Healer

Chapter 41

      A feeling began to take hold of Talia, that she was approaching something she should be staying away from. That she was seeing something she shouldn't. She didn't say anything this time, but her companion stopped anyway.

"We're close." Her voice shook at the first word, like it had forgotten what it should sound like.

Talia stopped, too. Again. "We go no further until I have answers." She cleared her throat. "More answers."

The Mother turned around and clasped her hands in front of her as she had before. She stared at Talia. Talia stared back with her mirrored green eyes. Hope had her heart all the way in her throat. She attempted to swallow it back down.

Finally, the strange female spoke. "Ask me."

"You said that I could heal the priestess beasts. You said that the Hexes could be ended 'when all the darkness dissipates'. Is that something I am supposed to do, too?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"Okay?" Talia waited for more. The staring continued. She bit her tongue to keep from cursing again. "How?"

"You'll know. When it comes to that, you'll know."

"Oh, no." Talia shook her head, laughing in spite of herself. This was a joke. It had to be. "You're going to give me more than that."

"Take, Talia. Like they told you that you would. Take."

She swallowed. She wasn't sure she knew how. And her name had been struck from the book, indicating that she would come into some kind of true Descendant power. Power that fae had fought wars over. Power that others were terrified of, willing to kill her for. But something settled in her, some kind of unwavering resolve. If she could stop this, if she could prevent all of her kind from meeting her same end, maybe she should take her thoughts and feelings out of the equation. She didn't have a right to them.

She wondered what those soldiers that laid her down and took from her would do if they could see her now. She wondered if the human man that had sold her like an animal could have guessed what she was then, and what she might become. Doubtful. She marched on, this time with purpose, in spite of all that pushed back against her. They moved deeper and deeper into the night court lands.

The feeling that she wasn't supposed to be there grew and grew more and more palpable. They were at the edge of something that would shake her, she was sure of it. It was in the span of her next breath that they found it. And it did shake her.

Curled into the roots of a tall, ancient tree, a body. Dressed in nothing but a light colored sheath of fabric, her long hair tangled, matted down her back, Talia saw herself. And she was doing just what the blonde had said. She was hiding. She frantically searched for anyone else, for any indication of where they were, but nothing looked familiar.

Talia walked to the tree and knelt where the body lay while The Mother just watched her. She looked like herself, and an eerie feeling that she had seen this before washed over her. She had seen her own body before, watched her death, inside of a nightmare that wasn't fully hers. For a second, she marveled at the mating bond that had ultimately been the source of all this. All that connection, all that foreshadowing. It was the reason they had come together at all, and it was why she was here now. Much like entering Azriel's mind the first time, when she had tried to reach him, she couldn't touch her. The girl. Herself. Her hand landed and inch above her bloodless skin and she couldn't force it further.

She stood and turned back to her creator. That which had forged her existence, from which she gleaned her power. She hated her and her circles and her incessant walking, but she was in awe of her as well. Her wealth of power and her eternal, all-seeing existence were not lost on the healer. And besides being her blood, she was also Talia's ticket out.