“Mountain hemlock…” He breathed a sigh of relief. Stepping forward, he peered closer, inspecting the branches, giving no indication that holding a four hundred pound lion was tiring him the slightest bit. Druid super strength must be a thing, and I must not have inherited it. With a slight groan, he gently laid Dominic at the base of the tree, close enough to be touching the trunk with hisback.
“Sloane!” Isaac barked suddenly, and I jumped a little, stepping closer tohim.
“See this tree? Her branches are full. She’s mature, not a sapling, and there is no disease orrot.”
I heard Keegan growl behind me, and I simply nodded. “I seethat…”
Please don’t be crazy,I internally prayed to the gods ofdruids.
Isaac reached out his hand to Keegan. “Mystaff…”
Keegan’s eyes were practically glowing. “You’re a healer or something, right? You’re going to save him?” I could tell by the guttural undertones that Keegan was holding back hiswolf.
If Isaac was wasting time, Keegan would kill him, Irealized.
Isaac wrapped his hands around his staff and the orange crystal flared to life, glowing so brightly we had to shield our eyes. “No, I’m not, son. Earth is the healer, and she will be the one to savehim.”
He took to his knees and motioned for me to do the same. Logan was looking at Isaac incredulously. I could only shrug and kneel beside my new teacher. The earth vibrations had been zipping up and down the soles of my feet since I exited the bus, but now, here on my knees, inches away from Isaac and this tree, I felt like I was near a high voltagewire.
Isaac caressed the tree’s trunk. “If you don’t pick the right tree, you will transfer disease to the body. You must learn your trees,Sloane.”
What could I do but nod? “I will,” I muttered. Isaac was like that one crazy relative you invited to Christmas dinner purely for theentertainment.
Shit, if learning about trees could save lives, then call me the tree master. I wouldlearn.
“This tree is full of healthy Nwyfre. Touch her,” Isaac toldme.
Okay, that almost sounded dirty, but I was working on being more mature so I didn’t even crack a grin. I reached out, right above Dominic’s head, and touched the tree’s trunk. A pulse shot out and zapped my hand, making it glow purple for a splitsecond.
“Yes.” Isaac nodded. “She contains the spark oflife.”
The happy druid lifted his staff high and came down hard on the ground a few inches from Dominic’s chest. It sank into the earth and the crystal started pulsing like a strobe light. Dominic was bleeding out; a large puddle had seeped into my jeans, and I tried not to think about it or focus on the deep cuts I saw along hisbody.
Isaac took a deep breath, rose to his knees, and leaned his forehead on the tree’s trunk. Dominic was trapped below the druid’s body so that Isaac created a circle with the tree, Dominside.
“Thank you for your sacrifice,” he whispered, and my brow furrowed. He’d better not be talking aboutDom.
Keegan stepped forward, but Logan yanked his arm back. Something washappening.
Isaac’s strobe-light staff had stopped and was now glowing a bright, soft, buttery yellow. His hands came down on Dominic’s shoulders, orange light flowing out of them, covering his lion like a cocoon. The druid’s head still rested on the trunk of the tree and I gasped when I looked up and saw the tree’s branches were … dying, wilting and turningbrown.
Logan must have seen it too, because he cursed under his breath. “Holy mother of God,” hebreathed.
“Nwyfre, gwyar, calas. Life, flow,form…”
Isaac chanted under his breath. He repeated this over and over, his staff shining so brightly I had to squint and shield my eyes, but I didn’t dare lookaway.
I was witnessing a full-blown miracle. The poor tree, she hunched forward, fully brown and nearly falling over, but Dominic, his skin was … healing. The cuts had the pink sheen of a new scar, and I saw his once-ragged breathing was now slow and steady. He was going to live. Suddenly the staff pulsed one huge bright light—I was forced to close my eyes. Then it died out to nothing, ceasing itsillumination.
When I opened my eyes, I saw the once magnanimous twenty-foot-tall tree had shriveled to the size of a grown man. Isaac stood, taking it in his arms and pushed it backward, the trunk crumpling easily as he laid it on the ground. Tears were streaming down his face as if he’d lost a good friend. My throat suddenly tightened with emotion. It was beautiful how much he cared for something I had never thought to look at twice. I walked over and knelt beside him, lowering my head so that my red hair covered myface.
“All living things matter,” he told me, and I nodded, not even caring that I was fully crying—crying over a freaking tree, over the way a grown man cradled it like it was a dyinglover.
I placed my hand on its brittle brown branches. “Itmattered.”
I heard movement behind me and looked back over my shoulder to see Dominic had shifted to his naked human form. He was looking from Keegan to Isaac and then to the tree with an awedconfusion.
I stayed with Isaac in companionable silence for another few moments, then he nodded, patting the brittle trunk, and stood. “We shall plant two trees tomorrow,” he toldme.
