“If anyone gets hurt, I’ll be right here, ready to help,” Nellie announced.
“No, you won’t,” Zane told her sternly. “You will never heal again because, in order to do that, you have to hurt yourself.”
His words were out of love, but I saw Nellie shrink into herself.
“Actually, Zane,” I interjected, “I think Nellie has a milder, untrained form of my power. With practice, I could teach her to transfer the illness to the plants and flowers instead.”
Nellie’s eyes grew wide. “Really? Cool!”
I winked at her. “But until then, I think you need to sit out any healings and let me handle them.”
She frowned but nodded. “Fine.”
“Here, hold this.” Zane handed her his bag, probably just to make her feel useful, and then got on his knees on a patch of blackened earth.
I did the same, letting my power fan out around me. It felt different.
“My magic feels different,” Zane said. “My brothers even said that I feel differently to them now.”
“My magic feels different as well,” I commented. “I think because when I saved you, it … meshed us.”
He reached out and grasped my hands. “That’s why we do this together.”
Nellie snickered beside us, and I grinned.
Placing our interlocked fingers over the faestone resting on the ground in front of us, I reached for my power and then used it to scan the plants and trees around us. At least what was left of them. They were low on energy, hurting but not dead.
I sucked in a breath, also feeling an energy in the sky, something I’d never felt before, and wondered if it was Zane’s power. It was electric.
Snapping my gaze over to Zane, I could tell from the look on his face that he was feeling energy unfamiliar to him as well.
“I have no idea what to do,” Zane said.
“Me neither. But you feel the plants as well?”
He nodded, a look of awe on his face. I’m sure I was wearing a similar expression.
“Maybe we just start flooding the faestone with power?” I offered.
“It’s worth a try.”
“And I’m here to assist if needed,” Nellie added, causing both Zane and me to smile.
“Ready?” Zane asked, and when I nodded, we both pushed our magic into the faestone. I gasped when it began to sink into the ground.
“Keep going,” he said with a grunt.
I did, pushing everything I had into the earth. Thunder rolled overhead as lightning crackled in the sky.
“Is that you?” I asked.
“I think it’s you,” Zane responded.
Weird. I did feel a connection to the sky’s energy, but I couldn’t tease it apart from the earth. This was all so new.
A vine grew up from the ground and sprouted a white flower right beside us.
“Good job, Lorelei,” Zane encouraged me.
