“I am so sorry, my dear friend.” Her soft voice was choked with sobs. “I grieve with you, for there is no healing from a Riiver bite. Even the Mother Stone cannot heal him.”
“That’s not true!” Danni tore herself out of the embrace. “I’m certain the Mother Stone can heal him—or I can, using the Mother Stone’s power. I’m his wife—his other half. Surely I can heal him!”
“You are welcome to try, dear friend,” Kozen said in a muted voice. “But I fear you will not be successful. No one who is bitten by a Riiver ever survives. Either they turn into a Foul One themselves and must be cast from the village when they develop a taste for flesh, or the black lines of poison reach their heart and they can live no longer.”
“I’m taking him to the Mother Stone—right now!” Danni exclaimed.
Just two weeks before, she would have thought to take the big Kindred to their shuttle—which was parked outside of the village—to try and get him home to the Mother Ship for medical treatment there. But now her first instinct was to turn to the Mother Stone. And anyway, it was clear the big Kindred was in no shape to pilot any kind of spacecraft and Danni had never learned to fly one herself. Besides, she was certain she could heal him if only she had a chance.
“My dear friend,” Kozen began. “I am so sorry but it is hopeless.”
“No one who asks for healing of the Mother Stone may be denied, though, my one,” Navii reminded him. “Our dear friend, Danielle must be allowed to seek healing, though we know it will not work.”
“It will work!” Danni insisted fiercely. “Help me get him to the Mother Stone—now!”
Between them, they were able to keep the big Kindred on his feet and lead him through the tunnel and into the vast white metal pyramid. There, in front of her, Danni saw the familiar pulsing finger of pink light. But when she stepped onto the sands, no hand formed to lead the way.
“Hey!” Leaning down, she poked at the sand. “Hey—we need healing! Show us where to go!”
But the sentient sand remained flat and unresponsive—just like normal sand on any beach, Danni thought angrily.
“You see, my dear friend, the Mother Stone knows she cannot help,” Navii said softly. “So it has ever been when we ask for healing of a Riiver bite.”
“I don’t care about that—I don’t care about the sand, either,” Danni said, lifting her chin stubbornly. “Help me get him to the Mother Stone—we’re going to go as close as possible.”
“You should not,” Kozen warned. “It is not safe to join yourself to one who is dying of a Riiver bite. His draining life force will take yours with it when he goes.”
“You think I care about that?” Danni demanded. “If Bravik dies, I want to die too! I can’t live without him—but I’m not going to because I’m going to heal him! So help me get him across the sands!”
“She is very determined!” Kozen murmured to his wife.
“Would not you or I be as well, dear husband?” Navii asked. “Come, let us do as she asks.”
They somehow got Bravik—who seemed almost dead on his feet by this point—over the gleaming pink sands and right next to the tall, crystalline structure of the Mother Stone. Its pink light strobed over Danni’s face and she could feel the soft, deep thrumming it emitted deep in her bones.
“Here,” she said, pointing to the sand right at the base of the enormous structure. “Lay him down right here, against the Mother Stone itself.”
“You wish him to touch her—touch the Mother Stone?” Navii looked doubtful.
“We do not touch the Mother Stone—her power is too immense to bear it,” Kozen said.
“Just do it!” Danni demanded. “And hurry—the lines are spreading!”
She could see the black lines of Riiver poison inching their way across the big Kindred’s smooth, tan skin, making an ugly spider web of death that was heading for his heart.
Kozen and Navii shared a glance and then helped her arrange the big Kindred so that he was propped up with his back against the smooth pink crystal side of the Mother Stone, though his head lolled to one side.
“Thank you.” Danni nodded at them both. “You can go now—I’m going to heal him so I’ll need some privacy.”
“As you wish, dear friend,” Navii said softly. She squeezed Danni’s bare shoulder once in sympathy and then the H’raken couple left quietly, their footsteps making no noise in the cushioning sand.
Forty-One
Danni lost no time. She and Bravik were both still naked from being cleansed and she straddled him at once and pressed against him.
“Bravik!” she whispered, taking his face in her hands and patting his cheeks until his golden-bronze eyes opened at last. “Bravik, please—stay with me! I need your help if I’m going to heal you.”