The Healer ✔

Chapter Seven

Elora awoke suddenly, sitting up until she rested on her elbows. She blinked slowly, her eyes heavy from sleep. It was morning, the pale light illuminating the tall grass they had been sleeping in. Clouds passed overhead, muffling the light, but never getting rid of it completely. She was home in Veridun.

She sighed deeply, lying back in the grass with her arms spread out. It felt like forever ago when she had been talking to Ragen. She didn't know how long she had spent in Nowhere, but it couldn't have been more than a few hours.

She stared up at the sky as the clouds passed overhead, thinking back to everything that had happened while she had been asleep. When pieced together most of what her father told her didn't make sense, especially the fact that he didn't want to help, but did anyway. She could only assume that he felt a little guilty for not helping earlier as if he knew he should have. He probably knew that they needed it.

They did need it, she needed it. He'd been right, she had been losing hope. She believed that there was nothing she could do, that she wasn't strong enough to defeat the Zlohiel. She thought they would all die. Most of her still believed it, but there was a tiny part in the back of her mind that thought that maybe, just maybe, she could do it.

He had said she needed to discover her power, but as far as she knew she had all her powers. Maybe there were more she didn't know about, something her father had hidden deep down. It could even be the strength she lost over time, or strength she never had in the first place. She would find out, she knew she would, it was the whole point of her trip to Nowhere.

She turned her head, her cheek lying flat against the ground. Ragen and Mikhail were sleeping nearby, the former's hand over the latter's mouth in an attempt to muffle the snoring. Last she had talked to them, Ragen was going to keep watch. It must have been some time since then, someone else must be keeping watch.

Twisting her neck upwards, she saw Nyal sitting cross-legged in the grass, his sword over his lap. He never used it, not that she had seen, but he kept it anyway. Just in case, she assumed, he ran of water. He looked stressed, for lack of a better word. His body was stiff, eyes wide and darting to and fro. Something must have happened.

Feeling as though she had gotten no rest that night (it may as well be true, she had felt wide awake in Nowhere) she sat up, letting out a little groan.

"You're awake!" Nyal cried, seeming to forget for a moment that the other two were still sleeping. He moved over to her on all fours, sword falling to the ground with a thud. "Are you alright?" He sounded scared like she shouldn't be awake, like something had happened.

"Yes," she muttered, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion. She looked behind him, at a splash of dark blood mixed with the pale green of the grass. "What happened?"

Before he answered, Nyal put a hand on her arm, near her shoulder, squeezing tightly in a reassuring way. She wasn't sure if it was to reassure her or him though. "We were attacked in the night, this black dog-like creature. It was huge, bigger than Mikhail when he turns. You were still asleep when it attacked, I tried to wake up to help, but you just wouldn't. No matter what I did you wouldn't wake up."

"Are you all okay?" she asked, sitting up straighter. "Was anyone hurt?"

"Mikhail got caught on the shoulder by the thing, but I got it fixed up pretty quick," Nyal explained. "I'm gonna need more water soon too."

"We'll find some on the way, we're in the south anyway," Elora replied.

Nyal shook his head. "Not important, it can wait. What is important is the fact that you would not wake up no matter what I tried to do." He sounded distressed. She'd never thought she would hear his tone like that, especially towards her. "Do you know what happened? Why you couldn't wake up?"