Burn the Night

Two

Rowe stirred in my arms. I frowned as I twisted to look over my shoulder at him. His muscles shifted beneath my hands as whatever sedative or spell they had put him under finally wore off. I had been hoping to get a little farther before he woke up.

Pulling in my wings, I glided down to the ground, circling as I searched for a good spot near a swath of trees. The wind had been steady and strong, keeping me ahead of the naturi from whom I had taken Rowe. With any luck, I would be able to get him settled and back in the air before they could get a good fix on our location. I also didn’t want to meet up with the creature that had succeeded in defeating Rowe just yet. His wounds were still healing. Blood was splattered over his shirt and pants, while a binding on his forearm was soaked with his blood. We were relatively fast healers, but I had a feeling he had been trapped in a particularly nasty battle where he was significantly outnumbered. I almost felt guilty about what I was about to do. Almost.

I hit the ground at a run, crushing Rowe as tightly against me as I could while expanding my wings to slow myself. When I came to a stop, I pulled my black wings in against my back, wrapping them close to my shoulders, as if to fight back the chill that hung in the night air. Spring was still newly born, and the nights prone to frosts as temperatures dipped low. I was anxious to get back to Cynnia, where temperatures were somewhat more hospitable, and so was the company.

I placed Rowe on the ground, knelt beside his prone form and dug into the leather pouch at my side. My stomach twisted and churned into a knot, while my breath lodged in my throat. I couldn’t believe I was about to do this. I closed my eyes for a second, sucked in a deep breath through my nose and released it through clenched teeth as I reminded myself that I had done worse. Quietly withdrawing the iron collar, I wrapped it around Rowe’s neck and affixed the lock. The hope was that the iron would at least dampen his powers, if not completely shut them down.

As soon as the lock gave a soft click, Rowe jerked beneath me. I jumped back, one hand landing on the hilt of the short sword at my waist, as if I were facing a trapped, feral animal—and in many ways I was. His hands automatically dropped to his waist, searching for weapons that were usually close but now were missing. His head swung as he sat up. He looked dazed as he tried to adjust to his new surroundings before his eyes finally settled on me. I forced myself to lift my hand from the sword hilt and straightened my stance, trying to appear relaxed when my heart was actually pounding away in my chest like a thing gone mad. I wasn’t going to be the one to make the first threat, even though I had already attempted to take away his powers.

“Nyx?” His voice was rough and ragged.

“Yes, it’s just me.”

“What happened to the others? Claudia and her bitch pack?”

I fought back a smile at his accurate description of the earth clan members that had been holding him. “Dispatched.”

He arched one eyebrow at me skeptically. “You killed them?”

“Knocked them out. Slowed them down. We should have a couple more minutes for you to rest before we need to be moving again. Your wounds are still healing.” My gaze dropped down to the arm he was cradling against his stomach.

“You should have killed them,” he growled, his eyes darting away from me.

“I am the protector of our people. I won’t kill them if I can avoid it.”

“Aurora took that job away when she ordered your execution.”

“That job was given to me by my father in exchange for my life. Aurora cannot take that away from me so long as I am alive.”

Rowe heaved a heavy sigh and shook his head, causing some of his long dark hair to fall in front of his eye patch. There were so many questions I was itching to ask him about his appearance, about his time on Earth when the rest of our people had been held captive, and about his encounters with the Fire Starter, but they all had to wait. When we first met on my initial arrival back on Earth, I hadn’t cared about these things. My only concern was for Cynnia’s safe return to Aurora and me. But now, as we stood on the cusp of war, I wanted to know these things because I feared I would never have another chance to ask.

“Why did you take me from Claudia?” he asked.

“You are of more use to me alive than dead at Aurora’s feet,” I told him.

“You don’t know that was her intention!”

“She grows more paranoid with each passing day. She thought you would cause no trouble in exile, but I think she has now come to the conclusion that you are too strong to be left alive. Even if Cynnia fails to take the throne, there is always the chance that you might succeed. She can no longer take that chance. Aurora wants you dead for the same reason that she wanted Cynnia and me dead.”

“How could you possibly know that? When was the last time you spoke with your sister-queen?”

“I’ve not seen her since Machu Picchu,” I admitted. “But for a time we had spies within her camp.”

“Who?”

I hesitated. They had been close companions and followers of Rowe, and aided me in my search for Cynnia. When the two factions formed on that Peruvian mountain months ago, they had gone with Aurora, but always with the intention of reporting back to Cynnia with information.

“Who are the spies?” he repeated. “How do you know you can trust them?”

“Storm and Hale.” They were brothers, born more than two centuries apart but nearly inseparable. Where one went, the other followed. They had been devoted soldiers to Rowe during the long years he was trapped on Earth.

Clearing my throat, I pushed out the rest of the words. “Before Hale was killed, he discovered that Aurora was killing off as many of the wind clan as she could get her hands on. She was beginning to notice that most of the wind clan was flocking to Cynnia’s camp. It also didn’t help that Greenwood, leader of the earth clan, is now taking a close position next to Aurora. It’s no secret that he’s attempting to acquire your old position as consort, thus elevating the rest of the earth clan.”

“And Storm?”

“With Cynnia, grieving the loss of his brother and plotting his revenge.”

Bending one knee before him, Rowe used his good arm to run his hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face. It was damp hair and slicked back, and now I could see more scars that stretched across the side of his forehead and even into his scalp. Most of them seemed to be on the right side of his body, yet during the fights I had witnessed Rowe in, I never detected any weakness. He was both strong and very dangerous, something I needed to remember at all times despite the sympathy I could feel building inside me for this wounded warrior.

“The only reason you saved me is that you want my assistance in overthrowing Aurora,” he said in a low voice that made me want to put my hand back on the hilt of my sword.

“That is my hope.”

“No.”

“Rowe, the only way to save our people is through Cynnia’s plan of coexistence. Aurora is leading us to war and the decimation of what remains of our people.”

A sneer curled his thin lips as he clenched his teeth. “I will not help a bunch of traitors to the crown.”

“Aurora has betrayed her people. She is leading us to our extinction. The humans outnumber us by frightening numbers. It is my belief that even the nightwalkers outnumber us, and there has even been talk of the return of the bori. We are unable to fight this war that Aurora is leading us toward.”

“Aurora’s duty is first to the Earth, and the humans have nearly destroyed her. This is our last chance to save our Mother. I believe in her vision of returning power to the Earth,” Rowe argued, pushing up with his good arm so he was sitting on the downed tree behind him.

“Aurora has no great vision for the future and protection of the Earth. Do you think after years of living with my sister in captivity I do not know her mind? In her thoughts, there is only the destruction of the human race. There is no thought about how to rejuvenate the Earth.”

“I will not side with Cynnia. Aurora is queen,” Rowe said, pushing to his feet.

“I’m not giving you a choice. You are going with me and you are going to listen to what Cynnia has to say. Then I will allow you to make your final decision,” I decreed.

A smirk lifted one corner of his thin mouth as he raised his hand toward me. “I don’t think so.”

I stood prepared, tapping the energy of the earth that flowed around me, ready for whatever spell the wind clan master was going to sling at me. Instead, he cried out in surprised pain as he fell backward onto his butt once again. Glaring at me, he reached up and wrapped his fingers around the previously unnoticed iron collar around his neck.

“Iron?” he snarled. “You’ve placed an iron collar on me?”

“Because I knew you would not come quietly, and we have a long distance to travel.”

Pushing back to his feet, he circled around me. “Why do I get the impression that you feel a certain amount of joy seeing me like this?”

I pulled my short sword, hoping it might deter him from attacking. “I should have killed you after what you did at Machu Picchu.”

“And how exactly did I upset you at Machu Picchu? We were both in agreement then. We both believed that opening the doorway was our ultimate goal.”

“Not at the cost of Cynnia’s life!” I shouted, suddenly losing my tight grip on my temper. “When you attacked the nightwalkers during the daylight hours at the foot of the ruins, you not only wasted the lives of our people, but needlessly risked Cynnia’s life. You could have come to a compromise, but you are obsessed with destroying the Fire Starter. This personal vendetta will no longer be tolerated.”

“Cynnia formed an alliance with the nightwalker. She deserved what she got. She turned her back on her people and she dragged you blindly along with her.”

Rowe lunged at me from his seated position against the fallen log. I took a step back and held my short sword out to my side, careful to keep from impaling him on it. I needed him alive for now. If he didn’t side with us, I could always kill him later.

The dark naturi plowed his head and shoulder into my stomach, doubling me over as I slammed to the ground on my back. Rowe instantly rolled off me, ripping the sword free from my hand as he moved away. Stifling a groan of frustration at my stupid mistake, I rolled away from him, regaining my feet while palming a knife at my side.

He didn’t hesitate to attack, barely giving me enough time to regain my feet before swinging the sword blade at my throat. I dodged the blow and parried a thrust at my ribs with the knife. A growl escaped him as he continued to launch one slashing move after another, determined to either remove a limb or my head.

A deep calm settled over me as I blocked each attack or slipped away from the reach of a particular thrust. I watched him, his one eye intently focused on me, but something felt off. I knew Rowe and his intense fighting style. I refused to believe that his wounds were slowing him down that much, having seen him in battle with far worse wounds, cutting down nightwalkers as if harvesting wheat. He wasn’t throwing everything he had at me. It was as if he knew I would block his every move or at the very least evade him.

However, that didn’t mean Rowe wasn’t more than willing to leave me horribly wounded and bleeding in the mud so he could go on his merry way. I needed to disarm him so we could resume our flight from the naturi that had been holding him. We were running out of time. Slipping past one lunge, which was an attempt to plunge the blade between my ribs, I slid across the ground under his guard and slammed a foot into his knee, causing the leg to buckle beneath him. The sword he was holding came straight down, aiming for my chest, but I quickly rolled out of the way. As he knelt on the ground, I kicked the hand holding the sword, knocking it loose. The blade flashed in the moonlight as it flew end over end across the open glade.

Rising quickly to my feet, I stood over him, kneeling on the ground, placing the knife against his exposed throat. “Enough wasting time. You come quietly with me now or I kill you, because I’m not allowing you to return to Aurora.”

“Afraid she’ll welcome me back with open arms?”

“Your best case scenario is that she’ll allow you to hunt me down so I can only kill you at a later date. There will be no hero’s return for you when it comes to my sister.”

A smile grew on Rowe’s face, sending a chill down my spine. “It seems you must first save my life.”

I was about to ask what that meant when I heard a creak from the tree above us and felt a trembling in the earth. Claudia and the other members of the earth and light clans had caught up with us.

“Damn you!” I lurched away from him and ran across the glade to pick up my sword.

“Aren’t you going to give me a weapon as well, Nyx?” Rowe inquired in all too innocent tones.

“I’m no fool. I’ll not risk having you stab me in the back while I am protecting you.” I tried to refocus my powers, lightning crackling in the air as the wind rose. “Can you fly?” I demanded as wings sprouted from my back, slick with shining black feathers.

“I seem to have an iron collar around my neck.”

“Try it! I truly doubt that all of your abilities have been blocked. Get in the sky and away from here. I will hold them off until I can join you.”

I started to send my powers away from my body again to get a sense of where the clan members were approaching from when a large tree limb swung down toward me. I dove for the ground, narrowly missing being struck in the chest, only to have a swath of smaller branches rake across my arms and back. Twisting around while still lying on my stomach, I saw Rowe also diving to the ground a few feet away as a pair of darts pierced the night, aimed for his chest.

“Get out of here. I’ll hold them off.”

“Last I checked, protector of the people, I was in command, not you,” he said as he grabbed the knife at my side.

“Then what are your orders, commander?”

“You take this damned collar off me and we kill my last captors!”

“Not likely,” Claudia said, announcing her arrival in the small clearing.

Kill her! Rowe commanded in my brain.

I reacted, not contemplating whether what I was doing was right or wrong. I threw out my arm and a bolt of lightning sizzled from the sky, slamming down into Claudia in a brilliant flash of white light. Her blackened body fell over with a sickening thud in the wet, marshy ground.

My soul cringed at what I had just done, but I took my first step toward the remaining three members of the earth clan, and nearly tripped. A root had sprung up from the ground and wrapped itself around my left ankle. It continued to tighten, biting through the material of my pants and into the soft flesh and muscle. A second root shot from the earth then and wrapped its way around my other leg, holding me in place.

I glanced around and saw Rowe engaged with the one male earth clan member, while the two females stood off to the side watched me with grins on their beautiful, elfinlike faces. Raising my right hand, I started to throw my last remaining knife at the one on the left when a third root halted me.

Trapped and certain that they meant to kill me, I had no choice. I tilted my head back toward the heavens, letting the rain pelt my face. A peace spread through my body, as if the water was cleansing me of the act I was about to commit.

The lightning slammed down twice, pounding both of the earth clan members. The scent of burned flesh drifted toward my nose.

This wasn’t what I wanted. I was the protector of our people, a title given to me by my father, the king of the naturi. He had commanded that with every breath in my body I protect the people and carry out the orders of my king or queen no matter what. I was to be their great defender. I was to be the sword and shield my people hid behind in times of darkness. Now I had become the sword that cut them down.

Something sharp prodded my neck, compelling me to open my eyes. Rowe stood before me with my knife point digging into my throat and a stern look on his face. “You’ve gotten sloppy.”

“Not at all.”

“Four naturi were allowed to sneak up on you. Two earth weavers captured you with roots, rendering you nearly helpless. I know that I taught you better than that.”

“You taught me to fight nightwalkers and bori. Not our own kind.” I pushed back the memories that threatened to intrude. Rowe and I had trained together many years before our people were banished to their cage. We knew each other’s fighting styles. We knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses—or at least we had before we were separated by centuries of captivity.

“All the more reason you should know your enemy, far better than any nightwalker or bori,” Rowe criticized. “You should never have been trapped so easily.”

“I never was,” I said with a slight smile. Lowering my eyelids, I stared past him, concentrating on the flow of the earth around me. I murmured a couple words I had been given by our strongest magic weavers, and the roots quickly unwound themselves from around my body and shrank back into the earth.

The moment his gaze shifted to the roots. I landed two quick hits to his wounded arm and another to the wrist holding the knife, popping it loose. The blade still sliced through my skin, but it was only a minor flesh wound that would heal in time. The important thing was that Rowe was no longer holding a weapon. He was dangerous enough without one.

As the hilt of the blade landed in the palm of my hand again, he ducked and rolled away from me. Coming back up on his feet, he was holding the short sword of one of the fallen naturi. We were once again at a stalemate.

“I guess I was wrong,” Rowe said, smirking.

“It seems we frequently underestimate each other. It’s been too many years. I guess I assumed you grew soft in your years away from the rest of your people.”

“Hardly the case, as I have proven. Now give me the key so I can remove the collar.”

“You’re going with me to speak to Cynnia.”

“Even if I wanted to see your traitorous sister, I wouldn’t do it as a dog on a leash. Free me now!”

“And risk you killing her at first sight, because she is my ‘traitorous’ sister? No, I will have you brought before her with your powers held in check. I am more than willing to give my life protecting her, but I prefer to have the odds in my favor where you are concerned. I am no longer sure of what you are capable.”

“Anything,” he whispered, a dark smile gracing his grim features. He leaned in close to me, the edge of his blade scraping against mine. “I am capable of anything if it means my survival on this rotting wasteland.”

“Then come with me, because right now I am the only one who is willing to protect your traitorous hide.”

“I’ll go, but first give me the key,” he said, taking a step backward.

I smiled at him and bravely shoved my sword back into the sheath at my side. “I don’t have it.”

“What?”

“I don’t have it. Never did. It’s at our final destination.”

“Damn it, Nyx!” Rowe stomped away from me, tightly gripping the sword in one hand while still keeping his sore arm close to his body.

“It was the only way we could be sure you would seek out Cynnia whether I survived the journey or not.”

“So I should just kill you now and go alone to Cynnia’s location?”

“No, because you’ll never be able to defeat the one that captured you in the first place.”

Rowe stopped pacing the forest and looked at me, lowering his sword. “What are you talking about?”

“I find it impossible to believe that Claudia and her little band succeeded in capturing you and wounding you so thoroughly on their own. They were just the delivery. Someone else attacked you, and once it is known that you’ve escaped again, that person or persons will be on your trail. You need me to keep you alive.”

“Bitch,” he snarled.

“Can you fly?” I asked, ignoring his comment.

Rowe looked away from me as he placed the sword in his empty scabbard. He hunched forward and his brow furrowed in concentration. A low groan escaped his parted lips as a pair of leathery black wings sprang from his back. I bit my lower lip and blinked back unexpected tears at the sight of his wings. I remembered when they were white as newly fallen snow and soft as a kitten’s fur. I had been wrapped in those pearly white feathers once, felt their caress. But now they were gone, replaced by something dark and foreboding, as if they represented a stain against his soul.

“We will fly east for the next couple hours and then make camp just before sunrise,” I directed, lifting one hand to summon up the winds again.

“We should be moving by daylight. That’s when they will be searching for us. We need to gain as much ground as possible,” Rowe countered.

“True, but I am the one who is defending you, and I am at my peak strength at night.”

He gave a little bow just before he threw out his wings, catching the growing wind. “As you wish, Dark One.”

May the earth mother forsake you.

The old naturi curse occurred to me after he used the nickname that had haunted me since my birth, but I regretted the thought as quickly as it appeared. Looking at Rowe now, I had to wonder if the great earth mother had forsaken him already.