if his confident air was a facade, as well.
His birth caused his mother’s death. What a terrible burden to bear. This was too awful to be a lie. Her instincts told her that his words were true and his pain genuine. She did not know whom she felt most sorry for, Alon, never knowing his birth mother, or the humans, used by Nagi and discarded like old wrapping paper.
She didn’t remember crossing to him or sitting next to him, but there she was at his side, taking one of his hands in both of hers. Suddenly the grief drenched her until she swam in it like a river. He glanced up at her now, the pain still glittering like shards of glass in his pale eyes.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Alon.”
“I didn’t know her,” he whispered.
“That only makes it a greater loss.”
He nodded and his Adam’s apple bobbed. Why had she assumed that he was incapable of feeling pain? He wasn’t. He was a Halfling like her, and that meant he was half human.
The other half was Nagi. She slipped her hands back to her own lap. He let her go but stared at her hand as he struggled to gain control of his ragged breathing.
“My parents know Nagi is hunting us. They are trying to find a safe place for our family. I wanted to accompany them, to protect them, but she bade me to protect the young ones. They cannot yet reason and do not understand the need to flee. But there have been ghosts here, scouts of Nagi. I know he will find us sooner or later. We must be gone before he comes for us.”
She reached for him again and checked herself. “Protect them? How does one protect against an immortal?”
“We have had this discussion many times. I do not know how to stop him, but I can stop his ghosts and I can stop the Ghostlings who have joined him.”
His own siblings, she realized, half brothers and half sisters. She shuddered. He caught her physical display of aversion and narrowed his eyes on her.
“I would prefer to fight than run.”
“Just the opposite of me.”
“You are a good runner. But it is not your nature.”
She threw up her arms, flapping them uselessly at her sides. “Oh, you’re wrong. I’ve been running my entire life. Hiding, pretending I have no powers.” She stared at him, feeling a connection that was not there before. “All I want in this world is to use my powers to protect the Balance and keep men safe from Nagi. Do you know what it is like to have the powers to help, to save lives, and never be able to use them? I want my family safe, but sometimes...”
There was that protective wall again. What had she been about to say?
“Sometimes?”
She cradled her forehead in her hands. “It’s not me. I want to be useful, but I also need my family safe. I just wish I could figure out a way to do both.”
Alon stared at the woman at his side. This conversing was difficult, like a dance they had been taught. Two steps forward, two steps back and swing. Still he felt more comfortable with Samantha than he did with any other except his twin. Why was that?
Certainly he had never told a living soul what he had shared with her. She had the power to use that information to hurt him. Did she realize the risk he had taken to earn her trust? If it helped him protect her, it would be worth the hazard of laying himself bare before her.
“I have the opposite trouble. I want to find a place where I won’t ever need to use my powers. I do not wish to steal away souls.”
She wondered if that was why he had said he wanted to be left alone.
“You are lucky to have a gift that is of some benefit. Mine is a curse.”
“But you can return souls to the body. That’s positive.”
He made a sound that seemed a growl. “Rarely. When a soul escapes it is because the body can no longer hold it. It seeps away like rain into sand. I put it back and it only bleeds away again.” He turned his gaze on her, and the look was one of exquisite sorrow. “I would need someone who could heal the body before I could return the soul.”
She looked quickly away. He was right. With her healing skills and his ability to retrieve a