The Healer ✔

Chapter Nineteen

Two months passed by, the time crawling along like a snail. The minutes felt like hours and the days felt like years. Every second passed by with the fear that the Zlohiel would attack, catch them off guard, kill them before they ever had a chance to fight back.

Elora and Mikhail spent a lot of time training Queen Monne's soldiers, with Ragen and Nyal helping out whenever possible. The two warlocks usually had other things on their plates, with Ragen sorting out how to live with only one arm, and Nyal healing those who were injured in battle.

There had been many battles over the two months, with the Zlohiel forces increasing every single day. They attacked the roads as refugees tried to make it to Maheem, invaded the city during the night when everyone was at their most vulnerable. Elora had taken to napping during the day so that she was alert as she could be at night.

Giazma was drawing closer and closer to taking over Maheem and the whole of Veridun. All he needed was one well-struck attack and they would be done for. It would be soon, Yararanje had told her that much, but she didn't know how prepared they were for it.

Her and Mikhail had been training the soldiers well. They weren't losing as many people in battles as they once had, but their forces were beginning to dwindle, and it wouldn't be long before they didn't have enough of a force to face the oncoming threat.

She had been researching ways of getting rid of the Zlohiel with Nyal. Both of them spent their spare hours in the castle and city libraries, trying to find anything they could. They read through Corpius's book until their eyes grew heavy and they knew everything the dead warlock had known.

There were no books in either library that held much information on the Zlohiel. Most that came close were history books and speculation about the first war, books that were so recent that the Zlohiel was called the Ancient Ones. She found that a lot of the information in those books had been incorrect, especially information regarding her. She had been so successful in being a secret that historians had begun to believe she was a man.

In the two months, they had been in Maheem, neither her or Nyal had found anything that would be of any help to them. There was no information, no secret way of ridding the realm of an entire race. She couldn't make another Gate, not by herself, not with Nyal, not with any of the warlocks that had survived.

While Nyal was still growing more powerful, it still wasn't enough for the creation of another Gate. And even if they could make one, she didn't know if another Key would be created. The first Gate could have been a fluke, just dumb luck. She doubted just about everything they had done in that war now that the Zlohiel were back.

The man was starting to be able to heal five people at once, reminding her of the power Healer's had during the first war. He wasn't quite as powerful as they were, but with some time and practice, he would be. She hadn't known how he was so powerful, not when he hadn't shown much strength beforehand.

The power was locked away inside of him, her father had explained when she'd finally mustered the strength to ask. We only unlocked it for him. You will not be able to defeat Gaizma without his power, and he was taking too long to unlock it himself.

That was the most her father had helped her during the entire ordeal, no matter how often she asked, begged, demanded, he would leave her in the dark to fend for herself. He would not tell her how to defeat the Zlohiel, only furthering her belief that there was no way to do it, that they were just prolonging the inevitable.

Throughout the two months, Monne hounded Elora for news, growing more and more disappointed when the demigod came back with nothing. It was growing harder and harder to buy her time, with more and more people dying with every attack. Nyal might have been able to heal many people at once, but he couldn't bring them back from the dead.