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I’ve been so caught up in the shock of what just happened, I forgot how injured I was, how much blood I’ve lost. And now, I’m paying for it.
Ixa swiftly wraps his body around me, chasing the pain away, but it doesn’t matter—I’m still growing colder, still gurgling for air. My extremities have all turned numb, a warning. If I lose any more blood, I will die.
I watch distantly as Britta and the others rush over, the armored stranger forgotten. “Wha do we do?” she gasps when she kneels beside me. “She’s still bleedin’!”
“Move aside,” Keita says, hurriedly wrapping a cloth around my neck. “Deka, hold on,” he says, pressing down. “Just hold on!”
But I’m slipping away, the pain receding as a strange peacefulness pervades me. A stillness. The stars are so bright, so very bright…. And the night feels wonderful, everything in harmony, everything connected. I could just slip into it, just disappear forever.
But then a rhythmic thumping returns my attention to the present. Our rescuer is walking over to me.
“Deka of Irfut?” they ask in that booming yet strangely indeterminate voice. When I don’t reply, they sigh in a distinctly impatient way. “Well, this is untenable.” They extend an armored hand toward me and then close their eyes, mumbling a few words under their breath in a language I cannot understand. “May the blessings of Entimon fall upon you, child of Otera,” they finish in Hemairan, the language of the capital, and then they gesture over me.
My entire body jolts as a strange warmth sears through it. Then my wounded skin begins knitting itself together—and not just my new wounds either. All my sores are swiftly stitching together as if they were never there. In mere moments, my body is completely smooth, as unblemished as it was before the first sore erupted on my skin.
Everything is as it was before, everything except the hollowness. That I still feel deep inside me, only it’s muted now that my body’s whole again.
It’s like whatever timekeeper is in charge of my body has started again, added more time to the balance.
“Deka, you’re healed!” When Keita kneels before me, his eyes round with shock, I immediately enfold him in my arms. For a moment, he’s completely still. Then he embraces me as well. I gasp, tears stinging my eyes. His touch is warm…and painless.
“I can touch you,” I whisper. “You can touch me!”
I squeeze tighter, trying to embrace him even more, but then the blood rushes from my head. I sway, lean against him to prevent myself from falling. As I do so, I catch a whiff of his scent, that wonderful tang of fire and steel.
Then a dry humph sounds across from me. “Healing doesn’t reverse blood loss,” my rescuer explains dryly when I look up at them, bright green eyes rolling from behind their helmet. The sight jolts me. Whoever my rescuer is, their eyes seem unnaturally large, as if they go on forever.
They’re certainly not human, or anything close to it; if I wasn’t certain of that before, I am now.
“You’ll need to get some food in you, Angoro, preferably swiftly or you’ll swoon again,” they continue as I gape at them.
“Here.” Britta all but shoves a piece of jerky into my hand.
I snatch hers, elated to feel its calloused roughness once more.
All the while, I continue embracing Keita with my other hand, while he squeezes me so hard, I feel slightly faint. “Careful, careful,” I say. “This is temporary. I haven’t reconnected to my kelai.”
“Oh.” Keita pulls back. But then he stares down at me, uncertainty shining in his eyes. The uncertainty that, I know, is a silent plea for permission.
But he should know better than to ask for permission right now. Not when I’m looking at him the way I am in this moment.
“Just hurry and kiss me,” I urge, impatient.
He grins as he swiftly does so, the warmth of his lips so wonderful as they move over mine, my knees wobble from the sheer joy of it. I wrap my hands around his neck, squeezing him tighter against me.
“Deka,” I hear him breathing against my lips. Not a protest, but a plea to continue.
“Ahem! AHEM!” Keita and I reluctantly separate as my rescuer clears their throat. “If you’re quite done pawing each other…”
I sigh, reluctantly untangling myself from Keita. I’m not concerned our rescuer will attack us. If they wanted to do that, they would have done so already. “We are,” I say finally, glaring at our interrupter. “But who are you? You never said.”
“More to the point, how do you have the power to heal her?” Keita subtly places his body in front of mine.
If there’s one thing we’ve all learned, it’s to be suspicious of anyone displaying new, terrifying abilities. And this person, whoever they are, has those in the multitudes.
“I don’t have the power,” my rescuer sniffs, their voice abruptly changing. Suddenly, it’s not the thunderous boom of a mighty warrior but a more youthful high pitch, like that of the girls we just rescued, who are still huddled in a corner under Li’s and Belcalis’s watchful eyes.
“Entimon, god of healing, does,” they continue. “They lent it to me, even though I am not their godsworn, but Bala’s.”
