“You.” The wise woman pointed her gnarled finger at him.
He stepped back from his only love, his head held high and waited for death.
“You are the answer to my prayers. My enemies had sought to destroy my power by stealing my babe. Every day I have chanted a spell of protection for her and prayed for her return. You are marked, yet nothing can destroy your bond. You are my prayers come to life. You are her protector.”
“She is afflicted and needs strong medicine,” Bear said.
“I do not have the power. She is with the ancestors.”
Bear dropped to his knees beside Fearless. The light had faded from her, and he witnessed the truth of the woman’s words. He lifted his head and howled. The sound roared through the village, startling all who heard.
When he quieted, the medicine woman placed his hand over Fearless’s forehead. “I do not possess the power to call her soul back, but you are her destined one. You alone have the power to heal her.”
“I do not know the way.”
“The Spirit inside will guide you.”
Bear stilled, but the Spirit did not speak. The only thing in his mind was Fearless. He closed his eyes and chanted her name, remembered her laugh, her face, the soft sounds of her breathing as he lay with her.
Bear did not stop chanting until Fearless touched his hand. He opened his eyes. The light had returned to Fearless, the affliction gone.
The wise woman knelt next to them. “Daughter, you are returned to me a woman, but I love you as I loved the babe inside me.” She grasped both their hands. “Together you create a shield stronger than the oak. No harm will come to either of you while touching the other. As long as light shines in one of you, the other will live.”
At the wise woman’s welcome, the tribe accepted Fearless and Bear. The wise woman taught Fearless her healing skills. Fearless’s night sight—seeing in her dreams that which she couldn’t see during the day—grew until she became the wisest woman of the region.
A time of great peace and prosperity settled over the land. From many moons away, people sought Fearless’s healing and counsel.
The Bad Ones tried three times to kill Fearless, but they did not succeed. Nothing ever harmed Fearless and Bear, for they remained always together. Their bond, stronger than the hills, kept them from harm.
As they approached the end of their earthly lives, Bear carved a totem on the crest of the highest hill to remind all in the region that good always triumphed over evil, for he would protect Fearless into eternity.
They went to the ancestors together. The tribe built a great funeral pyre in honor of them and anointed their bodies in bear grease before setting the blaze. Every village in the region witnessed the black smoke burning in the sky.
A week later, after the fire cooled, the tribe gathered the ash and rubbed it over Bear’s totem to seal their power together inside the carving for eternity.
*
The world of Fearless and Bear was so real and alive that Isleen could smell the ash from their funeral pyre. Only it wasn’t ash she smelled, it was the dark, earthy scent of fresh dirt. The kind of soil that could only be found when digging a deep hole. Like for a grave. An image of a beautifully carved coffin floated in front of her closed eyes. Gran’s coffin. Oh no. She wasn’t going to open her eyes. No way. It wasn’t safe out there—outside the shell of herself. Her only chance of survival was to keep floating in the dreamy haze of another time and be held safe in Xander’s arms. He wouldn’t let anything out there hurt her.
A raindrop pattered against her arm, another one on the top of her head. All around, hundreds of drops splattered against the grass, the leaves, but one sound wasn’t natural. The hollow thunking of rain against polished wood. No, no, no. She was not going to think about that.
A spike of thunder split the sky, the unexpectedness of it jolting her body. Xander tightened his grip on her, as if assuring her with his actions that he would protect her. But a fine, barely perceptible trembling traveled through his arms, up to his shoulders, and down his chest, until even the skin underneath her cheek twitched.
Something was wrong with Xander. She clenched her eyes shut, scrunched her face up, and held on tight to him. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t open her eyes, or talk to him. It was dangerous out there. But what if the danger wasn’t just to her? What if Xander was in danger? Because of her?
A low serrated growl rolled across the sky. Xander wheezed in a breath of air, his lungs expanding, then contracting so violently her body rocked against his. What had been a gentle trembling morphed into full-on violent quivering of muscle. The light of realization went on inside her brain.
They were in a storm. He had said he’d been struck by lightning.