Carpathian 20 - Dark Slayer

beaded on his skin and he actually slumped against Mikhail, unable to hold himself upright after the healing session. “How is it they live?― he asked the prince. “It is impossible, yet they survive. Each night I come to them, I expect to find them dead, yet they still live. How is it they endure? No one can live through such pain, yet this is not the first time for either to suffer such torment.― He opened his eyes and looked at his friend. “It is difficult for me to feel and see the absolute suffering the two of them endure.―
    Mikhail laid his hand gently on the healer’s shoulder. No healer could be of Gregori’s caliber without being empathic.
    Each time he shed his body and joined the couple to speed the healing of those terrible mortal wounds, he felt what they did.
    â€œYou are saving their lives.―

    Gregori shook his head. “I am aiding the swiftness of recovery, Mikhail. There is a difference. They have wills such as I have never seen in any Carpathian, male or female, in all my years of healing. Believe me, it is only their sheer will keeping them alive, not me.―
    Mikhail’s voice was comforting. “Take my blood to revive you and then go home to Savannah and allow her to soothe you. Night after night, subjecting yourself to their agony is wearing on you. You cannot continue without some respite.―
    â€œAs long as they continue, so will I.― Gregori looked up at his father-in-law, his face lined with weariness. “His body is actually knitting itself back together again. Three of the six spear wounds should have killed him, along with the sheer volume of blood loss, but somehow the earth itself is putting them back together.―
    â€œAlong with your blood and care.―
    Gregori shook his head. “I do not understand what I am seeing when I attempt to heal them. It is as if most of their bodies are encased in mineral, hardened and impassable, while I have access only to a single part each night. Some nights it is the same part. I can enter an arm or leg and concentrate there, but the rest of their systems are blocked off to me.―
    â€œI don’t understand.―

    Gregori frowned and rubbed at his chin. “Usually when I heal, I can enter an entire body and flow through it with ease, moving through every part, but when I enter Razvan or Ivory, only a small part of their bodies are accessible. It changes with each night.―
    â€œWhat could cause that?― Mikhail wondered.
    â€œI don’t know, but I’d like to find out. The soil has always aided healing. And when we’re wounded and tired it rejuvenates us, but we’ve always used a healing spirit to go inside our bodies and repair from the inside out. Something is repairing their bodies, something other than me. It seems to be a slow process, but it is keeping them both alive. I think Ivory could have been saved, but she chose to bind her fate with Razvan’s. She is fully merged with him and wherever he is encased, so is she.―
    â€œA type of magic? Something Xavier might have come up with?― Mikhail ventured.
    Gregori shook his head. “There is no taint of evil. Rather it smells ancient to me, as if they have awoken something from long ago, before our time, and it works to save them. And you know me, I don’t trust things we’ve never encountered.
    We are a people who have seen much over time.―
    â€œTrue,― Mikhail said, “but not all.―

    â€œI need to understand how things work. I would like to speak with Syndil. She has been cleansing the earth of toxins for us and is very connected to the soil. I have never seen this, and I don’t understand how they are surviving, let alone healing. Nor do I have an explanation for how their bodies are segmented. Perhaps she can explain it to me.―
    Mikhail frowned. “I don’t want her to feel the agony they suffer. It is difficult enough for the two of us.―
    â€œShe might speak to the earth and hear the answer. Perhaps if I understood, I could aid them, reduce the pain in some way.―
    â€œI’ll talk to her,― Mikhail agreed reluctantly. “Both Natalya and Lara are anxious to help, but I’ve asked them to stay away until we are certain Ivory and Razvan will live.―
    â€œI have no doubt they will live,