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He stood back slightly, gesturing for us to pass him and enter the house. Amara went first, with me following close behind. The man shrunk back from me as I slipped past, clearly afraid of any contact, no matter how minor.
I winced but was soon distracted by the inside of the house. The first thing I saw was a second man stepping forward to provide backup to the one already in the doorway. He was a generation older than the first, and from the resemblance, I guessed them to be father and son.
This man also gave me a wide berth, clearing my view of the house beyond. A large, open room contained a wooden table with six chairs, a stove, a number of storage cabinets, and several more padded chairs. Unlike the smaller home of Ida’s host family, the cabin had a number of doors opening off the central room. Judging from the different timbers used to make the various internal doors, I guessed the house had been expanded over time.
Two women—one older and one younger—sat at the wooden table, their postures stiff and their expressions torn between hope and fear. There was no sign of the child.
“Please take me to the patient.” I’d barely finished the words when another round of weak coughs made me look toward one of the doors. “She’s in there?”
The older woman stood and wrung her hands. “Please save our Nina.” The look on her face almost brought tears to my eyes, and I nodded, determined.
Amara reached the door first, opening it for me and ushering me inside. The room beyond held two beds, one against each wall, a dresser, and a small table bearing a pitcher of water. Scattered across the floor and bed were a number of toys, each one clearly carved and polished with care.
But the small girl lying in one of the beds was too far gone to pay any attention to toys. Her eyes opened at the sound of the door, but from the glassy, unfocused look to them, she was barely conscious.
A woman lay beside her, her arms wrapped around the girl and a look of anguish on her face. The girl’s mother.
“Please,” she whispered, her eyes on my face. “Please.”
Unlike the others, her face bore no hint of fear at our presence, and I guessed it was because a far worse fear already had her in its grip, leaving no room for anything else. She knew how close her daughter was to death, and she would clearly risk far more than our presence to save her.
I didn’t waste any time on words, hurrying to the bed and kneeling beside it. Gripping Nina’s thin arm with both of my hands, I pushed my power into her.
It only took seconds to confirm that our assumption had been right. This girl had the same thing that plagued the townsfolk, and her condition had already progressed beyond anyone else I’d encountered.
I didn’t need my power to feel her burning up—my hands were enough to tell she was dangerously hot. I cooled her first, easing her pain while I did so. Just those two things were enough to get a response. She stirred, her eyes brightening as she regarded me with curiosity. But she didn’t try to sit up, her condition still clearly extremely weak.
I sent my power to her brain next and her heart after that. With both essential organs in such a state of inflammation, she wouldn’t have lasted long without intervention.
As I poured my power into her, letting my natural instincts guide the process, I wished I’d had a chance to talk to Hayes before we left. Not having learned the techniques he’d devised for treating the disease, I was going to have to expend a lot of power to save her. And as I poured it into her, I wondered how many other children in the town were approaching this level of illness.
Hayes and Clay had triaged the population, but sometimes conditions like this could progress unpredictably, and I preferred to keep as much of my power in reserve for other patients as possible. I didn’t hold back from the healing, though. Considering the extent of her illness and the family’s isolation, it seemed important to complete the healing while I had the chance.
By the time I had finished, the mother was shaking with sobs. When I let Nina’s arm drop with a tired sigh, I reached for the mother’s wrist, concerned. She waved me away, however, recovering herself enough to speak.
“I’m just so…grateful,” the final word came out on another sob, but she pushed herself into a sitting position, helping her daughter to ease herself up as well.
“She’ll still need recovery time.” I stood. “Given the length of her illness, her energy reserves will be low, and her nutrient levels will be depleted.”
The mother nodded, but she couldn’t keep a beaming smile off her face.
“We’ll take excellent care of her.”
“Mama, I’m hungry!” Nina announced, her high voice strong, despite her recent ordeal.
Her mother swept her into her arms and squeezed her tightly. Meeting her eyes over Nina’s head, I saw fresh tears spilling out.
“We tried so hard to coax her to eat and drink,” she said. “But it was a struggle to get her to take anything. And we couldn’t keep her temperature down. At first we were taking her to the water every few hours to immerse her, but even with the new stream so much closer than the river used to be, she got too weak for the journey.”
Amara, who had been standing back near the door, straightened, her eyes focusing on the woman.
“You were bathing her in the stream?”
“Yes.” The woman faltered before the intensity of Amara’s expression, looking from her to me. “Was that wrong? We just wanted to cool her.”
I rubbed the back of my neck and looked at Amara.
“Bathing a patient with a high temperature in cool water is often a good idea,” I said carefully.
