Chapter Thirty-eight
“I am sorry, Warrior, but I can do nothing for you.” Mother L’rin stood wreathed in the pink and gold and green plants of the Healing Garden, looking almost like one of them herself. She had agreed to see him on short notice which was good since Deep hadn’t intended to wait for anyone. He’d folded space and gotten back to his home planet in record time—less than an hour from when he’d left the Mother ship. And now it seemed his entire trip had all been in vain.
“Please.” He struggled to keep his voice even. “Please, Mother L’rin, I’ll do anything. Anything. Look…” He tore off his shirt, baring his back for her. “Use the whip. Lash me until my skin peals from my body—I don’t care. Only please heal her.”
She spread her wrinkled hands. “I have already told you—I cannot.”
Deep wanted to tear his hair in frustration. “Please don’t punish Kat for my arrogance. I know I have been disrespectful and rude and foolish…”
“You have been all those things.” Mother L’rin nodded gravely. “But worse than anything else, you have blasphemed against the Goddess. It was she who put you and your brother together with the lady Kat. It was her will you broke when you cut the bond she had forged between the three of you.”
“Then I’ll go to the sacred grove,” Deep began pacing wildly. “I’ll get on my knees and I’ll pray for forgiveness.”
“You may do that if you wish and I am certain that the Goddess will forgive you—she is merciful in all things,” the old healer said quietly. “However, that does not mean she will heal your lady. Some things cannot be undone, Deep.”
“But there has to be a way. There has to.” He fell to his knees before her. “Please, Mother L’rin—you healed her before. I know you can heal her again. I am begging you.”
“I did not heal her,” she corrected him gently. “You did. You and Lock. By forging the soul bond with her in the first place.”
“And then we cut it.” Deep slumped back on his heels. “Or I should say, I cut it. Or insisted on having it cut.”
“That you did.” Mother L’rin nodded. “There is nothing you can do for soul poisoning but dilute the poison. If you and Lock both were still bonded to the Lady Kat, you might have been able to save her by completing the bond and each taking a little of the taint into yourselves.”
Deep felt like an iron fist was gripping his heart. “So…we might have saved her if I had not cut the bond between us?”
“It is not certain but you would have had a chance. Now, I fear…there is none. No chance.”
“No chance,” Deep echoed. “Gods, what a fool I am! In trying to save her I have damned her instead. Oh, Kat…” Rage and frustration rose within him along with a grief too terrible to be born. He had condemned the woman he loved to die. Then he had a new fear. “But Lock still is bonded to her. Does…does that mean they both will die?”
Mercifully, Mother L’rin shook her head. “If what you have told me is true, the bond between them is not complete. And it never can be.”
Deep frowned. “Why not? Other than the fact of Kat being…being poisoned?”
“The poison cannot seep though an incomplete or partial bond,” the old healer said. “And a Twin Kindred cannot form a complete bond on his own without his brother. Be at peace, Deep—you will not lose your twin as well as your lady.”
“I’ve already lost him. As surely as I’ve lost Kat. Lock hates me now and I don’t blame him.” Deep looked down at his hands. “Gods, how could I have been so stupid? So…so…”
“Prideful,” Mother L’rin finished for him. “You chose to withdraw yourself from the will of the Goddess. You refused to trust her when she brought a new female into your life.”
“You didn’t see her lying there,” Deep said in a low voice. “Miranda. Just lying there, her eyes open, staring at nothing. Dead. And all because of me.”
“I know about your past.” Mother’s L’rin’s voice was unexpectedly gentle. “It was a tragedy. But far sadder is the fact that you have cut yourself off so thoroughly that you could not see the lady Kat for what she truly is—a courageous female who would never take her own life.”
“She may wish to if the soul poisoning progresses much farther,” Deep said grimly. “I’m told the pain can be intense.” He pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes. “And it’s all my doing. Don’t you see, Mother? This is why I wanted to cut her from me in the first place—to spare her pain. But my plan backfired and made things worse. So much worse.”
“I’m sorry there is nothing I can do for you or for that sweet child you and Lock both care for so much.” Mother L’rin touched his shoulder gently. “Go home and make your peace with her and with your brother before the end.”
“Neither Kat or Lock is going to want to make peace with me.” Lock took a deep breath and stood up. “I bring them nothing but tragedy and pain—as I have always done.”
“You are a dark twin,” Mother L’rin said. “Your path is not the easy one, Deep.”
“No, it is not.” Slowly he turned to go. “I have been the worst kind of fool. Truly, I should be the one who is dying—not my little Kat. If I could give my life for hers, I would.”
“It is not for you to say who lives and who dies,” Mother L’rin said. “That is a task for the Goddess.”
“Maybe so,” Deep murmured. “But even the Goddess must recognize justice when she sees it.” He knew now what he had to do. He might not be able to heal Kat or stop her demise, but at least he could make a proper atonement for the role he had played in her death. It was only right.