I had to try—I came up beside him. Put one hand on the Dragon, and the other on Nikolai’s arm.
The power surging through me made it difficult to breathe, but it found my small reserve of healing power and tapped into it without effort, pulling it into Havoc’s ravaged body.
Cara felt it too. Her eyes flashed to mine, and away again, before she called, “Anna.”
Anna moved to stand on Nikolai’s other side, and she copied me.
The energy bridged and then exploded between the three of us, pulsing into Havoc like a tide. I sensed the parasites as red-hot motes of energy, feeding greedily until we swept down upon them.
Cara had been down this road before, and she guided us. Showed us how to kill them, and sweep their bodies to the fluid-conducting vessels, and then out of the body.
It was hard, painstaking work. The parasites had invaded almost every part of Havoc’s body. Over time, the flow from Havoc’s ears and mouth and nose turned black, and the Dragon began to cough spasmodically. The weakened blood vessels hemorrhaged, and we hurried to seal them.
Havoc’s natural healing ability moved in as soon as we moved the parasites out. It was a powerful thing, and it had kept him alive well beyond where others would have perished.
I lost all sense of time, but eventually, Cara probed, searching through Havoc for any that we’d missed, before she shook her head in wonder. “Gone,” she said. “They’re all gone.” Her gaze, when it turned to us, was both relieved and amazed.
Amazed. A Watcher, amazed. Atus. But as I sensed Nikolai struggling to shut the power down, I acknowledged that what we had just done was nothing short of a miracle.
For me, it was, anyway. My healing talent had been all but destroyed by Isobel’s bloodmagic. That Nikolai had reawakened it, gave me hope.
Aria, and Lucas both moved to take hold of Nikolai. I sensed the bond between them flare to help push the chaos back.
I stepped away.
“That—was incredible.” Lucas’s gaze, as he glanced at me, held calculation within it. “Do you think you can bridge that energy again?”
“Can you channel it if we do?” rumbled Nikolai. “That is the true question. Since you are all so determined to keep me away from Isobel.”
I stared from one to the other. Obviously, I was missing something.
Anna moved up beside me and interpreted my expression. “It was how we killed Galeran,” she said, as if the man hadn’t been her father, too. “Lucas channeled Nikolai’s power into me, and I used it to kill Galeran.”
My eyes widened.
“It wasn’t enough to kill Isobel,” Lucas stated. “But with you and Rafael—”
“We still need to get them to Isobel.” Cara rubbed a hand over her face. “She’ll be heading back to Brock’s stronghold.”
“Brock is dead.” Havoc loomed over us all. Tremors ran through him, but he was no longer on death’s door.
“Or he was dying when we left him,” Marcus amended.
Cara leaned against a tree. “If he’s dead—his empire will dissolve as others fight over it, unless Isobel is interested in holding it together.”
“Riley Jumped directly to me.” The words were out before I’d even thought it through. But all eyes turned to me.
“She did.” Lucas’s eyes widened. “She said it was because she was connected to you. Do you think she could Jump directly to Isobel, too?”
“She didn’t use a location reference?” Cara’s gaze was intent.
Lucas shook his head. “No. We didn’t know where Rafael was.”
Cara straightened and her eyes fogged. “Where is Riley? I was so immersed in the healing—but I think I felt something.”
“We can’t find her anywhere.” Kiko and Vali walked out of the forest. “She wanted time alone—we let her go, but shouldn’t have. Now we can’t find her.”
“She’s gone,” Cara said, her voice reflecting alarm.
