Page 169 of Moon Chosen

Into the shocked silence Sora spoke first. “I’ll do it. I’ll go with you and heal your cousin. You said a life for a life. You just saved mine. I’ll save your cousin’s in return.”

“Can she do that?” Nik asked Mari.

“Probably, but she’s not going to have to. I’ll go.”

“Mari, no! You’re the closest thing to a true Moon Woman we have. You can’t go,” Sora said.

Mari went to Sora. “You are a true Moon Woman, too. If something happens to me, you have Mama’s journals. This burrow would be yours. Take care of Jenna. Train Danita. Go to the Millers and the Fishers and bring our women back to their homes. Be who Leda believed you could be.”

Sora brushed away tears. “I’ll be whoyoubelieve I can be.”

“I’ll bring her back to you safely. That I promise you,” Nik said.

Sora pulled Mari into her arms, hugging her tightly. Over Mari’s shoulder she told Nik, “You’d better, because if you don’t we’ll come get her.”

***

Mari and Nik left after Sora put together a hasty meal of leftover stew and bread for them. She complained all the while about how they were going to be missing the turkey feast she was in the middle of preparing, but Mari had agreed with Nik. With the symptoms he described even Leda’s journals warned that the disease was advanced and without drastic measures would be fatal.

As they left the burrow and began the long, hot journey to the Tribe, Mari thought about the “drastic measures” she would have to perform, and then, according to her mother’s notes, there was still no guarantee a case this far along could be cured.

“You look worried,” Nik said.

“I’m thinking about your cousin,” Mari admitted. “Nik, you do understand that he might be too sick for me to heal, don’t you?”

“That was one of the first things I thought about when I saw him last night. It’s why I left right away, even though I knew it could be bad for my own wounds,” Nik said. “Mari, could the blight come back?”

“I didn’t see anything in Mama’s journals that said the blight reoccurred. She wasn’t taking notes on Companions, of course, but you did respond to the treatment immediately. I think you’re okay, Nik.”

“That’s good to hear,” Nik said.

“And you know where I live. If your wounds start bothering you, come by the burrow and I’ll take a look at them.”

“That’s better to hear.” Nik grinned at her. “But do I have to be in pain to see you?”

“Why else would you want to see me?”

“Because I like you! And I like Rigel. And now that Sora doesn’t want to kill me I like her okay, too.”

“I don’t know if we can be friends,” Mari said slowly, surprised at how difficult it was to reject him.

“I thought we were already friends.”

“Well, we are. But that doesn’t mean we can keep seeing each other. Nik, my father was killed because of his relationship with an Earth Walker. I don’t want that to happen to you,” Mari said.

“It’s a different world now than it was all those years ago,” Nik said.

Mari met his eyes. “You’re going to have to prove that to me when we get to your Tribe.”

A squirrel bolted from the path in front of them and Rigel, barking with happy excitement, took off after it.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t send him back to the burrow? Sora calls him a creature, but I can tell she secretly likes him. At least he’d be safe there,” Mari said, watching the treed squirrel scold her pup.

“The Tribe would never separate a Companion from her canine. I told you that.”

“I’m only half Companion,” Mari reminded him.

“No, you’re Rigel’s Companion—his choice for life—and that’s stronger than anything in your blood. Trust me, Mari. I won’t let anything bad happen to either of you.”