Adalasia could only breathe deep and wait for the guardians to tell her Sandu was going to survive. He didn’t look as if he would, not even with his brethren, powerful ancients, working so hard to save him.
Adalasia could barely breathe or even think. She had always been able to think through any problem. She might feel the edges of panic, or even have a panic attack, but in the end, training always won out. But this . . . She was expected to sit back and do nothing while Sandu was dying before her eyes. Anyone with a brain could see the life leaving his body.
Sandu. Don’t you leave me. She sent the call to him, terrified of being left alone. She wouldn’t be. She would follow him. Go with him. Abandon her duty to her family and take up her duty to her lifemate. The wild thoughts crowded in on one another as she moved closer to the body lying so gray and still on the ground.
“Adalasia, you cannot go near his body yet,” Benedek cautioned. “You cannot get infected. Allow Petru and Siv to do their best to heal his body. You have his spirit and soul with you. He would never succumb to death completely.”
She tried to hold on to that so she could think clearly. Was he with her? Could she feel him? He was so powerful. Always such a presence. Where was he? Why couldn’t she feel him? Sorrow burst through her, but she fought it off. Benedek had no reason to lie to her. Petru and Siv wouldn’t be outside of their bodies, attempting to heal Sandu, if he wasn’t still alive.
“Tell me what’s happening. Step by step, Benedek. I don’t know the Carpathian ways, and this is terrifying to me. I don’t feel him with me the way I always have. He looks and feels dead to me.” She did her best to keep her voice from trembling. She didn’t want her guardians to think she wasn’t up to whatever task she needed to do to save Sandu. Anything. She would do anything.
Wrapping her arms around her middle, Adalasia couldn’t make herself step away from Sandu’s body. She felt protective. She even felt protective of the empty shells of Siv’s and Petru’s bodies. Their spirits had left to enter Sandu, leaving their bodies unprotected. Clearly, they were valiantly fighting for him.
Her heart stuttered. Her breath slowed in her lungs. Her body was suddenly weak. She found herself on the ground beside Siv’s body, tears burning in her eyes.
Sandu. Don’t you dare leave me.
He was moving farther away from her. She could feel it. He burned. His entire body burned. Why? What was happening to him?
“Benedek? He’s in such pain. He’s on fire. Burning hot. I have to go to him. He can’t survive this, even with the aid of the ancients.”
“No.” Benedek caught her shoulder in a firm grip.
Nicu suddenly was on the other side of her, also gripping her shoulder, as if they could physically hold her to the earth when Sandu was somewhere else. She felt the guardians in her mind, Nicu and Benedek, taking hold there as well.
“He will need you, but not yet. You cannot go to him yet. It will take you to guide us to him and all of us to bring him back if we are to save him,” Benedek said. “You have to trust us, sisarke. We are your brothers. We are bound together, all of us. Where Sandu goes, we go. We have sworn to protect you.”
Nicu nodded his head. “It is impossible to lie to you, Adalasia. We may tease you, but we cannot deceive you over such a thing as Sandu’s death. Trust us to know how to care for him. He has been poisoned with the plague. There are parasites in him. The bacteria have multiplied at an alarming rate and are striking at every organ. It will be a hard fight to remove all of this before we can safely go after his spirit. We know you have his spirit safe. He transferred what he could as quickly as he could to you before he went down. You hold his soul as you did before.”
Adalasia knew what Nicu said was true. That was what had alarmed her the most. It felt to her as if Sandu had rejected her in some way, thrusting that part of him she’d guarded so carefully, as she’d been born again and again to keep him safe, back into her keeping. She hadn’t thought that he’d once again be asking her to hold him safe. She’d been looking with her human eyes at his dying body, not with Carpathian eyes.
She took a deep breath to calm herself. To find balance. If Sandu was in both worlds, she would find a way to bring him fully back to her. She knew patience. She had to trust in the men he’d surrounded himself with. He’d chosen them for a reason. She looked to Danutdaxton. They had come to him for a reason.