. Not yet, of course, but it was only a matter of time. Blood rushed past my ears, drowning out all other sounds, and little white spots began to cloud my vision. I wobbled in the snow, but managed to stay on my feet. "We have to get her to a hospital," I said through numb lips.

Namere shook her head. "It won't help. She is beyond the reach of your medicine. Only her own power could save her now." The ground beneath me seemed to shift, and I ended up on my knees in the snow, the cold biting into my skin through my jeans. "We have to do something." I fumbled in my pocket for my inhaler. "We can't just let her die. I can't...I can't be responsible for killing someone." I took two, then three puffs, but it made no difference this time.

Caelan knelt beside me in the snow, his face pale, but I shrugged off the comforting hand he tried to place on my shoulder. He shouldn't touch me, none of them should. Not when I could...

"There may yet be a possibility for her," Namere said. Cold wet soaked through my jeans. But it helped keep me focused. "What is it?" I asked.

She exchanged a look with Caelan.

"No," I shouted. "Tell me, not him. I'm the one who did it." She immediately looked to me and lowered her eyes to the ground.

"And cut that out, we don't have time for this servant to leader bullshit. Tell me about the possibility." 157

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Namere brought her gaze back up, her eyes filled with hardness. She probably didn't care for my tone. Too bad. "Very well," she said. "But it may bring great danger to you."

"Just tell me what it is." I levered myself to my feet. She looked to Thane, and he nodded. "We think that if you connect with her again, you might be able to find a way to return her power," Namere said.

"Turn on what I shut off, you mean." She nodded.

"Okay," I said. "So what's the downside?" "If she dies while you are connected with her, you may die as well. Or perhaps become trapped within her deadened mind," Caelan said.

"Hell of a downside," I muttered. I glanced back over my shoulder to Caelan to see what he thought. Restrained tears made the silver in his eyes shine like liquid mercury. He still cared for her that much.

A bolt of jealousy slid through me, clenching my fists, then was gone. I had no choice. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't try. God help me, after what I'd just seen from Caelan, I don't think he could have either.

"I'll do it," I said.

"No," Caelan said instantly.

I stared back at him, startled. "What do you mean, no? I thought you wanted this." The thought that he cared enough about me to try to keep me alive lightened my heart a little.

"After you have survived all of this, we cannot jeopardize your life again, not without risking your entire purpose for being here among us." He turned pleading eyes on me. "We can't. Not even for her."

Blood pounded in my ears. I wanted to scream at him. But the misery written on his face forced me to temper my words. "People, whether they're human, Observer or somewhere in-between, are more important than any damn quest."

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"Even at the expense of your own life and those who depend on you?" He gestured to Namere and Thane still waiting on the porch.

"If she dies, I won't be able to live with myself," I said simply. "And if I can't, neither will you." I stared at him, letting him see the truth in my eyes. "None of you." Then I climbed the deck stairs, pushing between Thane and Namere, and headed inside. I didn't wait to see if he followed. The hollowness in my gut commanded that I do this. And Caelan, while he might have had pull over other parts of me, had no influence there. I waited inside the kitchen for Namere and Thane to catch up with me, then I followed them upstairs to Asha's room, nerves twisting my stomach into a horrid little knot. I didn't know what to expect, which turned out to be a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because those few minutes were the last in my life where I wouldn't be haunted by what I was about to see and a curse, because my ignorance left me completely unprepared. They'd dimmed the lights in the room, so I had to move closer to the bed to even see Asha at all. But once I did, I understood why they'd kept the lights low.

She looked far worse than when I'd seen her yesterday. Her face had swollen on the right side until it lost all recognizable features, leaving it a mass of black and blue flesh. The bones of her right arm poked up in all the wrong places, making little tents of her skin.

My stomach lurched and I turned away, trying not to throw up. While I wrangled for control, I resisted the urge to cross myself. I did this to her, albeit unintentionally, and who knows what God would have done to me if I'd called for protection from myself.

I looked to Caelan and the others clustered behind me, just inside the doorway of Asha's bedroom. "Why did you wait? Why didn't you take her to the hospital right away?" 159

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"They could have done nothing for her," Thane said.

"They could have at least set her arm," I said. "Aligned all the pieces so they didn't..." I swallowed hard to keep from gagging,

"stick out."

"This has never happened like this before," Namere said.

"Until now, we have always been able to heal our injuries without difficulty, even the ones from Nevan. But because you took power from her–"

"Yeah, I know, I messed up." I ran my hands through my hair and paced a couple steps, keeping my eyes on the ground. I couldn't steady myself enough to turn back around for another look at Asha. "It wasn't on purpose."

"It means you are more powerful than we with thought. It was not your mistake so much as a miscalculation on Asha's part," Caelan said.

I looked up at the three of them. A distinct sense of energy charged the air around them. "You're pleased about this." My stomach rolled over again with the realization.

"You are no use to us if you are weak," Thane said.

"You guys are sick," I whispered.

"We are not happy that she is injured, merely that our new leader is strong," Namere added.

I ignored them, turning back to face Asha. She was lying with an unnatural stillness, like a dress rehearsal for death, on a mattress on the floor pushed up against the center of the opposite wall.

I stepped closer, kneeling next to the mattress on Asha's good side. She didn't so much as twitch at my approach, and her breathing sounded shallow and wheezy. She wasn't wearing anything beneath the sheet, and her exposed arm was gray with cold beneath the brighter purples, yellows, and reds of her bruised and swollen flesh.

I reached for the blanket folded at the foot of the bed and 160

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started to pull it over her.

"Zara, wait," Caelan said. I turned, the blanket still in hand, to see him approaching me. "You must be careful. Her injuries are severe, which leaves her shield greatly weakened. One touch and you will be connected that instant."

"Isn't that the point?" I said.

"If you insist on following through with this, I must stay close, so if Asha begins to fail, I can drop my shield and help you break the connection."

"No, you can't interfere," I said. "I don't have control over this, and I'm not going to risk anyone else getting hurt."

"Asha is likely to be very angry with you. I will not allow her death or her vengeance to destroy you. On this, I will not compromise." His eyes flicked to meet my mine, making sure I understood the implied threat. He didn't want me to do this, but if I insisted, we would do it his way. Or, he'd likely haul me out of here bodily.

"All right," I said. "But don't break in unless it's absolutely necessary."

He nodded, kneeling next to me. Thane and Namere backed up, like they were trying to step out of the blast radius. I pulled the blanket up over Asha's arm, taking care not to touch her. As I did, something inside me pulled toward her, something that recognized its home and desperately wanted to return. I snatched my hand back and held it against my chest.

"So what do I do?" I asked Caelan.

In answer, Caelan offered his hand as the connection point, and I took it, holding it in my own as loosely as possible. Then, I held my breath and reached over and touched the back of Asha's hand.

Her skin was cool and clammy beneath my fingertips, but there was no connection. My gaze flicked over to meet Caelan's.

"Nothing." I pulled my hand away from her. 161

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He looked down at Asha. The tension in his body ratcheted up a few more notches; I could feel it in his tightened grip on my hand. "She exists still," he said, after a moment. "But she has pulled farther into herself, away from the pain." His eyes met mine again, and I didn't have to be telepathic, alien, or otherwise, to see the emotion there. He kept it back from me, hidden behind a polite facade of indifference. He cared for her but more for me and his quest for the truth. So he would not ask me to try again.

I tore my eyes away from him to look at Asha again. If anything, she appeared worse than she had only moments ago, the brilliant discoloration of the right side of her face in sharper contrast to the pallor on the other side.

I reached for her hand again, this time picking it up off the covers and holding it in my own. Her hand was larger than mine, her fingers extending well beyond the edge of my palm. Her index finger was swollen to twice its normal size and the one next to it was scraped raw and missing a fingernail. As I shifted her hand in mine, trying anything to spark a connection, I noticed some of her bones didn't seem to be in place here, either. Pieces of them moved beneath her skin, like sharp little stones in a sack of skin. The sensation sickened me and still there was no connection. What if I couldn't ever get one with her? She would die. And then this would all be over, a little voice whispered in my head. Asha's death would change the vision, make it invalid. All you have to do is...

I didn't let myself finish that thought. I settled Asha's hand more firmly in mine and then squeezed. Hard.

And then I was falling, into the darkness, invisible flames tasting my flesh as I went. I cried out for Caelan, then realized I could no longer feel him holding my hand.

Light stuttered and flickered, broken images flashing.
Caelan's face. A male human on the floor, bleeding. An open bag
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of marshmallows.

I sucked in a breath, suddenly aware that I could feel Caelan's hand again. I opened my eyes. "I can't," I said. "There's nothing to..." I searched for the right words, "...pull me in."

"Try again," Thane urged from behind me.

"She still lives," Caelan said simply. Maybe, but something in her head was broken. What if I'd damaged her brain, leaving her breathing but lost inside? I shuddered.

"She forced you out," Caelan said. "She will not willingly accept your assistance."

So, if I didn't want her death or this kind of half-life on my conscience, I'd have to force her into it. "Fine by me." I seized her hand again. The darkness swallowed me whole, sending me through the flames once more.

Then, just as suddenly as I started falling, I stopped, and the flames receded, though I knew they didn't go far. The darkness here was darker somehow than where I'd come from, soothing almost, like a balm after all that burning. I relaxed and felt myself drifting, unable to concentrate with such peace surrounding me.
Get out.
The words struck at me, sending sizzling lines of pain through me. I jerked back away from this threat before I realized what was happening. I'd found Asha, or whatever remained of her. She was huddled, a darker place in the shadows, as far from the flames above us as possible.

It seemed odd to me that I would sense her as a separate entity in her own mind, even as I was connected to her body. The last time I'd been lost in her head, unable to figure out which part was me and which part was her. But this time, it was different. I was still myself even within her, so I remembered why I was there. Maybe it was because she had retreated so far within, detaching completely from the shell of her former self. I didn't know and didn't want to spend time contemplating it right now. 163