Page 62 of Tiger's Destiny
“Oh. Don’t worry about it,” I said as I caressed my slightly numb cheek. “It barely hurts.”
“That’s what worries me. Can you move your legs?”
“Of course I can.”
I tried but nothing happened. Grabbing Ren’s arm, I painfully pulled my body into a sitting position and looked at my legs. The skin was gray. I poked my calf and found the muscle hard, almost like stone.
“What’s happening to me?” I whispered desperately.
Ren took my hand and massaged my fingers gently. “Your face was gray too but it’s starting to return to normal color. We just need to get your blood moving.”
My fingers began to turn pink, but the tips stung as if they’d been stuck with thousands of hot needles. I whimpered despite my attempt to tough out the pain, and my eyes stung with tears. Kishan pulled off my socks and began rubbing my feet. It wasn’t long until I felt burning prickles shoot through my feet and legs.
“It hurts!” I exclaimed.
Ren pressed a kiss on my forehead and wiped away a tear. “We need to do it, Kells. Can you stand it for a little while longer?”
I nodded and he worked on the other leg while Kishan focused on my toes. The fingertips on both of my hands ached, but the sharp pain was gone. After a half hour, Kishan announced that my legs were no longer gray and offered his arm to support me standing up. I did and hobbled around, feeling shooting pains travel up my legs.
Leaning heavily on Kishan, I continued down the path, grateful for my painful blisters that ensured I would stay awake. Ren asked me to tell him all about my dream and kept me talking until my muscles screamed in protest from the constant walking.
I was dead tired. A new body, combined with sleeping in a nest and almost burning to death, had exhausted me. I felt like a walking zombie, and all I could think of was my soft bed back home at Ren’s house. Every footstep I took seemed to repeatedly whisper, “Bed, bed, bed.” It was late into the night, or perhaps early morning, when Ren suggested we take a short break and taste the firefruit.
Kishan produced a knife and cut into the layers of leathery skin. The fruit separated into two halves. A thick red rind surrounded the soft, reddish-orange flesh. Like a kiwi, the fragile interior was filled with black seeds. Kishan handed me a wedge, and I bit into the juicy fruit.
It had a slightly sour but refreshing tang. The seeds were crunchy but edible and had a nutty flavor. The fruit had the texture of a soft grainy fig but the flavor was like a burst of watermelon and grapefruit combined. As I reached for another piece, I felt heat on the back of my tongue as if I had eaten something mildly spicy.
When we finished eating the fruit and began walking on through the cavern, I felt invigorated, suddenly realizing the pain was gone. I inspected my heels and murmured with awe, “I’m better! The firefruit healed my feet!”
Ren and Kishan felt recharged as well and decided I needed to constantly munch on firefruit as we walked. Instead of eating the messy and sticky fruit, I created a gourd filled with firefruit juice and sipped it whenever my feet started to hurt. We came to a fork in the tunnel and while Ren took Fanindra and explored ahead a short ways, I stopped to rest with Kishan. He leaned against the tunnel wall, and closed his eyes.
I was talking to Kishan while rummaging through the bag when Ren returned. Immediately, he ran to his brother and shook him. I spun around and gasped. In the few short moments I’d had my back turned, Kishan had fallen asleep. His face had turned gray and his body slumped against the ground as if he were dead.
We shouted and Ren even slapped him twice, but Kishan wouldn’t awaken. The gray color visibly crept from his fingertips up his forearms and inched from his face down to his neck. I worried that if it reached his heart he wouldn’t be able to recover. As Ren tried to shake him awake, I doused him with water, but the life-giving liquid, though safe to us, was poisonous in the fire realm. It hissed on the rocks and ate through several large stones like acid.
I lifted my gourd of firefruit juice to his lips and though most of it trickled down his neck, he stirred slightly. I gave him more and soon he was able to swallow. The gray began to retreat, and finally Kishan blinked open his golden eyes.
I kissed his still stony lips and admonished softly, “Don’t scare me like that.”
He tried to speak, but I pressed my finger against his lips. “Don’t talk yet. Just drink.”
Two bottles of firefruit juice later, he seemed to be fully recovered and stood up, but Ren still draped Kishan’s arm around his shoulder and helped him walk off the numbness. I winced when Kishan grunted in pain, completely empathizing with the terrible sting he felt. Soon we were on our way again, headed down the tunnel Ren and Fanindra had chosen.
Kishan regained his strength, and, as the tunnel narrowed, he took the lead, followed by Ren and then me.
After helping me over a large rock blocking our path, Ren said, “I want to ask you something, but if it makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to talk about it.”
“What’s your question?”
“When you sacrificed yourself to the Phoenix, we saw you burn.”
“Yes,” I answered softly.
“What happened?”
“The Phoenix asked me some questions that I had a hard time answering, and the burning was the result. There were some things I needed to learn, to admit to myself. Sunset said that my heart called out to it when we entered the forest. It . . . it wanted to heal me.”
“Its methods of healing leave something to be desired.”
