“We’re here,” I murmured to Dash. “Just hold on.”
The door opened before Ryker had a chance to knock. A woman with beautiful shimmery silver hair appeared in the doorway. Her eyes were like polished aqua gemstones, bright and observant. It was hard to judge her age. She could have been twenty or forty. There was a youthfulness to her but, at the same time, a wisdom you could only get with age. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said in a musical voice like a thousand harps. With a sweep of her arm, she gestured for us to come inside, bangles chiming together on her wrists.
“Celeste.” Ryker tipped his head as we walked over the threshold into the enigmatic healer’s home.
“Can you help him?” I asked once we had settled Dash onto the worn, yet clean, couch.
Celeste quickly made an outward assessment, her gaze sweeping over Dash. “He’s burning up and has lost a lot of blood. The blade that pierced him had poison in it. I can smell it burning into his flesh, but he might stand a chance if his will to live is strong.”
Pushing to her feet in haste, Celeste lit a stick that reminded me of incense, waving it over Dash’s body. “Help me get his shirt off.”
“The girls are always saying that to me,” Dash muttered.
“The fact that he is still lucid is a good sign. He is trying to fight off the infection attacking his body,” Celeste said.
With impatient hands, Ryker jerked the end of Dash’s blood-soaked shirt over his head, leaving him bare-chested. Dash hissed as a bolt of pain clawed at his stomach.
I sucked in a gasp. His skin around the wound had started to turn black.
Celeste sat on the edge of the couch. She touched the bubbled and swollen skin around the wound, and Dash passed out. I told myself it was a good thing he was unconscious, but the sight of him looking so pale and too close to death filled me with raw fear.
Ryker placed a hand on my shoulder, and I jumped. “We should give her space. Let her work.”
I shook my head, dropping down beside Dash on the floor and taking his limp hand in mine. “I can’t leave him.”
“She can stay,” Celeste said. “Her presence will be a positive energy for him to hold on to.”
“Tell me what to do,” I demanded.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing. The connection between you is powerful.” She pressed her hand over the wound. “The poison wants to spread; it’s deep, and I must draw it out.”
I pressed my lips to his palm and whispered, “Don’t leave me.”
His eyes were closed, his breathing labored, and for a split second, I thought maybe he had slipped away, but his chest rose and fell, his heart still beating. Tears pricked at my eyes, blurring my vision. The pain squeezing my heart was unspeakable. The world couldn’t be so cruel to take him from me after I had only just been given his heart, his love. It was unfair.
Celeste’s eyes clouded, like the color of a lake after a storm when the sandy bottom is disrupted, mixing in with the water. “Cool as ice, I extinguish the fire and flood out the poison.” The veins in her arms slowly began to turn black as she drew out the poison, letting it seep into her own body. She shivered, cold sweat dotting her hairline, dripping alongside her cheek, but no matter the discomfort I could see Celeste was feeling, she didn’t stop, not until the wound was clear. Then she changed tactics, chanting words I didn’t understand. In another time and place, I would have been hypnotized by her and the quiet lull of her voice.
Gently she eased back, weariness showing on her face. The wound closed and looked only like a nasty burn no larger than my fist. “It is up to him now,” Celeste said. “We’ll have our answer if he can make it through the night. He needs rest, as do I. Healing always comes at a price. It is the way of witchcraft.”
Surprise leapt into my eyes. “You were a witch before?”
“Aye, I practiced, but I wouldn’t say that I had true power, just a gift for nurturing plants and animals. Then after the mist, everything was different. I take on the pain and injury of others, my body somehow able to withstand the agony without harming me.”
“That’s incredible.”
Her shoulders slumped as she pushed to her feet, tucking a blanket draped on the back of the couch over Dash. “And also an enormous burden.”
I didn’t want to leave his side, so I stayed put. “Does the Institute know about you?”
Celeste shook her head, her bracelets clattering together. “No, I’ve been hiding here at the edge of the mist. The Night’s Guard avoids coming too close, but the mist doesn’t bother me, not like it does those who haven’t been touched by its vapors.”
Interesting. It was probably risky to test out its effects on me. The last thing I wanted was a fifth color added to the rainbow in my eyes. “I don’t know how to thank you. I owe you, Celeste. If there is anything I can do …”
“You don’t owe me anything. It is my gift, and it does not come with a price tag.”
“I won’t forget what you’ve done for him, for us.”
“He still needs to make it through the night. I’m not going to ask if you would like to rest, but if you change your mind, there is a spare room in the back of the house. It is yours if you decide to close your eyes for a bit.” She left me alone with Dash. Ryker had wandered outside not long after Celeste had started the healing process. As far as I knew, he could have shifted into the Blinken again and left me here. I wouldn’t let my mind concern itself with the guard. There was no room for him until I knew Dash would live.
My eyes drifted over Dash. It was impossible to believe that he had come so close to the brink of death. Invincible to me, seeing Dash hurt made him human. The only good thing about this world was Dash, and if I let my mind travel down the dark path of life without him, fresh tears would fall. I didn’t want to cry anymore.
Laying my head on the edge of the couch cushion near his face, I let myself waver in and out of a state of unconsciousness that wasn’t quite sleep. A few hours went by before I finally stirred, stiff and disoriented for a few seconds. Then I saw Dash. He hadn’t moved a muscle.
Standing up, I stretched out my muscles, putting feeling back into them. I leaned down and brushed the hair off his face, and my lip trembled. I needed a moment of fresh air before the waterworks came rushing back.