Perian made a bit of a face. “Are we going to need to do that again?”
She shrugged. “Honestly, I’m still a little astonished you were able to help him the first time—and were permitted to do so. I cannot say for certain, but I would recommend being as full of energy as possible.”
“But I can’t get filled up like that,” Trill said a bit anxiously.
Molun immediately leered at him. “But we’re willing to have sex with you constantly, honey. Please don’t worry about it.”
Perian started laughing. Brannal rolled his eyes. But everyone looked so… fond.
Arvus’s tone was serious, but there was a twinkle in his eyes, “If we need to have sex with you in the middle of the attempt, that’s what we’ll do.”
Molun was grinning widely. “Even if it needs to be in front of the Queen, I promise.” He made a face. “But, er, I might need to draw the line at the Princess.”
They all made faces.
Perian snorted. “Yeah, last I checked, she still thought I was old and gross, so I’m pretty sure we’ll be all right.”
They all laughed.
“Seriously, though,” Perian managed to continue once they’d settled down, “it’s going to be a few days before we hear back from Kee’s mother, so we can practice. We can finish healing Molun’s leg so that he’s totally better and I get more practice with physical healing, and we can work on your being able to heal without touching anyone, Trill.”
Predictably, Molun pouted, and Trill kissed him and assured him that he always wanted to touch him.
“That sounds like a very productive way to pass the time,” Brannal said. His eyebrow rose. “You will also be pacing yourselves, feeding regularly, and not overextending, right?”
“Right,” Perian and Trill agreed, because Trill might have just met Brannal recently, but he knew what the only correct answer to such a question was.
Perian winked at him.
Chapter Thirty-One
Trill
The next few days were full of laughter, sex, and affection, as they tried collectively to both prepare and distract themselves. Trill, Molun, and Arvus took on the task of ensuring that Yannoma had all the sex energy that she needed. Cormal had volunteered, too, looking a little ill, but Yannoma had said it wasn’t wise for her to be feeding near the Prince.
(Trill liked to think that she felt a little bad about what she’d done to Cormal and was kindly excluding him now.)
Learning to heal without touch was harder than Trill expected. At fifteen, he’d learned based on what Yannoma and his father had taught him. Touch was the first and most crucial step.
Except for how it apparentlywasn’tnecessary, only Trill didn’t know how to proceed without that first step. When he tried to push the energy out without touching someone, it either didn’t come at all or it emerged only to wisp away into nothing.
Still, Trill reminded himself that he hadn’t actually been healing for that long. And unlike his mother and grandmother, this group of people didn’t berate him for not doing something fast enough.
Perian squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t worry if you don’t get it right away. We’re both making this up as we go along.”
Yannoma had sat in on one of the lessons when it became apparent that Trill wasn’t immediately grasping it.
“Energy that is no longer contained by a being is ready to be consumed,” Yannoma said as she considered them. “Demons pull it out of a human in order to consume it. Lesser demons can only capture it once its host has been killed. Wraiths, too, can’t absorb ambient energy. They always rip it out of the host, which is part of what makes them dangerous. Nightmares, carnalions, and children of two worlds can absorb it during that brief period when it’s been released from the being that created it but before it dissipates. With the exception of your prince, energy does not just… exist outside of a host indefinitely.”
Perian was nodding. “So you consider energy that you see around you food.”
She nodded.
Gazing at Trill consideringly, Perian said, “I wonder if that’s what you’re doing without meaning to. Carnalions taught youwhat is true for them: energy outside of a body is food, and so children of two worlds conduct healing energy skin to skin, from their body to the person they want to heal, and it’s never exposed where it could be… stolen. Consumed.”
Trill nodded. That actually made a lot of sense. “So it might be a defense mechanism to protect the energy, and it might simply be that it didn’t occur to us to teach or learn it any other way.”
“Exactly,” Perian said with a smile. “But I didn’t have anyone to teach me, plus I didn’t even know I was doing it. And so my magic responded to the need that it perceived, and it just skipped the niceties.” He huffed a laugh. “My energy and I didn’t know we couldn’t do it, and so when I needed to give energy to Kee, I just did.”
