The Healer Series: The Complete Set, Books 1-4

by C. J. Anaya

  I closed my eyes and allowed the pull of the blossom to overtake me. A burst of air exploded around me and then sucked me backward. I opened my eyes just in time to see Tie break from his captors and leap for me, but I was already falling under, into the black void of the Underworld. I lifted my hand and barely managed to brush the tips of his fingers before I disappeared out of his reach forever.

  I stood shaken and disoriented within Amatsu’s throne room, or whatever it was he called the place. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the cavernous space, that same overwhelming pull I’d fought so hard to overcome threatened to consume me. It was far more powerful than I’d ever experienced.

  “You’re here,” a disembodied voice said. I scanned the room until my eyes landed upon the perfect and pristine form of Amatsu seated upon his throne like a regal and majestic king.

  “Not be cause I want to be here,” I said. I choked back a sob at the agony of being ripped away from Tie and the agony of fighting against the bond forced upon me.

  “You are unhappy,” he said. He stood and quickly moved to me, but stopped just a step away. “I know I wasn’t your first choice, but I can make you happy.”

  How ironic to have fought this for so long when this very moment was now something I had to accept as my fate.

  Heal the heart of stone. Heal the veil.

  I allowed a single tear to slip down my cheek, just one more thought for Tie and all we had felt for each other before I lost that love forever. Then I took that last step between us and accepted his outstretched hand. His eyes widened in surprise and heated with love, wonder, and joy.

  “I have no choice, Amatsu. I never did.”

  His look of joy slowly faded to sadness.

  “That’s not true, Hope—”

  I didn’t allow him to finish his sentence. I didn’t want to hear whatever falsehood he planned on using to endear me to him when the decision had already been made thousands of years ago. I initiated our kiss this time, taking him completely by surprise. He quickly responded, pulling me into his arms and kissing me so tenderly I almost believed someone like him might actually be capable of the love Tie had always given me.

  As my body and heart responded to the bond, I pushed thoughts of Tie away and gave myself over to the darkness within my heart, shattering the golden barrier protecting it and allowing its inky tendrils to fully consume me as our tender kisses turned more passionate by the second. The very last connection to my soul mate tugged at my heart, refusing to let go, but I knew I had to be the one destroy it. With one final command, I instructed my ki to snuff it out and allow the darkness in.

  Then there was nothing but Amatsu, the god I loved, the one I lived for, breathed for, would give my life for. I couldn’t remember why I had been so resistant to the idea, but now that I was here and his, nothing would ever have the power to keep us from one another again.

  Amatsu pulled back for a moment, love evident in the lines of his face, the softness of his eyes, and the sweet smile upon his lips. My heart filled with overwhelming affection for him.

  “I love you,” he said through a throat choked full of emotion.

  I smiled and wiped the tear trickling down his cheek.

  “And I love you.”

  His smile was so heartbreakingly happy. I wanted to make certain I was always the cause of that smile, but then his smile slowly melted to that of concern, then fear.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Your eyes, Hope.” He lifted his thumb and brushed at my cheekbone. “They’ve changed color. They’re turning black.”

  What did my eye color matter? I was finally with the man I loved, and I never wanted to be parted from him again. I leaned in for another kiss, but tensed at the sudden pain in my chest.

  “Hope, what is it?”

  My breathing became shallow and the pain in my chest increased.

  “I don’t know. I—”

  Knifing pain hammered my back and I screamed out in agony, crumpling against his chest. The walls around us began to crumble and rubble fell to the stone floor.

  “What is happening?” Amatsu shouted.

  “It’s the veil,” I said, barely able to manage it. Another pain stabbed my heart, and I let out a tortured whimper. Amatsu lowered us to the ground and cradled me in his arms.

  “But what is happening to you? It’s not just your eyes that have gone black. Your lips are black now too.”

  I lifted my hand, finally understanding my situation.

  “The veil is failing. You’ll finally be free.”

  “Not if I can’t have you,” he said. He pulled me closer to his chest and tried to soothe me as I let out another cry of pain.

  “I think…I’m dying,” I said between gasps of air.

  “No. That can’t be right. This isn’t right. I want you with me, by my side. We’ll rule together, you and I. I don’t want to be without you.” He kissed my forehead and rocked me back and forth in his arms as the Underworld crumbled around us.

  I tried to speak but couldn’t put much volume behind it. The pain in my chest made breathing difficult, next to impossible. He put his ear next to mine so he could hear me.

  “Amatsu,” I said, “I’ve accepted our bond with all my heart, but the darkness within it is killing me. Once…once the veil fails, I will be gone, but you will be free.” With strength that felt nearly impossible to muster, I lifted my hand to his cheek and gave him one last kiss. “When you join the world of the living, please remember to be kind, be good, help others, and heal them if you can. Please, remember me.”

  “No, Hope. I’m your soul mate. Whatever ails you I can fix with my ki.” The tears in his eyes made tiny rivulets down his cheeks.

  Tears leaked from my own when I said, “It’s your ki that is killing mine.” I sobbed into his shoulder as another round of pressure constricted my heart, making it feel as if it might burst. “You can’t hope to heal me if you want to be free of the veil. You have to let me die. You have to let me go.”

  “No,” he sobbed, burying his face in my neck. “I can’t let you go.”

  “Then you’ll never be free of this place.”

  His shoulders shook and then stiffened. As he lifted his face and searched my eyes I saw the purest love and the deepest sorrow swirling within their depths. He seemed to come to some kind of decision. Steely resolve replaced his sorrow as he gathered me in a cradle hold and quickly stood. Another quaking of the earth nearly threw us off balance, but I barely took notice as I curled myself tight against him.

  “I can’t heal you, my love, but I know someone who can, and with the veil as broken as it is, I believe I shall have no trouble finding him.”

  Amatsu focused his eyes on a space ahead of him and mumbled a few words that I failed to catch. A fissure in the veil opened up to reveal the secret room I had recently been taken from. My group of family and friends knelt around a figure on the floor that I could barely make out due to my blurred vision. Focusing on them was simply too much for me, and I rested my head against Amatsu’s shoulder, praying for the pain to end one way or the other. The veil shook and the room we stood in quaked in response.

  “Hope,” a familiar voice shouted.

  I had one lucid moment where I remembered the owner of that soothing voice. The one god I had loved for over a millennium.

  Tie.

  I wearily opened my eyes only to see that I was staring at myself. Feeling disembodied, I turned a little and realized I was floating above my body and Amatsu. We were on one side of the fissure while Tie stood directly across from us on the other side. Fear and panic overtook me. I remembered what had happened to me the last time I died, and I didn’t want to spend another thousand years in a stone statue.

  “What did you do to her?” Tie yelled. He reached his arms forward to grab me but another earthquake shook both sides of the veil.

  “Our bond is killing her,” Amatsu said. The tears continued to stream down his face as he grappled with his
next big decision—one that I was sure would cost him everything he held dear. “I can’t heal her, but I know you can.”

  Tie looked at the demon god in shock.

  “You do realize that you’ll have to completely sever your bond with her. I can’t heal her completely if even an ounce of darkness is present.”

  Amatsu shook his head in impatience.

  “You have to help her ascend, Tie. She won’t survive this if you don’t.”

  Tie’s anxiety and concern for me overrode any shock he might have felt for the demon god’s abnormal behavior. He reached forward to take me, but Amatsu held on as well, both of them cradling me in a joint hold.

  Tie looked up at him in frustration.

  “You have to let her go.”

  “I will,” Amatsu said, “but I have to break the bond first.”

  His eyes focused on my heart. I felt inky parts of myself being stripped away, pulling me closer to my own physical body. Amatsu’s eyes turned ebony and blackness spread from his face throughout his entire body, turning his white robe to black in the process. As the last bit of the bond was severed, I felt a sudden disconnection with everything. I realized with startling clarity that my soul, for the first time in my creation, was completely untethered.

  I didn’t belong to anyone.

  Amatsu breathed in deeply and let out a huge exhale as his skin and robes went back to their normal color. He slowly released me into Tie’s arms. A hand on Tie’s shoulder brought his gaze to the side. I’d been so absorbed with Amatsu’s transformation and my own untethered state, I hadn’t noticed the others gathered around Tie or what lay behind him.

  “You must hurry, Tie, she doesn’t have much time left,” Hachiman said.

  Tie took in a deep breath, closed his eyes and attempted to connect with my ki. I sensed him reach for me, but I wasn’t in my body, and I wasn’t tethered to him. His ki couldn’t find me.

  “I think she’s gone,” he choked. “Hachiman, I can’t access her ki.”

  “She has to choose,” Hachiman said. “All bonds have been broken. It’s her choice to either live or die, and should she choose to live, she must also determine whom she wishes to spend the rest of her life with.”

  Tie swallowed hard and stifled down a sob.

  “What if she doesn’t choose to live? Or what if she doesn’t choose me?”

  Amatsu reached forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. The look on his face made me truly love him in that moment.

  “She has always chosen you, Tie. Even when she chose me, she did it to save you. She did it to save you all.”

  “Try again, Tie,” Hachiman said.

  Many might call it destiny, and others might call it fate, but in that moment I simply called it the single most wonderful decision I ever had the opportunity to make. I slowly drifted into my body and reached for that warm light I recognized so well. The moment Tie’s ki found mine, our colors collided with so much force it nearly brought me back to consciousness. The warmth of his love burned brighter than anything I had ever before experienced.

  When his lips covered mine, the gold colors encased my spirit, strengthening it and purifying it to the point that it changed altogether. My energy shifted into something more everlasting and soon my colors and energy matched his on every level. Heat shot from my chest and I arched my back, breaking from his kiss to cry out in pain and then to cry out with joy as I fully ascended and all of the pain I had previously experienced disappeared without a trace.

  I blinked my eyes open and stared up into the deep pools of blue.

  “Tie,” I said.

  His full lips gave me one of the happiest smiles of his life.

  “I thought I’d lost you there,” he said.

  “Me too.”

  Angie and my father pulled me from Tie’s arms and embraced me, tears streaming down their cheeks. I laughed and hugged them back before remembering who was responsible for getting me the help I needed. The room quaked ever so slightly and my eyes found Amatsu’s sad ones as the fissure between our realms started to close.

  He slowly backed up and moved to turn away, but I stepped forward and reached through the fissure before he got too far.

  He looked back at me in surprise, but gripped my hand and squeezed it.

  “I’m sorry for the pain I caused you,” he said.

  “I’m sorry for the pain you feel right now,” I said. “Thank you. You saved my life, and I have no idea why.”

  The corners of his lips turned up in a sad smile.

  “Don’t you, Hope? I believe you were the one who talked about love and sacrifice. Did you think I wasn’t listening?”

  I blinked in surprise. “No, I didn’t.” The fissure grew smaller and I had to back up, but I still held tightly to his hand. “You could have been free.”

  He lifted my hand to his lips and gave it a soft kiss.

  “I am free, Hope. Love did that for me. You did that for me.”

  He released my hand and smiled bravely with tears glistening in his eyes as the fissure slowly sealed the realm between our worlds.

  “I understand what Fukurokuju meant now,” Hachiman said. “The most powerful being in the world ended up being you, Hope.”

  I stood staring, barely seeing anything as I realized that the prophecy had been right. Death’s heart had to be healed. He had to be willing to sacrifice everything…but the veil still required healing. I could feel it despite the enormous sacrifice the demon god had made and despite the fact that he had learned to love someone other than himself.

  Now that I had ascended, it was time to heal what I had always been meant to heal.

  “Hope, there’s something we need to tell you,” Angie said in a hushed voice.

  I turned around and finally noticed the figure on the floor, the one Ms. Mori was huddled over.

  Kirby.

  I immediately rushed to her side and noticed the blood pouring from a large wound in his chest. He wasn’t going to make it. Not with the Underworld’s poison circling his system.

  I connected with him and immediately tried to push out the blackness encasing his heart, but the veil wouldn’t allow it. I sensed that it was weak enough for me to push through, but I also knew that as The Healer it was my job to strengthen and fortify it completely. I couldn’t save him, and I finally understood that it had never been the right thing for me to do. No matter how much I loved and needed this sweet boy by my side, I had to push away my own selfish desires and surrender my power back to the Universe.

  Hope. I’m ready. You can let me go now.

  Amatsu sacrificed his happiness to save me, and I knew I had to sacrifice my own happiness to save not just me and my friends, but all of humanity. The veil couldn’t take anymore breaches, and just one more from me would leave it crumbling into oblivion. Amatsu may have finally come to accept his role in the Underworld, but there was far too much evil pressing against the veil at the moment. We couldn’t let it escape.

  I had to let him go.

  I love you, Kirby.

  I know.

  I released his ki into the warm folds of the veil and listened as his body let out one last sigh. When I opened my eyes Ms. Mori was sobbing into Kirby’s hair, pulling him close to her and rocking him in her arms. The sight of her so undone pained me. All her defenses came crumbling down with the loss of a son she’d loved for so long. She hadn’t begged me to save him. Instead of feeling angry with her, I finally understood the level of sacrifice she had always made in order to save this world, even at the cost of her own happiness.

  I would never be able to look at her and label her cold and unfeeling again.

  It hurt to witness Ms. Mori’s pain. I had to focus on someone else, and who better than my best friend. Angie’s eyes were blotchy, but she smiled at me.

  I’m proud of you, she mouthed.

  I looked down at the peaceful features of my sweet Kirby and felt grateful to have been given every single precious moment with him.

&nb
sp; The floor shook again. and Tie dropped down next to me.

  “We have to heal the veil, Hope. It’s now or never.”

  Trepidation hit me.

  “I still don’t know how to sense it the way you do.”

  He grabbed my hand and gave me a reassuring look.

  “Just connect with me and then reach for it. The veil feels like a long lost relative.”

  “Like a dear friend you can’t wait to see again,” Victor offered.

  “Like loving arms welcoming you home,” Daiki said.

  “The veil feels like love,” Hachiman said.

  I looked at all of my friends supporting me in the wake of Kirby’s death, lending me love, hope, and faith even though I still felt so unqualified to accomplish such a task.

  “Okay,” I said to Tie, “I’ll follow your lead.”

  I closed my eyes and reached out to him, allowing his soft caress to guide me as I drifted higher and higher. I waited to feel something familiar, but struggled to feel anything other than Tie’s energy and presence within my mind. As I waited for something familiar to guide my senses toward the veil, I heard a soft voice in the distance.

  It was indistinguishable at first, but I allowed it to guide me until the energy the voice belonged to enveloped me in a warm embrace. I recognized his love.

  Kirby?

  You’re here, Hope. Just lift your hand up and place it against mine.

  I did as he instructed and felt a jolt of power rush through me. Tie’s hand enfolded over the back of mine at the place where I felt Kirby’s ki just on the other side of the veil. Our power mingled together and joined all of the ki on the other side of the veil. The power had been overwhelming when wielded with the Grass Cutter Sword, but this method was different and easier to channel.

  Thank you, Kirby, I said.

  I love you, Hope.

  I know.

  When I continued to explore the veil’s surface, I discovered the blackened areas of its essence as I communicated with hundreds of thousands of ki all at the same time. The world opened up to me. I had a bird’s eye view of every area that needed attention. I combined Tie’s energy with my own and then opened up a conduit that allowed our energy to spread over the entirety of the veil, healing darkness and damage as we went, pulling on a little energy here from others beyond the veil who were willing to come to our aid. It seemed every ki we encountered was more than happy to help, and Kirby never left our side, remaining that one focal point that allowed me to sense the veil and remain connected to it. I wasn’t sure if I could have sensed it without his familiar presence.