Free Traitor's Son: The Raven Duet Book #2 by Hilari Bell Page B

that was true. And they’re vital to your survival too! If they’re not healed, that tree plague your terrorists started won’t stop spreading. And you know what will happen then.”
    “They’re not my terrorists,” said Jase. “And no one knows for certain what the tree plague will do. We’ve survived ecological disasters before.”
    Raven’s brows snapped together. “Those disasters are a large part of what damaged the leys so badly in the first place! How can you be so . . .”
    She took a deep breath and brought the smile back. “I’m sorry. You modern humans were trying to mend the damage, before this plague got loose. That’s the exact point I keep trying to make to the others.”
    “Others?” Jase asked. “Those enemies you were talking about?”
    For an alien, she had a really nice smile.
    “Some of them. One of the ways our world is like yours is that we have politics too,” Raven said ruefully. “Not elections or that kind of thing, but . . .”
    “People politics,” Jase helped her out.
    “Exactly. And that’s why it’s so important for you to heal the leys.”
    “So heal them,” said Jase. “I won’t stop you. If you have enough magic, or whatever, to change shape, you’ve got to be able to heal stuff better than I can.”
    There, that got him out of it. It was true, too.
    “Unfortunately,” said Raven, with another of those warm smiles, “that’s where the problems come in. You need to understand, the others’ point of view is that humans have been poisoning these leys, on which our world depends, for centuries. In the last few centuries it was acute, and we were forced to expend our own power like crazy just to make up for some of what you were doing. And our power isn’t infinite, any more than yours is. The power we spent cleaning up after you could have gone to serve other needs, and the higher the price of the cleanup went, the angrier everyone got about humans and your world. Then it got better, for a short time, but this tree plague was the last straw. A lot of my people really want to see humans destroy themselves, even if it means weakening the leys still further. They say it’s so you can’t keep doing it, over and over forever. But really, it’s anger over the past as well. Some of them feel very strongly on the subject.”
    Jase shivered. A bunch of powerful aliens, hating all humanity, had never turned out well in any d-vid he’d seen.
    Raven moved to sit closer, sharing her warmth as she looked at the bustling city. Ships moved smoothly in and out of the harbor, and Jase could see traffic on the highway.
    “But you said you were here to heal the leys,” he protested.
    “No, I’ve been given permission to help
humans
heal them. Using your own power, for my people have refused to spend even a spark of ley power for this. Or to let me use it, either! If I so much as touch the leys, they’ll shut me down. The only good news is that the others aren’t allowed to use ley power to stop us. If we started draining the leys to fight each other, that might cause the very collapse I’m here to prevent.”
    Her hip pressed against his. It was cool in the shade. Jase, ever so casually, put his arm around her shoulders. He knew he should be concentrating on these alien power struggles, but leys and politics were beginning to seem kind of . . . abstract.
    “But I’ve seen you change shape,” he said. “If you can use power to do that, why not use it to heal, or whatever?”
    She hadn’t pulled away from his arm. That was good.
    “Oh, I can use my own energy, the energy all life possesses. I just can’t tap into the ley. But if you’ll let me, I can teach you to do it! And if humans can heal just this one ley, from the upwelling to the terminal node, then they’ll have to concede that I’ve proved my point, that humans can clean up the mess they’ve made. And they’ll leave me in peace to get it done! Humans can fix this, I know they can! If I’m only