Page 171 of Moon Chosen

“Yes. No. All of them, Nik. All of the Earth Walkers. My friends—the women I don’t know.All of them.”

“I think you’re the key to that,” he said.

His response utterly shocked Mari. “Me?”

“Absolutely. Hear me out. You don’t know my Tribe, my people, but they aren’t monsters. They aren’t killers and slavers. They’re just people—like Sora and Jenna and you. They justify enslaving the Earth Walkers because of the damned blight. Working the fields—planting, weeding, irrigating, and picking—that’s a death sentence to people who can’t survive a simple cut in their skin. But you can cure the blight! If you share that cure with my Tribe, they’ll have no reason to enslave your people.”

Mari stared at him. Was he really that naive, or was he trying to trick her into giving him the cure? Of course the irony was the added annotation in Leda’s medical journal:the infection was cured, though not without the power of the moon.Mari could give him the recipe for the indigo poultice—that was simple. But without a Moon Woman drawing down the power of the moon, it would be as ineffective as whatever the Tribe’s Healers had been using.

And she couldn’t tell him the full truth. Could she?

“Nik, healing the blight isn’t as simple as you think it is. There are things about Moon Women, and my people, that you don’t know. It’s—it’s complicated,” she prevaricated.

“Oh, I know! I remember. You need moonlight to cure blight, too. Lucky for us there’s plenty of moonlight up in the trees.”

“Well, that’s good!” Mari said brightly. “But Nik, that’s not all there is to it.”

“I understand. You don’t want to give the cure to the Tribe. And why should you?”

She hated the sadness in his eyes. “Nik, can we agree to talk about it later?”

“Sure. Right now let’s just get O’Bryan well. Everything else can come later,” Nik said.

“That sounds good to me,” Mari said. Rigel ripped past them, barking wildly at another squirrel. Mari and Nik laughed. “So your father’s canine is Rigel’s father?”

“Laru—his name is Laru. They look a lot alike.” Nik smiled as Rigel tried to climb a tree after the squirrel. “They act a lot alike, too. Or at least Rigel acts like Laru used to when he was young. He’s more mature now, or at least he pretends to be, but you’ll definitely see the similarities.”

“I’ll get to see Laru?”

“Of course! He’s always with my father,” Nik said.

“I’m meeting your father?” Mari felt a little dizzy.

“He wouldn’t have it any other way. Plus, you’ll be safe with him. I can say I won’t let anything happen to you, but Father has the power to grant you safe passage.”

“Does he know about me? Who I really am?”

“Yes.”

“And he accepts me?”

“Completely,” Nik said. “He helped me get Jenna from the island. He knows everything, Mari. You can trust my father as surely as you can trust me.”

Mari gave Nik a nervous smile, and said nothing. Then she had a thought and asked, “Does the entire Tribe know I’m coming?”

“No! Just Father and me—and O’Bryan, of course.”

Through measured, sideways glances, Mari studied him. “You’re going to get in trouble for letting Jenna go free, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Nik said. “I don’t think anyone has ever freed a Scr—ur, I mean Earth Walker before.”

“You’re going to get in trouble,” Mari said.

“Most likely.”

He didn’t appear to be upset by the likelihood, so Mari teased, “Well, you can always hide in my burrow!”

He stopped and met her gaze, smiling. “That is an offer I may take you up on.”