But it didn’t all come out. She felt something against her torn and bleeding sphincter. Something squirming. Something big enough to cause serious discomfort. She collapsed off the toilet, vomit dribbling out of her lips as she tried to keep them closed, her mouth filling with more bile. She turned towards the stinking pot. She looked down into it as she prepared to spit the bile from her mouth into it.
She saw them then—the worms. Thick as slugs, writhing in her feces. There were so many of them that it seemed like the entire pot was filled with them.
She screamed and screamed, scratching at her stomach as if she could tear the parasites out of her body.
Then a scaled hand fell upon her neck and the hard grip tightened at her throat. She fell blissfully unconscious, the darkness claiming her.
24
His drahi was dying and Jotaha felt more helpless than he ever had in his life. The elders had been unable to offer useful advice, and the healers were baffled by her illness, unfamiliar with nixir anatomy. The one elder who truly understood the nixirs, who communicated with them as part of the treaty, was currently gone. The other elders could not say when he would return. They explained that Elder Arokiv was in the nixir world, negotiating with the nixir leaders for new treaty terms. He could travel back and forth between worlds via a means unknown to all but his secret society of infiltrators. The other elders said they could scry him, but there was no telling when he would respond, since scrying was difficult on Gaia and nixir communication devices did not work well on Theia.
Elder Arokiv might speak Sarah’s language. He knew the most about the nixirs, even moving among their people disguised as one. He might understand what was happening to Sarah—and how to cure it.
Sarah’s face grew paler as blood left her body though her clavek, along with the hon-gree that he feared were abandoning her because they’d grown weak or unsatisfied with the food he’d provided her. What he did know was that their abandonment was killing her, and there was no way to communicate with them to convince them to return. The hon-gree they had fished out of the vase appeared to be hostile, immediately latching onto his gloved hand with a ringed mouth filled with sharp teeth. No doubt it was angry to have been forced out of its host. It did not appear to have reached maturity.
Every time the healers managed to staunch the blood from her clavek, another hon-gree would push past the barrier of bandages, causing more blood loss. Jotaha had no idea how many of the hon-gree lived inside her, but her stomach was distended now, bloated from their anger.
“You have my sympathies, Honored Jotaha,” Elder Kireva said, his remaining head spines tight against his skull as he approached Sarah’s bedside, where Jotaha had sat for so many sandfalls that he’d lost track of the time. He could only mark it by each breath Sarah took. When her labored breathing stopped, he felt like his life would end too.
“To finally find your drahi, only for her to end up in such a state, is a cruel fate to endure.”
“Her hon-gree have left her. I feel like I failed her. I should have known how to—”
Kireva’s hand fell upon his shoulder, silencing him. “A nixir drahi has always been a difficult choice for the yan-kanat. She would not be the first of their kind to pass on because this world was not kind to her.”
Jotaha jerked his shoulder away from Kireva’s hand, his lips peeling back in a snarl, though he didn’t turn his attention away from Sarah’s increasingly haggard face. “I don’t care about the challenges. I want Sarah to be mine. I would do anything to save her.”
He glanced up at Kireva, who stood beside him, his own gaze fixed on Sarah. “She already claimed my heart. She is courageous, and fierce, and tenacious. She never gives up, and she won’t give up now. She will keep fighting to live, even without her hon-gree. I just need to figure out how to help her win that fight!”
“Like all the nixirs,” Kireva muttered. “Fighting is in their blood. It burns through them until it consumes them and their world.”
“Honored Kireva, tell me that you have not taken Kevos’ path and doubt Seta Zul’s wisdom.” Jotaha didn’t want to look at the male whose endless wisdom he’d trusted from the moment he left the nest to begin his training. He feared he would see the same hatred for his drahi that had twisted Kevos from an honorable sentinel to an attempted murderer.
“No, Jotaha. I believe in Seta Zul’s choices. Your seal has led you down a challenging path, but you are more than prepared for this battle. Elder Arokiv has said that things among the nixirs are changing. We may need more of them on our side if the nixirs storm the urvaka in force. Your drahi can help us to understand them in a way even Arokiv has not been able to.”
“I have seen those changes. Like the twisted nixirs we fought in the urvaka. They will be a significant challenge if they invade in large numbers.”
“Since you told us about them, we have summoned Jotahas from the other skilevs to search the urvaka in our region for more of them.”
Jotaha slowly shook his head, reaching to brush a tangled hank of fibers off Sarah’s damp cheek. “The urvak zayul have not sensed the nixirs since I killed the last of the twisted ones.”
“But they may return, and they move faster and are not deterred by the zayul as the other nixirs are. They are more focused. This is a true concern.”
Jotaha barely heard Kireva’s words, his mind shifting from the subject of the possible nixir invasion to his chanu zayul. A crazy, wild—perhaps even blasphemous—thought had suddenly occurred to him when he mentioned the zayul.
“Her hon-gree have abandoned her.”
“Not all of them. Some still move within her, according to the examinations by her healers.”
Jotaha rose to his feet, both excited and fearful that his new hope was about to be dashed by the voice of reason. “She needs her hon-gree to survive, but what if the chanu zayul could heal her and take their place inside her.”
As he’d expected, Kireva seemed stunned by the suggestion and immediately negated it. “If she requires the hon-gree, then the symbiotic relationship is mandatory. The chanu zayul inside her will eventually reach maturity and leave her body as well. You would only be delaying her death, and causing more heartache for yourself, Jotaha.”
He had considered that. “She could accept a new generation, just as I would have, if I had not chosen to retire.”
Kireva’s sparse spines bristled. “The chanu zayul honor the Jotahas. It would be blasphemous to use their gifts simply to maintain the life of a single…civilian.”
He left the word “nixir” unspoken, but it was there in his tone, and made Jotaha bristle as well as he turned to face Kireva, towering over the shorter yan-kanat.
“Is that not a choice the chanu zayul must make? Do we believe we have the right to choose for them? After all, they were gifted to us by the Ajda themselves to guard the urvaka. They have the wisdom of their creators within them.”
Kireva’s spines flattened, and his hard expression softened. “Ha’tah….”
He saw Jotaha’s spines fully extend, his lips peeling back in anger, and shifted his tone to one that was more respectful and placating. “Honored Jotaha, this path will only bring you heartache. The chanu zayul honor the Jotaha because you protect their home. You are hoping they will choose your drahi as a host, but she will return nothing to them for that honor. They will reject your request, and you will be left hopeless again. What will you feel about the chanu zayul when they allow your drahi to die? You must keep them within you until they have fully matured, but you will be angry at them. It could create a conflict that ends up causing you physical pain as they sense your resentment.”