The Demon King's Hero Of Light 184 Chapter 184 Precious

Aella had found him laying in bed, and nothing seemed to make him want to get up.

"Alfred," she sighed, sitting down next to the bed and leaning against the wall. "I'm tired. I just spent, I don't even know how long, searching through the human lands for the survivors you insisted had to be there. Look at me, Alfred. My skin is scarred from the mana poisoning I've endured."

He finally turned his head to look at her out of the corner of his eye, and sat up with a gasp. "Aella! What happened?"

She shrugged, looking down at the mottled color of the skin on her arms. "I searched and searched all along the coast, teleporting to the snow and ice of the north when my skin started to peel. Once I had healed enough, I started searching some more."

Her voice was soft and emotionless, as if she were reading from a very boring book. Maybe she needed a nap? She had slept some while healing in the ice, but she wasn't sure how well.

"How are you not dead?! Has Josephine seen you?" he asked, reaching out to touch her, but stopping and pulling back as if she were contagious.

"No, I dropped most of the survivors off with her, but they had bunched around me so much, she didn't get a good look. When I returned with fewer around me, she was too busy to look at me. Some of them were in pretty bad shape, Alfred."

"And you said some wouldn't come?" he asked, his eyes still skimming over her face and exposed arms.

"There's ten of them who refused."

"But, why would they refuse?"

"I told them who I was," she said with a shake of her head and a little chuckle. "I probably shouldn't, but I didn't want them to think I had tricked them."

"Wait, you told them you were the Demon King? Aella, why would you do that? Even if they found out later and were angry, they would still be safer here than there!" groaned Alfred.

"I told them I would come back tomorrow, and that I would bring you. I was hoping you would talk some sense into them," said Aella, leaning her head back against the wall. She wasn't tired; not really.

"You need to see Josephine, Aella," said Alfred shaking his head in disbelief. "I can't understand how you're not dead!"

"The realm won't let me die, Alfred," said Aella with a small smile. "It wants to reward me for what I've done for it, but it doesn't know how, so I can't die until then."

"That's horrible! Aella, just because you can't die, doesn't mean that you can do whatever! Go! Right now!" he stood up and tried to drag her to her feet, hardly wincing when he touched her skin.

Even with his tremendous strength, Aella was too much for him. With a sigh, after watching him struggle for several moments, Aella merely teleported them both to the room where Josephine was still busy healing the humans she had brought over earlier. Some were laying in cots, fast asleep, while others were sitting at a table, enjoying a rich soup.

"Josephine!" cried Alfred, rushing over to the water hero's side. "You need to look at Aella right now!"

"What's wrong? I'm a little busy, Alfred," snapped Josephine, leaning over a young baby that the mother refused to put down.

"Alfred, I promise to stay right here until she finishes. I won't die, but some of them might," said Aella, watching as Josephine was focused on the small infant. It looked too small to have been born, but she wasn't sure how little human babies were supposed to be.

Alfred chewed on his lip, looking back at her for a moment before nodding. The people around him were curious to know who he was, and before long, Alfred was busy chatting with several of them, trying to figure out what all had happened to them, and listening to their stories. Aella hoped he figured out a way to convince the one's she had left behind. There was no way they would be able to survive, and after going to so much effort to find them, she hated to leave even one.

Leaning her head back against the wall she was resting against, she closed her eyes. The images of the dead popped into her minds eye, left to die in the rush of poisonous mana. Some had been too weak from the sickness that was already raging through the land to flee the coming cloud of poison. Others were able to run, but it overcame them. She had seen their bodies laying in the streets and fields, rotting.

A small mew snapped her eyes open, and Aella was scrambling at the bag on her front. How could she have forgotten!? The tiny lion cub was curled into a ball, it's fur completely black, instead of the soft tawny brown it had been.

Surging to her feet, Aella teleported next to Josephine, barely noticing the woman the water hero had just started to inspect.

"Heal him, Josephine! I swear if he dies, then I will be lost!" gasped Aella, falling to her knees next to the woman. "Please!"

Josephine leaned back in shock at her actions, and gently took the tiny kitten. Glancing at Aella with a worried look on her face, she sent a blanket of healing water over the figure.

"I'm sorry, Aella. It's had too much mana introduced into its body. I don't have a way to remove it all."

"No," Aella whispered, taking the kitten back with a numbness that was suffocating. How could she have forgotten the kitten???

Teleporting to the library, she stumbled up to Bridgette, still holding the tiny form as it fought to breath.

"Aella?" asked Bridgette, turning to look at her. The moment the Sage's eyes landed on her ravaged form, her eyes grew wide in alarm. "What happened!?"

"Please, great Sage! How do I remove mana poisoning?" Tears were gathering in her eyes, and she kept having to blink to get them to go away so she could see. "I can't let it die!!!"

Bridgette glanced at the small form cradled in her cupped hands and rushed over to another bookshelf, running her hand along the spines of the books until she found one and pulled it from the case. Flipping it open, her eyes moved so fast, Aella had a hard time following them.

"If there were a crystal available, it could suck the mana out of it, or someone else could take the mana and cast a spell with it. A fairy would be a wonderful savior, but I don't know where any are."

Aella thought about her options. There were probably tons of fairies around her old palace, a.s.suming they had survived the blast, but she didn't want to risk herself that way. The kitten definitely wouldn't survive the area while she looked. Then a thought came to mind and she chewed on her lip thinking about it for a moment before nodding. If that's what it took, then that's what she would do.

"I will be back, maybe. If not, then tell everyone I am sorry," said Aella to Bridgette.

"Aella! Wait!" cried the Sage, but Aella was gone.

Standing on a cliff of a mountain, Aella stared in at the scene before her, wondering how far she would have to go, to start feeling the affects of what was to come. The kitten was still alive, clutched to her chest. She probably wasn't thinking right, in fact, Aella chuckled to think what the others would say if they knew what she was about to try.

"What are you doing here?" came a voice around her.

"I must save this life," she whispered, her eyes locked on the world tree in the center of the valley before her.

"What is that life to you?" asked the voice, confusion laced through each word.

"Precious," she whispered. "The tree can take the mana out of her and save her life."

"I can't keep you alive, if you do this. The tree will take all of the mana out of you, and then both of you will die," said the voice. "That is unacceptable. I will remove the mana poisoning from the cub, and you will return to your people, away from this place."

Aella gazed down at the tiny cub as it struggled to breath one last gasp, and then went still. Swallowing as a feeling she couldn't describe swept over her, taking her breath from her chest and knocking her to her knees. Shaking as she gently rubbed its head, Aella willed it to live, trying to touch that part of her that she had used to save the children before, but there was nothing. She was hollow.

And then it gasped and opened its eyes. Sitting up in her hand, it stretched and gave a shake, then began to lick one paw.

Gasping in joy, Aella clutched the small figure to her breast, listening to its mews of indignation. Teleporting back to her room in the castle, she lay on the bed and set the kitten before her.

"I am soooo sorry!" she whispered to it. "I promise to never forget you ever again!"

Precious turned her head to gaze at Aella, then nodded. "Good."