Page 152 of The Stolen Throne
Pella and Tziah jump up to help Cain lower Tabra onto a settee. “What happened?” Pella shoots me an accusing glare. “She looks worse.”
As if I did this on purpose.
“The centimane guarding the burning lands said that the soul she was infected with damaged her. We should get her a doctor or a Healer if the king has one.”
Healer Imperium are rare. I’ve only met one. Wren, a Savanahan who is with Eidolon. Or they were. They were assigned to travel with the soldiers who attacked the Shadowood. The ones Reven disappeared.
Horus drops into a chair. “Tropikis doesn’t have doctors or Healers.”
“What? Any doctors at all? Why?” Omma and I exchange a look. Maybe we should have stayed in Yolyn Zag.
“The Rites,” Vos says.
“What about them?”
“The king is Enfernae.” Cain leans forward where he’s taken a seat beside Tziah, elbows on his knees…and not looking at me. “Each night of the Rites, he sends out this…” He gestures at the air, then looks at Pella. “What would you call it?”
She glances outside like she can see it. “A dome of light?”
A vague recollection of Omma telling younger me about the king’s powers drifts through my mind.
“A vitality bubble,” Omma supplies.
All of them stare at her with questions. She shrugs. “That’s what I was told by my grandmother. I don’t know what it does, though. None of the other sovereigns know much more than that.”
“It’s different every night,” Horus says. “We’ve already witnessed three nights. The king’s power seems to heal things, or at least make things grow. It’s like…renewal.”
Pella takes to pacing. “Each night, it affects something specific. The first night were the plants.”
Plants. I’m having trouble picturing this. “What happened?”
Tziah is the one to answer, her hands a dance, and she’s smiling. Eager, even.
“They…grow?” I ask, trying to understand.
She wrinkles her nose at me.
“More than grow,” Vos says. “Brown leaves turned green. New life formed. Fruit sprouted overnight. We could hear them expand.”
Tziah nods and points at Cain, who shoots her a quick smile and an odd shake of his head as if denying something. “She ran out of the city to see it happening in the jungle, and it took me an hour to find her.” His smile disappears. “I wasn’t thrilled with her for that.”
Again, Tziah wrinkles her nose but pats his chest in an affectionate gesture. One that surprises me, because Cain accepts that physical contact without surprise or reaction beyond another shake of his head. An exchange, incidentally, that Vos frowns at.
We weren’t gone that long, but it’s starting to feel like years. Why do I suddenly feel I’m on the outside looking in all over again? Even more so than when I joined the zariphate after escaping Eidolon.
There’s a greater bond between these friends now than there was before.
What happened in Savanah? And where the hells is Reven? He should be here for this.
“What about the other two nights?” Omma asks.
Everyone shudders. Except Hakan, who is tucked against the wall, arms crossed.
Horus answers my question. “Last night was birds and creatures of the air. The night before…bugs.”
That explains the shudders. “Don’t tell us about that part. Does anyone know about tonight?”
Pella, still pacing, answers. “Based on what we’ve been able to glean without asking too many questions, tonight is all water life.” She reaches the end of her path and spins around, pacing my way again. “Apparently, even the waters of the Nohzomeh River run clearer.”
