Isandru came in shortly, and like Isa, stood at the foot of my bed. He stared down at me as Mara continued to work. His expression appeared stern, though I didn’t know what I did to earn that look. Mara, sensing his severity, stood up, wiped her hands, and stepped away from the bed.
“I’ll leave you some privacy, Elder,” she said and was gone.
When it was just us, he heaved a heavy sigh and sat on the old wooden chair she had vacated. “You can’t keep doing this, Shanti.”
“Doing what?”
He shook his head. “We are past this. I’m not going to explain it to you. These scars . . . you shall bear them for the rest of your days.”
“If we just return to Shenshi . . .”
“I have spoken with Pallos,” Isandru put in. “He says that even the doctors of Shenshi have their limits. Their medicines are amazing, yes. But they cannot cure everything.”
“I don’t care what I look like,” I said. “I saved the city, Elder. If I hadn’t done this . . . there might not be a Savannah left.”
“One city, a dozen cities, does not compare to your safety,” the Elder said. “You are like a daughter to me . . . we both know this. But beyond that, you are the only hope of salvation for this entire world.” Isandru’s expression grew darker, if that was even possible. “Perhaps your greatest threat isn’t the Radaskim. It is yourself.”
“What would you have me do?” I asked. My voice should have gotten louder, only it didn’t. There was only a rasp, and I strained to express my frustration. “Anna came back to fight, not hide behind walls. What person would want to follow a coward?”
“I am not saying not to fight. I am saying you must be careful. When you fought that dragon, Shanti . . . my heart nearly stopped. I thought all was lost. I should never have given you that Aether. I thought you were going to remain on the ship, but you flew into battle with no regard for your own safety. There was Northold, and then there was this. This was much worse.”
“I will fight as much as I have to,” I said. “I will have to risk myself again and again. If I don’t . . .” I was unsure where I was going with this, but I knew, deep down, that Elder Isandru was right.
“Stubborn,” Isandru said. “I’ve never known anyone as stubborn as you. You are a child! And yet . . . you are to be the world’s savior.”
“I’m not a child anymore,” I said. “I’m a child as much as Anna was when she and her friends saved the world.”
“Don’t you see it is not just your life you are risking? Every time you risk yourself, you risk the entire world!”
“Was it not you who gave me the Aether?”
“Had I known what you would do, I’d have locked you in your cabin. All that was for what? In all, you killed some forty dragons. A mere tenth of the swarm. They can afford to lose that many, Shanti. We cannot.”
I knew he had a point. “And what of the swarm?”
Isandru sighed. “Pallos tracked it north. The next town is Charleston. By this pattern . . . it will attack every major city on the East Coast. We’d need to attack it ten more times, at this rate, to destroy it for good. Even then, it is a matter of time before another swarm comes. No doubt Charleston has been reached by now. We must do something to stop the swarm that doesn’t involve directly attacking it.”
“During the fight, I had a vision of the lake. I believe the way is open to the Nameless One.”
Isandru didn’t respond for a long time. At last, he said, “You must tread very carefully.”
All I had were my memories, what Alex had told Anna all those years ago, and even those memories were hazy. Anna had written at length about him, but for some reason—even though I remembered most things from Anna’s life before and during the Ragnarok War—I remembered almost nothing from the time after it, when she had set to work preparing the world for the next invasion of the Radaskim—the next Xenofall.
Something told me that information was vital, and there was a reason I couldn’t access it.
“You will need to dive again,” Isandru said. “You won’t be well enough to do that for a long time.”
“I need healing,” I said. “Not just herbs and poultices, though they help. You said Shenshi would not be able to help me. Perhaps Serah back in Haven could help.”
“There is not a Cleric in all the Wild that can get you back to how you were,” Isandru said. “Even with all the time in the world.”
“What can we do, then?”
Where I expected Isandru to have an answer, he didn’t. “I don’t know, Shanti. There is much I don’t know. The best healers are in the Sanctum . . . but that means returning there.”
“Do you think they would heal me, after all I have done?”
“I have no doubt they would,” Isandru said. “No one, not even our enemies, are turned away for healing. With all the Clerics, you might be made whole enough for an audience with the Nameless One.”
“That’s what we do, then,” I said. I reached for a nearby cup of water, but Isandru picked it up for me, holding it to my lips.
“Do not forget,” he said, “we are all in this together. What one of us does, affects all.”
“I’m tired,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Rest,” he said. “I’ll return tomorrow.”
I watched as he went for the archway separating this room from the next.
“Isandru?”
He paused, turning back around. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry. I mean it.”
He nodded cautiously. “Get some rest.”
I wanted to respond, but there must have been something in that water that made me sleepy. Already, I felt myself fading.