Ivory had taken a step away to follow Syndil but she turned back toward the birthing bed to see Gregori crouch down beside his lifemate. The frightening Carpathian who always looked invincible and all-powerful seemed so weary and more vulnerable than she thought possible. She hesitated and then went back to him. “Do you talk to her?”
“Yes, but she is not listening.” There was a wealth of sorrow in Gregori’s voice.
Ivory looked around her at the quietly sobbing women. Even Raven could not hold back her tears. Ivory bit down on her lip and closed her eyes. At once the anguish emanating from the women assailed her.
Gregori, feel the energy in this room. If she is highly sensitive, she will feel what I do—what you do. They believe—you believe—all of you believe she is already lost. Let me talk to her through you, through our connection. I have some experience with the will to live. Meanwhile, change the atmosphere in here. Anyone who cannot remain positive must remove their presence from this chamber
.
Gregori looked at her and then to Francesca. He was too close to the sorrow, and Savannah’s anguish consumed him. Francesca nodded her head.
Thank you
. Gregori said.
Please do speak to her
.
The singing changed to the Carpathian lullaby, a soft musical melody, voices raised in song to soothe the babies as labor continued.
Little one. Your trial is great. You must rise above it and cling to life. Endure. I have fought to stay upon this earth, and though it is difficult, I know it is worth it. You are destined for greatness. Let me tell you a story of a great man, a healer among his people, a warrior unsurpassed and his princess. A beautiful woman with long, flowing hair and violet eyes. They love one another very much, but there is a terrible mage, a great wizard, who wishes to keep them apart
.
The infants stopped slipping from the safety of Savannah’s womb; instead, they pulled back to listen to the rise and fall of her voice, mesmerized by the story she began.
Your father will continue the story and tell you of the two little girls, mere babies, but strong beyond belief, who rose up to defeat the evil mage
.
She couldn’t bring herself to put her hand on Gregori’s shoulder to comfort him, so she gave him a quick, encouraging smile. “I told myself many such stories to hold despair at bay. Make them the heroines of the tale, and make the story long and involved and exciting so they listen and concentrate on that. I will work as quickly as I can.”
Ivory waited for Gregori to pick up the story where she had left off. The voices around him fell into a soft accompaniment, lending excitement to the tale the healer wove for his daughters. Savannah added her own voice when she could to bring the tale to life.
Ivory and Razvan followed Syndil out of the caves and together they hurried to the building chiseled into the cliffs. Inside the large main room, Shea, a Carpathian woman with bright red hair, and the human, Gary, who Ivory had already met, worked together with a seamless efficiency that suggested they had worked side by side for a long time and were used to a certain rhythm.
Another woman, who Syndil introduced as Gabrielle, was in a smaller room peering into a microscope. Ivory immediately recognized the silken pouches containing the soil samples she’d brought along with the open book of her records.
Shea whirled around. “I can’t believe you have done this,” she greeted. “How did you discover this? These life-forms are foreign to me. I’ve never seen them before. What are they? Where did they come from?”
Gabrielle looked up. “They seem to be abnormally high in iron.” She stood up and crossed the room, a graceful woman. “I have studied all kinds of organisms and this is new to me as well.”
“Which is why I was concerned with just dumping them in the soil,” Ivory explained. “They will spread, and I believe they will eventually destroy all the mutated microbes, but I have not had enough time to determine what else could happen. I do not know the effect on humans or any other species. Plants. Insects. I have no idea.”
“They don’t touch the normal microbes,” Shea said. “You’re right, we have to be cautious, but I think you may have found our answer. We need you to work with us.”
Ivory forced herself not to back away from the group. She was unused to being the center of attention and certainly was never in such close proximity to people crowding her.
Razvan
. She reached to him for reassurance. The moment she did, she was annoyed with herself. She had become dependent on him.
His soft laughter eased the knots in her stomach. He was there instantly, flooding her mind with warmth.
As you should be dependent on me. There is still a part of you that would like to run from me
.
That is not true
. Well, it might be true, but she wasn’t admitting it to herself. She was braver than that.
His voice softened. Went tender.
I am always with you, Ivory. In your heart and mind. We share the same soul. Always, o jelä sielamak—light of my soul
.
Ivory forced a smile as she looked at the research team gathered around her. “I will help as soon as I have tried these reversing spells. Before I try this on Syndil, I want to try it on mutated microbes in the soil. If I can come up with a spell to reverse what Xavier has wrought, then I can teach it to all of you. Any Carpathian should be able to use it. It will be a temporary solution until the new organisms do their job and cleanse the soil. And until we can go to the source of the microbes and destroy it for all time.
“The spell will not reverse the mutation,” Ivory warned. “It is only designed to reverse Xavier’s dark command. We cannot really tell if it will work until we use it on someone the microbe is already attacking. I need to make certain this will not harm the living, especially a child. I am a little reluctant to try it on Syndil even now.”
A sudden hush fell over the room. Ivory’s skin prickled. The hair on the back of her neck and on her arms stood up. Her breath caught as an unfathomable anguish gripped her by the throat. Around the room, she saw the others freeze in their tracks, their eyes widened in horror. Syndil gasped and began to weep. Shea’s face lost all color. The test tubes in Gary’s hands began to shake while the glass slide in Gabrielle’s numb hand fell and shattered on the floor.
For a moment time seemed suspended. Except, Ivory knew it couldn’t be true, because she could feel the rapid thud of her heart, pounding inside her chest like a drum. If time had stopped, so, too, would her heart—wouldn’t it? Dazed, uncomprehending, yet fighting an inexplicable urge to weep, Ivory reached blindly out to Razvan and felt the solid connection as his fingers closed around hers.
A broken, anguished cry shattered the stillness.
Help me! All healers to the cavern! We are losing them
.
Gregori, the impervious. Gregori, the all-powerful. Ivory trembled to hear him so desperate, so frantic, and it was clear the others were equally as shaken. Gabrielle and Shea dropped their materials and bolted for the door.
Syndil started to follow, but Ivory grabbed her arm. “What is it? What’s happening?” She knew. She didn’t want to know. The outpouring of grief gripped her heart, shredding it, and she knew she was feeling Gregori’s emotions.
Tears had filled Syndil’s eyes and begun to spill down her cheeks. “We’re losing the babies. They cannot stop the birth.”
“God help them.” Ivory covered her mouth with one hand. Her knees were weak and rubbery and she leaned back into Razvan, gripping his arm to keep steady. They had come too late. Far too late. No matter what they learned now, they had not saved the fragile babies.
Vapor shimmered in the room and then Mikhail was there, his powerful presence filling the small space. “We have great need of you now, Ivory. They are slipping away. You are the last hope for my granddaughters.”
“But I have never even tried it on soil, let alone a child,” she protested, her stomach knotting.
Razvan
. She breathed his name as her talisman.
You will do this
.
She shook her head. “Not on an infant. An untried spell. I will have to summon the dark magic in order to reverse what Xavier has wrought. Anything could go wrong.”
Mikhail’s face hardened. “It has already gone wrong. You must.”
She forced down the lump threatening to block her throat, grateful for Razvan’s supporting arm. “Mikhail . . .” She broke off, swallowing hard. “There’s no guarantee this will work—or even that I will not harm them more. Xavier is a powerful adversary. So much could go wrong.”
“You
must
do this if we have even a small chance of saving them.” Mikhail was implacable. “Everyone believes you are our best hope. Gregori asks this of you.”
Gregori. The man who had fearlessly gone after the four shadow fragments Xavier had placed in Razvan to allow his possession. Gregori hadn’t flinched. But infants . . . Ivory shook her head, swallowed hard and sighed.
You will do this
, Razvan repeated with complete confidence.
“So be it,” she whispered, hoping Razvan’s calm would rub off on her.
“Make whatever preparations you must, but hurry,” Mikhail urged. Then he was gone.
“Razvan,” Ivory said, her voice hoarse with grief and worry. “You know how evil Xavier’s spells are. I cannot go into a sacred birthing chamber and call forth the darkness. Anything can happen.” Even as she protested, she used magic for cleansing, rather than her ritual bath, as time was of the essence.
“Nothing you have ever accomplished has been easy,
fél ku kuuluaak sívam belső
—beloved—but you have done it. This is too important not to try.”
She leaned into him for the briefest of moments and then, gripping his hand, rushed to the birthing cave. The swell of voices held heavy grief, swamping her senses. The crowd parted to allow her through, and her heart pounded. Ivory felt as if she couldn’t breathe with so many Carpathians gathered around Gregori and his lifemate, pressing close, as if by their nearness they could in some way keep the babies from slipping away to the next life.
“
Gregori!
” Savannah screamed her lifemate’s name as her body expelled the first tiny life into his hands. She panted heavily as she watched him breathing for their child. “Is she alive? I can’t feel her, Gregori. Please tell me she lives.” She buried her fist in the soil as another wave of pain ripped through her.
“I’ve got her,” Gregori said, but his voice was distant. Filled with grief.
Razvan, I cannot bear to see them lose these children
.
Francesca stepped close as Savannah’s body shuddered again, her face rippling with pain. Francesca’s hands guided the second baby into the world. At once her face went distant, as she, too, breathed for the infant.
You can do this, Ivory
, Razvan whispered in her mind, his voice gentle as she stood before Gregori and Savannah and the tiny babies laboring for life.
You were born for this moment
.
I was born to slay vampires and destroy Xavier. Not for this. Never this
.
Like everyone else, she was spellbound, watching Gregori, bloodred tears tracking down his face, holding his tiny daughter in his arms while Shea poured the small stores of soil that Ivory had brought with her into the incubator, on top of existing layers of soil Syndil had already cleansed in preparation for the birth of the twins.
The child in Gregori’s hands was too small to live, much too fragile. Even from where she stood, Ivory could see Gregori breathed for her. His hands shook, that strong man, the knowledge that he, the greatest healer of their people, was helpless to save his own child.
Ivory swallowed hard, took a deep breath and cleared her mind to block out all the sorrow and anguish, all the negative energy. She’d had Razvan go through each gesture and movement that Xavier had made as he cast his reprehensible spell. She knew he had poured his hatred and need of revenge into his spell as he commanded the microbes. She could do nothing about the mutation, but she could reverse the command. Every detail had to be exact. If Razvan had misremembered one tiny aspect—if she forgot so much as a single motion or word . . .
I did not, fél ku kuuluaak sívam belső—beloved. Nor shall you. You can do this, Ivory. I have faith in you
.
She felt the brush of his lips in her hair, the warmth of his breath on the nape of her neck. She took a breath, started forward, and halted. “Gregori.” When he looked up, his silver eyes were so lost she nearly wept. “You have to be certain, Gregori.”
“I am certain,” he replied grimly. “We have no other choice.”
“Razvan, you will have to do the setup fast, but every detail must be precise.” She lifted her face and looked around the crowd. “I am re-creating a very evil scene. Anyone who does not want to be here should leave, otherwise form a large circle of protection in case I make a mistake.”
No one left. Even the Carpathians who had looked upon her and Razvan with distrust and perhaps even loathing now set aside their prejudices and submitted themselves to his direction. They formed a huge circle several layers deep. Those in the room, including Gary, who was human but seemed to know all Carpathian rituals, began a cleansing chant. Syndil, Shea and Gabrielle burned sage and moved through the room, sweeping high and low, paying particular attention to every entrance.
“Gregori, I need you and the babies in the center here.” Ivory pointed to the very center of the ring.
Without hesitation, Gregori and Francesca moved the incubators into the open area Ivory was preparing. Savannah gripped her mother’s hand and whispered to Ivory, “Please, please.”
That overwhelming grief shook her. Razvan’s voice was closer as he surrounded her with warmth.
You can do this. There is only you and our mortal enemy. You were born to defeat him, Ivory. You can do this
.
“I need four women. Syndil. You choose those closest to the earth.” She pulled her sword from her sheath. “They cannot flinch once we start. This thing, this great evil that Xavier wrought, will not go quickly or quietly. It will fight back. It will try to break us. So whoever you choose must have the courage to face whatever this evil might throw at them.”