My legs wobbled in relief. Having Szerain in my lineage would have been weeeeeeird. “That means Elinor is my great-times-a-million aunt.” I slipped my arm through his again and resumed walking. “And since Elinor didn’t have any kids, you needed to attach the essence to the closest relative—a descendant of Elinor’s mom.”
“Yes, though there’s more to it. During the pregnancy, Elinor’s presence subtly altered Aphra’s DNA. The grove affinity and attunement to rakkuhr passed on to Aphra’s descendants.”
Yikes. Like carrying a radioactive magic fetus. “Wait.” Hope flared. “Does that mean I still have the grove connection?” My hand flew to my leaf.
>
“You were born with it,” he said, giving my arm a comforting squeeze even as I felt the reassuring touch of Rho.
I had a billion more questions, but we’d reached the back yard, and the fatigue I’d denied for so long permeated every fiber of my being. Szerain was no better off. His eyes were sunken caverns, and he’d begun to lean at a perilous angle. Fortunately, Pellini was waiting at the edge of the woods and steadied me while I gratefully let Turek take over the job of keeping Szerain upright.
“I’m going to plug in and recharge,” Szerain announced with a drunken laugh. He lurched across Rhyzkahl’s orbit to the inner circle of grass and the tree, flopped facedown with one hand on the pale bark, and went still. If not asleep, then darn close to it.
But Rhyzkahl had eyes only for Elinor. In fact, it didn’t look as if he’d moved a millimeter during our time at the valve.
Elinor’s steps slowed as she and Giovanni neared the nexus. I heard her murmur to him that she needed a moment, then she moved to stand before Rhyzkahl.
He gazed down at her, face impassive. “I am pleased to see you restored.”
“So formal,” she murmured with a teasing smile then lifted a hand to his cheek. “Thank you for helping me.”
A barely perceptible shudder went through him. He covered her hand with his own. “And you are safe now, I see,” he said, relief blazing through the cracks in his lordly armor. He could sense the protection of the firewall, I realized.
Rhyzkahl placed a kiss in the palm of her hand before releasing it. “May your life be long and blessed, my lady,” he said quietly.
Elinor leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, stepped back and returned to Giovanni. Rhyzkahl watched them walk to the house then stalked around his orbit to the tree.
“I need to find Elinor clothes and stuff,” I said to Pellini. “Forgot to do that for Janice. And a bed. She needs a bed.” Damn, a bed would be nice right now. What else did Elinor need? Socks? Yeah, socks. Socks were good. And a towel.
“That’s enough, Kara.”
“Huh?” I realized Pellini had been calling my name. I blinked since there were two of him, and they were fuzzy.
“That’s enough world saving for now,” he said with a gentle smile. “You need sleep.”
“Sleep,” I agreed, though it came out more like shleeurp. I took a step and wobbled, and the next thing I knew Pellini had me swept up in his arms and was carrying me toward the porch.
I wanted to respond with something clever, but when I blinked again my eyes stayed closed.
Chapter 41
“Kara.” Pellini’s baritone hammered through deep and dreamless sleep. “Kara, I know you’re exhausted, but you need to wake up.” A firm hand seized my shoulder and shook me.
“’mwake,” I mumbled. I was in my bed, though I had zero memory of getting there.
“Uh huh. Sure. Idris just showed up. He brought a big-ass crate and is currently putting it in the middle of the gun range so it won’t mess up any of our wards.”
“Yass. Got th’ makkas turtle.” I managed a wobbly thumbs up. “Gun range pew pew.”
“Uh huh. Well, Idris also said that as soon as he took care of the crate he was going to go say Hi to his dad.”
That woke me up as effectively as a bucket of ice water. “Crap!” I lunged out of bed and grabbed a crumpled pair of fatigue pants off the floor, pulled them on in an awkward one-legged hop as I headed for the hallway. Pellini thrust a sweatshirt at me, and I stuffed it under one arm while I dashed for the back door and did up the last of the buttons. I’d known an Idris-Rhyzkahl confrontation was inevitable, but I was determined to keep it from escalating into a bloodbath.
Chilly air slapped my cheeks as I crossed the porch, and I hurried to yank the sweatshirt over my head. Szerain was nowhere to be seen. I had to assume he’d recharged sufficiently. He was the least of my worries at the moment. A decent-sized tent had been set up in Rhyzkahl’s orbit a dozen or so feet from the tree. Since Rhyzkahl was out of sight, I suspected he was inside it.
Idris rounded the corner of the house and stalked toward the nexus, aggressive stance shattering any possible hope that he was here for a friendly chat. Cursing under my breath, I started toward him, reminding myself that Idris knew Rhyzkahl’s prison protected the lord from outside attack. I couldn’t imagine Idris being stupid enough to strike out at him.
The dew-covered grass blazed like a million diamonds in the early morning sun, yet the prismatic spectacle couldn’t hide the destruction wrought by the night’s events. A battle-scarred reyza atop the security office outbuilding bellowed a challenge, sending a flock of sparrows into panicked flight from the nearby woods.