Kiana grabbed the rough stone wall and forced herself to stand. Black spots danced across her vision. The blood drained from her head, leaving her dizzy and nauseous.
Brogan spun around and sprinted out the door before she even fully stood up.
Alfred followed right behind him. His steps were uneven, limping heavily, but he moved fast.
Kiana dragged her aching body out of the stone room. The blinding sun of the Wilderlands hit her face.
A small crowd of tribal members had gathered in the dirt clearing. They were pointing and whispering.
In the center of the crowd, two guards lowered a crude wooden stretcher to the ground.
Gunner Hayden lay on the branches. His skin, usually pale, was a horrifying shade of purplish-black.
A massive, jagged tear ripped straight across his abdomen. The wound was so deep the white of his bones peeked through the shredded muscle. Dark, thick blood poured onto the dirt.
Brogan dropped to his knees beside the stretcher. His eyes turned red. A raw, animalistic growl of pure grief ripped from his throat.
Alfred fell to his knees on the other side. He pressed his hands over the wound, trying to use his Ice Aetheric Signature to freeze the bleeding. But the purple toxin in Gunner's blood instantly melted the ice. His power was useless.
The tribe's elderly Shaman stood over them. He shook his head slowly. "The poison has reached his heart. He is dead."
The females in the crowd began to whisper louder. One of them let out a sharp, mocking laugh. "Looks like the wicked matriarch is finally going to lose a consort."
Kiana shoved her way through the crowd. She dragged her weak legs forward until she reached the stretcher.
Brogan lunged up. He blocked her path like a rabid dog protecting its pup.
"Get the hell away from him!" Brogan roared, spit flying from his lips.
He thought she was here to mock them. Or worse, to finish Gunner off.
Kiana's eyes turned to ice.
"Move," she snapped, her voice cracking like a whip. "Unless you want him to die."
The sheer, dominant authority in her voice hit Brogan like a physical blow. He flinched, his brain failing to process the command.
Kiana didn't wait for him to recover. She shoved past his frozen body and dropped to her knees beside Gunner.
She grabbed Gunner's chin, forcing his eyes open to check his pupils. She pressed two fingers to his neck. The pulse was a faint, erratic flutter. The poison was seconds away from stopping his heart.
Kiana took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and reached deep into her soul, pulling on the Viridian Healing Aetheric Signature she had brought with her from the apocalypse.
A faint, pure emerald-green light sparked to life in the palm of her hand.
The crowd gasped. A collective intake of breath sucked the air from the clearing. No one in the Wilderlands had ever seen an Aetheric light that color.
Kiana slammed her glowing palm directly onto Gunner's ruined, bloody abdomen.
The viridian energy shot into his body like glowing vines. The green light wrapped around the purplish-black toxin in his veins.
Right before their eyes, the black rot around the edges of the wound began to recede. The heavy flow of blood stopped instantly.
The shredded edges of his flesh twitched. Tiny pink muscle fibers began to knit together, slowly closing the fatal gap. As the purplish-black toxin receded from his veins, the faint, erratic pulsing of the beast-mark on his collarbone finally settled into a dim, dormant state.
Dead silence fell over the clearing. The Shaman's cloudy eyes bulged out of his head.
Gunner's chest, which had been perfectly still, suddenly rose. He took a deep, steady breath.
Cold sweat poured down Kiana's face. Her skin turned the color of ash.
The second she knew Gunner's heart was stable, she ripped her hand away.
The backlash of draining her energy hit her nervous system like a freight train. The world went pitch black.
Kiana's body went entirely limp. She collapsed onto the dirt right beside the stretcher, completely unconscious.
