She wasn’t conscious, but tears streamed down her cheeks and silent cries eked out from her open mouth. I would hold her to myself, but her body remained cradled in the warm peat, its richness nourishing the shel, nourishing her body, nourishing the connection between them.
“VELMA, you may tell the others that I believe CeCe will live. We will hasten to Ikthe as soon as we are able,” I said.
“Well done, Raxthezana,” she said. “I will let them know. Your perimeter remains secure.”
“Good,” I said. “We will need several more zatiks.”
CeCe’s recovery was by turns uneventful and harrowing, long periods of restfulness following short bouts of her heartrending cries, and I wished that my heart hadn’t already transitioned, that I might join her in her agony, but such wishes were pointless. What good would my suffering do but take away my ability to aid her? Nay, I would exult in my strength and lend it to her as I was able.
When she rested and stilled, I left her to repose at the pool’s ledge and shoveled more matter into the pit, then I began the painstaking process of making her armor. When she thrashed, I abandoned my tasks and returned to whisper encouragement.
I remembered my own shel bath, and the haze of semi-consciousness it induced, so I was not troubled by CeCe’s prolonged sleep. Furthermore, what soul would willingly return to wakefulness when it had been tormented by unspeakable tortures for so long? By CeCe’s wasted body mass, it appeared she’d been at the Ikma’s mercy for as long as the humans had been on Ikshe.
She sighed against my cheek where I’d lain on the floor beside the pool to be close to her face, and it sounded different. Peaceful. Relaxed. Almost at ease. When I pulled back, I saw her eyes flutter but close again. She was almost ready.
Rushing back to the machinery, I finished sanding down one of the leg pieces and started on the next. The growing pile of armor sent a thrill through me; it wouldn’t be too much longer now, and CeCe would be healed—and protected.
A grim thought pierced my ease; I suspected my fear spanned farther than I originally thought. Yes, I’d feared CeCe’s death at the Ikma’s hands, but if I was honest, I feared her mortality on Ikthe, as well. Or here within the fortress’s walls. Or out on the lake. Or in the space between the stars.
My fear expanded into the outreaches of space, and I puzzled over the emotion I hadn’t felt since I was a child. I wanted this woman’s soul to remain with me, and the shel would allow it.
VELMA had allowed me access to the catalogs detailing human anatomy, and with her translation I’d come to learn the humans lived only a fraction of a Theraxl’s natural lifespan.
In one act to revive CeCe, I’d achieved victory over her human weaknesses and defied death to take her from me, at least in the way the shel would prolong her lifespan.
“The musings of a mad hunter,” I mumbled to myself and drew out a piece of armor suitable for a chest plate. I spoke in my head as if CeCe would want to stay at my side. My brethren whose hearts had transitioned at least had a hope that their mates would choose them. I had no such hope. I must not force her will on this thing. Of necessity had I given her a life forever bound to the shel—to suggest she must also be my mate was unthinkable.
Humbled by reality, I ceased imagining a future with her, and instead focused on crafting armor that would be home to the shel and mold to CeCe’s smaller body. The filing and sanding of each piece was meditative for me, and when she was still and untroubled, I took the time to contemplate our next steps. Upon hearing her stir from new pains arising, I rushed to her side to whisper soothing reminders of her courageous and intrepid heart.
Zatiks passed.
And I finished her armor. Initiates began their hunts with a simple helmet that could be altered at a later time to reflect the animal that best represented their traits or reminded them of a propitious hunt. I found such a helmet in a smaller size and further adapted it to fit CeCe’s head and enlisted VELMA’s help in activating the sensitive technology within it.
“Come, dear one,” I whispered in her ear and began lifting her from the shel pool from under her arms. Holding my breath as I lifted her silent form farther out, I feared what I might see at her abdomen, but I needed not worry. As predicted, the shel had performed their magic, and while her entire body from neck to legs bore the speckled scars of shel and their wriggling tails, only a faint line showed on her belly. The shel had effected regeneration, and CeCe would live.
If she could awaken. She was the first human who’d been given the shel. I had blindly trusted that they wouldn’t kill her because I refused to accept that possibility. She would live. She must live.
Initiates might pass the time in the shel pool in a haze of dreams and semi-consciousness, but CeCe had yet to open her eyes.
Laying her on a pallet prepared for suiting her up, I listened for changes in her breathing as I affixed each piece of gel-coated armor to her body. The protein-enriched gel formed the barrier between an Iktheka’s skin and the metal armor while providing a nourishing substrate for the shel to reside in when not attached to the hunter’s body.
Fitting her boots in place, I paused when I cradled her bare head in my huge hand.
“Wake to me,” I whispered.
CeCe’s eyes moved beneath her lids.
“It is time to live, CeCe Pain of Earth.”
Her eyes sprung open.
And I stopped breathing.