Dawnbreaker

Twenty-Two

Bertha was covered in blood when she arrived at Ollantaytambo a few minutes later. The nightwalker looked pale in the faint starlight, while her eyes glowed a deep blue. Her pretty blond hair was stained with blood and her clothes had a variety of new rips and tears.

“We’re being attacked by the naturi. They’re trying to take the lodge from us!” she shouted before her feet touched the ground in front of Stefan. A second nightwalker landed directly behind her, looking the worse for wear. It was easy to surmise that the battle for the lodge was not going well.

With Danaus’s help, I pushed to my feet and walked over to where the three nightwalkers stood. “What’s happening?” I demanded, releasing my hold on his arm so that I was forced to stand on my own. I was weak, but I needed to muster what strength I had left for the fight we still had ahead of us.

“They started attacking shortly after we arrived at the lodge,” Bertha explained, her eyes briefly flitting to the bloodstain on the front of my shirt before meeting my gaze again. “They’ve tried to set the place on fire twice and we’ve managed to stop it, but they’re wearing us down.”

“We have to abandon the lodge,” interjected the second nightwalker. “Sunrise is only a couple hours away and we have no way to secure it during the daylight hours. We’ll be slaughtered while we sleep.”

I glanced over at Danaus for a moment, knowing that he would be willing to defend me while I slept. He had protected me during the daylight hours in the past, but the illustrious hunter was no match for the horde of naturi waiting for us. That explained why only eight naturi had been sent to see what we were doing at Ollantaytambo. Their main concern was destroying the contingent sent to the lodge.

“We can’t pull back,” I said with a wave of my hand. “If we try to maintain any other location outside the Sacred Valley, we’ll never reach the top of Machu Picchu in time to stop the sacrifice. That’s their plan. To destroy us or delay us.”

“Can’t we use that one somehow?” Stefan asked with a jerk of his head toward Cynnia. The young naturi took a step backward, hiding both of her bloodstained hands behind her back.

“She’s naturi?” Bertha asked. Her upper lip curled with the question, revealing a flash of her white fangs.

“She belongs to me,” I said, coming to standing between Bertha and Cynnia. “A bargaining chip I’m hoping to use at a later date.”

Bertha instantly backed off, taking a step back and holding up her hands, indicating that she had no disagreement with me. “You may be running out of time. Could it be time to use your bargaining chip?”

“I think she may come in handy,” I said, nodding, then looked over my shoulder at Stefan. “I need something from you to make this work.”

A cruel smile twisted his lips and he bowed his head. “What do you wish from me, great Elder?”

I matched his smile and bowed my head back to him. I had not meant to invoke my status as a member of the Coven, but if that’s how Stefan was going to be, I would play the part.

“I need you to pull a Stain on the lodge as a last resort.”

Stefan lurched a step backward, his hands balled into fists at his sides. Bertha also gasped, but I wasn’t surprised to see that the other nightwalker didn’t react. He was too young to know what a Stain was—I hadn’t heard of one being pulled in several centuries.

“Mira, I—”

“I know you know how to do it, Stefan. I studied under Jabari and followed the Coven for centuries. I can name every nightwalker that can perform a Stain. I would do it myself, but I know only the mechanics of it. I’ve never actually done it. You have, successfully.”

His hard jaw was clenched, which made his face appear as if chiseled from stone. “A last resort?” he demanded at last.

“I have a couple more tricks up my sleeve,” I said, flashing him a wry grin. “But we need to get going. We’re running out of night, and everything must be settled before the sun rises.”

“Then let us be gone,” he announced, sweeping one strong arm beneath my legs as he gathered me up into his arms.

“Not without Danaus!” I shouted, but we were already airborne. I tried to twist in Stefan’s grasp but he held me too tightly and the positioning was awkward.

“Don’t worry,” he chided, mocking my concern. “Bertha will see that the hunter arrives at the lodge safely.”

“And Shelly and Cynnia?”

“All will arrive safely just seconds behind us,” he said calmly as he sped through the night sky.

The air was cool. The wind whipped at our clothes and pulled at my hair as we crossed the vast black distance toward the lodge that was currently under siege.

“I’m surprised that you want the others along if you plan a Stain,” Stefan said after a moment of silence. “You seem to care for them. Or at the very least, seem to want them to stay alive a little while longer.”

“Precautions can be made so they aren’t harmed,” I said as I wrapped my arms more tightly around his neck and huddled against his larger body in an effort to avoid some of the wind. “It’s a risk, but we have no choice in this matter.”

“I hear some say that you have the same opinion of your place on the Coven,” he said, his French accent thickening as his anger bubbled to the surface. “That you had no choice in the matter.”

I snorted at him, drawing his dark silvery gaze down to my face. “I didn’t want it. I still don’t want it. I did what I thought I had to do at the time to protect our people. If I could hand the chair over to you right now, I would, but I can’t. Jabari would never allow it.”

“Word was that you and Jabari were…separated,” he said after a lengthy pause, as if searching for the right word to describe my current loathing for the Ancient.

“We are ‘separated,’ yet the nightwalker has found a new use for me, as a member of the Coven. And there I will stay, on the Coven, until someone kills me or…” I paused, leaving the sentence floating in the air beside us.

“Or…?” Stefan prompted, his hands tightening on me. I had my answer. I needed to know how badly he wanted that seat on the Coven.

“Or kills Macaire,” I finished.

“Ahhh…so that is the way the wind blows.” Stefan chuckled, his grip loosening on me.

“Are you at all surprised?” I asked. The war between Jabari and Macaire seemed to have lasted for centuries. At least, it was in existence for as long as I had been a nightwalker. And in the end, maybe I was the cause of the rift between Macaire and Jabari. But for whatever the reason, the war would only end when one of the two nightwalkers was dead. My only goal when it came to the Coven was avoiding becoming a casualty of the war, like Tabor, the nightwalker whose seat I now possessed.

Our conversation ended as we approached the lodge in the darkness. Fires flickered around the building and in what appeared to be gardens that looked up at the great Incan city. The Sanctuary Lodge would have been an exquisite oasis in the middle of the lush landscape that surrounded it, but in a matter of a few hours, we had reduced it to a battlefield.

“Drop me here!” I commanded as we flew close to the front of the building.

Stefan instantly obeyed as two naturi on butterfly wings streaked toward him, swords drawn. He didn’t need his hands full of me.

As I fell, I quickly pulled my short sword and a small knife, allowing me to slash through the first naturi I encountered while I hit the ground. I had killed two more when I felt Danaus hit the ground near me. We weren’t winning this battle. The naturi were too many and too strong. The power from the earth was making them faster, harder to kill than I remembered. We needed a new trick if we were going to finally end this.

Where’s Cynnia? I demanded of Danaus as I dodged a blow aimed to slice off my head.

Shelly is taking her inside.

Go get her. I need to talk to Rowe.

Danaus said nothing, but disappeared from my side, and was surprisingly replaced by Stefan.

“Rowe!” I shouted when I finished off the last naturi to attack me. Placing my hand on Stefan’s large chest, I forced him to take a step back. A second later a ring of fire sprang up around the lodge, cutting through the garden and lighting up the gravel parking area. The power came easier than I had expected. Earth and soul energy flowed through me constantly now, causing the fire to burn hotter and brighter than it ever had. The naturi trapped within the ring were quickly slaughtered by my kind, but so were the few nightwalkers trapped outside the flames.

“I demand to speak to Rowe!” I shouted again. My voice rang out clear in the crisp mountain air now that the sound of battle had subsided.

“Right here,” the one-eyed naturi announced as he walked to the front of the crowd of naturi standing just beyond the boundary of the flames. The fire wouldn’t hold out those of the wind clan, since they could easily fly over the five-foot-high flames, but then, this was just a temporary truce so the two sides could make a few threats before getting back down to business.

“I thought I suggested that you should not bring your people to Machu Picchu,” I said, inwardly cursing Danaus and his slowness.

“The door will be opened,” Rowe said. “And we’ll be happy to finish you off tonight if you’d rather. You don’t think that a little fire will keep us away, do you?” As he spoke, two naturi with pale blond hair stepped forward and raised their hands. The flames around the lodge flickered and grew low, threatening to go out completely.

With a growl, I reached deep, pulling more of the earth’s energy into my body, slowing its flow back into the earth. The flames flared again, reaching back to their previous height and then higher by another foot. I could feel the two light clan naturi fighting me, pushing against the fires, struggling to extinguish it.

My eyes drifted shut and I dug deeper than I had before. The power of the earth swelled within me, combining with my natural ability to manipulate fire. Focusing all of my attention, I dropped the flames around the lodge for only a second. At the same time, I waved both my hands at the two blond naturi. The females with their thin lithe bodies and almond-shaped eyes instantly burst into flames, causing Rowe to shout and jump away from them.

In the next second, the flames around the lodge were roaring again. I had managed to take the two naturi by surprise, as they expected me to expend all my energy on maintaining my defense, not to attack. I hoped that Rowe would be unwilling to sacrifice any more members of the light clan, because I doubted that I’d be able to get them to fall for that trick again. I was stronger now, but not strong enough to continue to take on multiple light clan naturi.

“This fire will keep you out for now,” I said with a sinister grin. “Send me your light clan, and I will burn through them like a dry brush.”

“You’re running out of time!” Rowe countered, deciding to change tactics when he realized that a direct assault would not work now that I had a brand new skill. “The sun will rise soon.”

“True,” I said, nodding, and then put my hand behind me, grabbing hold of Cynnia as Danaus brought her forward. “And you’re ensuring that it will be the last sunrise Aurora’s sister ever sees.” I jerked Cynnia forward so she was standing next to me, the firelight dancing off her sculptured features and pale skin. She was smeared with blood and her clothes were dirty and torn.

“Nia!” I heard a woman scream. Then Nyx pushed through the crowd to stand beside Rowe, her eyes wide and haunted.

“Nyx!” Cynnia cried, lurching a step forward. I roughly grabbed her by a hunk of her hair and kept her close to my side.

“I offered a trade,” I said. “You walk away from the sacrifice and I set little Nia free.”

“Mira!” Rowe shouted at me in frustration. The hand holding a blade trembled in his rage, but he said nothing more. I had no doubt that Nyx had been pressuring him to come up with a way to free Cynnia, and I knew his plan the second his eyes drifted toward the sky. He planned to simply wait us out and take her.

Danaus stepped up beside me, a weapon in each hand, ready to resume the attack, but he also knew there would not be another attack until after the sun rose. And then it would be he and Shelly alone against the army of naturi. The naturi would slice through every nightwalker until we were all dead, and then free their wayward princess.

We have no choice. His words danced across my brain like a warm breeze, catching me by surprise. I thought I would have to convince him of it. I thought I would have to beg and plead with the hunter to use our power to destroy the naturi that waited to kill us all.

It will kill Cynnia as well, I found myself saying before I could stop the thought. I had become accustomed to having her around. She had saved my life earlier that evening when she stabbed me in the chest. I’d begun to think that I might actually set her free and let her live the rest of her life in peaceful solitude with some of her other people.

“Take Cynnia back inside,” Danaus said, looking over his shoulder.

Shelly led the trembling Cynnia away.

I don’t want to do this again, Danaus admitted at last. In both his hands, he still gripped blades, ready to physically attack our enemies if I lowered the flames so much as an inch.

If we destroy them now, there will be no sacrifice. No door to close again.

Danaus dropped his knife from his left hand and grabbed my upper arm. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Stefan take an ominous step forward, moving to come between me and the hunter. A wave of my hand kept him at bay, but only just barely. He would keep his word to protect both me and Danaus, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t rough the hunter up a bit.

More than Danaus’s words vibrated through my brain. I could feel his horror and his revulsion at the thought of what had happened back on Blackbeard Island. We had been desperate. Backed into a corner, surrounded by the naturi, he and I had agreed to make one last push with our powers. He had taken my hand in his, while pushing his powers into my body, wielding me like a weapon from Hell. At Themis, it was an accident. We didn’t realize what we were capable of. Yet, on the island, trapped and frightened, we knew what we were doing when we killed them all. We felt each soul being crushed into bleak, cold nothingness. We destroyed their souls.

No. I don’t want this either, I softly admitted, dropping my head so I could only see his chest.

Never again.

We can do this, I pressed. I was still confident that there was another way to use the connection between us. There had to be. There had to be a way to use this power beyond just destroying their souls. It’s about control. We have that.

Mira…

I could feel him begin to waver. He knew this was our best and only shot to survive the day. We have to do this. If we stop them tonight, there’s no going to Machu Picchu tomorrow night.

Danaus released my arm but didn’t step away as he continued to stare at me. He didn’t want me in his head as he weighed what I had said. He could care less if Jabari or any member of the Coven intended to kill me once I completed the task they had set before me. Sure, he might want the honor of chopping my head off, but dead was dead for him. But I liked to think he also realized that our best chance of defeating the naturi was by attacking them now, not trying to mount an offensive on Machu Picchu.

“We go slow,” Danaus finally said.

“No argument there,” I said, trying not to sound too relieved.

“Only the naturi in Peru,” he continued.

I tried not to laugh at his tone. It was his conscience he was attempting to soothe. “You’re the one in the driver’s seat. I’m just the weapon,” I replied, bitterness slipping between my words.

“Mira, what’s going on? What are you planning?” Stefan suddenly interjected. I had forgotten the nightwalker was still standing there. But right now it didn’t matter. He didn’t matter. There was only Danaus and the naturi.

“We’re getting rid of the naturi,” I murmured, lifting my hand so it hovered between Danaus and me.

Taking a deep breath, Danaus wrapped his long fingers around mine. For a moment there was only his warmth. The strength of his hand holding me was calming, reassuring in a deeper way that I hadn’t felt in a while. For those few seconds, the world and all its threats slipped away because I had someone willing to stand with me.

And then I screamed. The pain was overwhelming, burning brighter than the fire that surrounded me, brighter than the sun I was only now beginning to recall. My back arched and my limbs trembled as the muscles and bones splintered and exploded within me. I could feel Danaus’s power, but the earth power was fighting back. The two were burrowed deep inside of me, fighting for dominance. There was no focusing on the wispy souls of the naturi that surrounded us. There was only white, blinding pain.

Focus! Danaus ordered, but I could barely hear him over the roar in my head.

I reached out, could see naturi bursting into flames before me but not how we had planned it. The energy was growing too intense. I wrenched my hand from Danaus and fell to my knees. Stars danced before my eyes and I struggled to stay conscious. The flames before me grew hotter, turning a frightening shade of blue. The energy that flowed within me had to go somewhere.

“What happened?” he demanded, kneeling before me. He roughly grabbed both of my shoulders and forced me to meet his intense gaze. “It felt different. I wasn’t in control any longer—something inside of you was fighting me. Did Cynnia do this to you?” He whispered the last bit, but I had no doubt that Stefan had heard it.

“Our last shot failed,” I murmured, then tilted my head up to look at Stefan, who was standing behind me. “We’ve reached our last resort.”

“The Stain.”

I raised my hand to him. “I’ll help you.”