Raintree: Santuary

SIXTEEN

The hills rumbled with the clatter of battle, physical force united with psychic power, resulting in bloody bodies ripped, mangled and near death, as well as minds numbed or destroyed. The ashes of many disintegrated Raintree and Ansara covered the ground, spread across the meadow and into the hills by the force of the wind. Less than an hour since Cael’s forces had set foot within the Raintree sanctuary and Mercy had lost a fourth of her people. Her only consolation was that they had destroyed more than an equal number of Ansara.

In the struggle, she had not seen Cael Ansara, nor had she caught sight of Judah. Had the brothers sent their troops into the fray while they bided their time until more Ansara could join them? She couldn’t imagine Judah standing back and watching as his warriors fought and died. If she knew anything at all about Judah, she knew that he would do as she had done-take the lead and charge into battle.

So where was he?

She shouldn’t be concerning herself with thoughts of Judah. He was the enemy. It was inevitable that they would meet on the battlefield and one of them would die. It didn’t matter that he was Eve’s father or her own lover. She couldn’t allow her personal feelings to influence her, not where the Ansara Dranir was concerned.

During the battle, Mercy had employed psychic bolts sparingly, since they required a great deal of energy and she wanted to conserve as much as possible. Luckily she had encountered only two Ansara capable of the feat, and she had been able to deflect their bolts with Ancelin’s sword. One of the sword’s most potent magical properties was its ability to protect the woman who wielded it from all attacks, including psychic blasts, thus making her practically invincible.

Standing alone on a rock formation that jutted out of the ground, Mercy applied her telepathic powers to induce the illusion of a dozen green-eyed warriors on either side of her, battle ready and protective of their princess. To keep her magical guard in place, she would have to renew the illusion periodically or replace it with another.

As two male Ansara warriors approached, she concentrated on sending out paralyzing energy strong enough to permanently incapacitate them. Once she had dispensed with the males, she turned to the redheaded female Ansara coming toward her from the left. Mercy projected a mind-numbing mental bolt that caught the woman by surprise; she froze to the spot, then dropped into a crumpled heap. Sensing an immediate threat from her right, Mercy whirled around and swung her sword, landing a fatal blow to her attacker, a tracker with keen animal senses. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. As so often happened to those who died on hallowed Raintree land, his splintered body instantly returned to the earth.

Mercy noted Brenna in a fierce struggle near the creek, barely able to keep two Ansara at bay-a huge, black-bearded man and a tall, willowy blonde. After dissipating her troop of fading shadow soldiers, Mercy ran across the field, rushing to Brenna’s aid. She took on the more dangerous of the two Ansara-the woman, who Mercy sensed possessed far more power than the male. The blonde turned and lifted her hand, showing Mercy the glistening energy ball floating in her palm. She smiled wickedly as she released the psychic bolt, but when she realized that Mercy’s sword deflected the energy and sent it back toward her, she scrambled to get out of its path. She lunged for safety, but Mercy swooped down on her, plunging the sword through her heart. As Mercy withdrew her blade, the dripping blood vanished drop by drop, leaving the weapon shimmering and pure.

Brenna managed to take out her opponent, but not before he had pierced his poisoned dagger into her body several inches beneath her left arm. Mercy stepped over the dying blonde warrior in her haste to reach Brenna, who clutched her wounded side as blood seeped through her fingers. Mercy leaned down, lifted Brenna’s hand away from the jagged slash and brushed her own fingertips over the torn flesh. The blood slowed to a trickle, then stopped altogether. Within minutes the cut would seal, and by tomorrow the wound would be completely healed.

As the pain and infection from the poison she had taken from Brenna flooded Mercy’s mind and body, she doubled over in pain. She fought the agony within her, and it slowly drained away on a green mist of recycled energy carried off by the wind.

Mercy suddenly lifted her bowed head and looked due east. Her brothers were close. She sensed their nearness. For the first time since she was a child-except when they joined together yearly to renew the shield around the sanctuary-Dante and Gideon had opened their minds to her, connecting with her to give her infusions of their strength and power. The Raintree royal triad possessed an unequaled combined energy. Together, they could accomplish the impossible. They had to. The alternative was too unbearable to even consider.

More than twenty minutes later, as the battle escalated, Mercy caught her first glimpse of Dante, and shortly after that she spied Gideon. Within an hour of her brothers’ arrival, more Raintree joined them, fighting alongside Dante and Gideon and Mercy. Still outnumbered, but holding their own, they called upon every resource available.

And then the moment she had anticipated and feared arrived. Cael Ansara appeared out of nowhere, his ice-cold eyes reminding her that he was indeed Judah’s brother. Their gazes met across the battlefield, and Mercy heard his warning.

Death to Dranir Dante. Death to Prince Gideon. Death to Princess

Mercy. Death to all Raintree!

Gideon shot a thin sapphire bolt of lightning at the most threatening of the three Ansara who surrounded him. Electricity danced on his skin, coloring his body and everything near him blue in the evening light, and deflecting almost all the attacks that came his way. He held a sword in his right hand, while he used his left to deliver deadly jolts of electricity.

None of these three were capable of sending psychic bolts his way, so Gideon conserved that special energy and fought with the power that was so much a part of him that it didn’t require intense concentration. He would need to use psychic bolts again before the battle was over, he was sure, but he didn’t need them now. The electricity he wielded was more than powerful enough for most of those he fought.

A long-haired burly Ansara whose gift was apparently one of extraordinary physical strength had twice penetrated the electrical field surrounding Gideon, leaving a deep, jagged cut on his shoulder from the small knife he’d tossed. Gideon’s left thigh was sore from being slammed with a good-sized rock that had easily broken through the streams of electricity and almost knocked him down. But both injuries were healing as he fought.

The big man dropped to the ground as the lightning hit him square in the chest, but Gideon realized the bastard wasn’t dead. This Ansara warrior’s brute strength made it difficult to kill him with one shot, but knocking him down at least bought a little time. Gideon turned to face the other two.

These three-two men and one woman-had led him away from the others, obviously working to separate him from the siblings who gave him enhanced power. What they didn’t realize was that, physically separated or not, the strength of his brother and sister remained in him, and would until the battle was over.

The female Ansara had short black hair and a gift for robbing the air of heat. She carried a sword, and had swung it at Gideon’s head and neck more than once, only to have it deflected by a stream of electricity or by his own sword. The blade that had sliced his shoulder had not been poisoned, since the brutish soldier relied more on his extraordinary strength than anything as common as poison, but he suspected this woman’s blade might be tainted. She’d also tried to freeze him by sucking the natural heat from the air that surrounded him, but he was generating so much energy at the moment that freezing him was impossible.

The redheaded man at her side most likely had some sort of mental power. He carried a sword in one hand and a small knife in the other but had displayed no outwardly threatening magical abilities. As he was the least menacing, Gideon turned his attention to the female Ansara, who had the audacity to smile. There had been a time when he would have hesitated to kill a woman, even an Ansara soldier, but after tangling with Tabby, he had not a single doubt about sending a deadly bolt of lightning, the strongest he could muster, into her forehead. Her head snapped back, she gasped loudly and dropped her sword. Dead, she was instantly frozen, taken by her own gift.

Her companion, the only one of the three standing at the moment, did not smile as Gideon turned to face him. The hesitant soldier lifted the sword in his hand, and Gideon did the same. He needed a moment to recharge, after putting down the more powerful two, and the remaining soldier did not look to be an immediate threat. In fact, he looked damned scared. Still, the redheaded Ansara before him had a chance to run but did not. Brave, but it sealed his fate.

There was great concentration on the Ansara’s face, a wrinkling of the brow and a narrowing of eyes, and Gideon imagined the man was trying to affect him mentally in some way. Was he trying to push thoughts or emotions into Gideon’s mind, or was he perhaps attempting to muster a pathetic bolt of psychic energy? Whatever he was trying didn’t work, and as Gideon stepped toward him, sword in hand, the man swallowed hard.

Gideon was about to swing the sword when a sound stopped him cold. Someone called his name in a loud, frightened, familiar voice. Hope.

He deflected his opponent’s blade, then turned his head toward the voice that had broken through the sounds of battle and claimed his attention. Hope appeared, cresting the hill at a run, her gun in one hand, her eyes wide with shock and revulsion and all the horrors he did not want for her.

Out of the corner of his eye, Gideon saw the large, unnaturally strong warrior stand and shake off the electrical surge that should have killed him. Long brown hair fell across the Ansara soldier’s face, and the muscles in his arms and chest seemed to ripple, to harden. Then the Ansara lifted his head and tossed his hair back, and his gaze fell on Hope.

“Kill her!” the man who fought Gideon screamed as he swung wildly with his sword again. “She is his.”

Gideon quickly killed the redheaded man, a dark psychic of some sort who had identified Hope as his woman, with a blade through the gut. He withdrew his sword smoothly and let the body fall, then spun to see the one remaining warrior running toward Hope.

Hope and Emma. They were his future, his soul, his home-and he would not allow the Ansara to take them away.

The enemy who now focused on Hope was closer to her than Gideon was. He could slow the big bastard down with another jolt, but would it be enough to stop him? Or would it be too little, too late? The Ansara warrior was too far away for Gideon to take him down with a psychic bolt, too far away for the accuracy and strength he needed. The incredibly high stakes of this battle crept higher.

“Shoot him!” Gideon screamed as he ran up the hill. “Now, Hope. Shoot!”

In getting this far, Hope had seen enough of the battleground to know that his order was a serious one. Before the long-haired brute reached her, she lifted her weapon and fired. Twice.

Her bullets didn’t stop the Ansara, but they did slow him down. The enemy soldier staggered, looked down at the blood staining his massive chest, and appeared to be very annoyed by this unexpected resistance from a mortal woman-and Gideon knew he would now realize that she was mortal, since she’d been able to fire a gun. No Ansara or Raintree would have been able to make the weapon work on sanctuary land, and Hope wouldn’t become Raintree until she gave birth to Emma.

Gideon continued to run, until at last he was close enough to do what had to be done. He formed and projected a psychic bolt, a bolt very unlike the lightning that was in his blood. Gold and glittering, it smacked into the Ansara, and in an instant, the threat to Hope was over as the Ansara warrior turned to dust.

Hope rushed toward Gideon. He let his electrical shield fall, and she threw herself into his arms.

“What the…?” she began breathlessly, her heart pounded against him. “This is not…Oh, my God…He just…” She took a deep breath and regained a bit of composure, then said, in a breathless voice, “You’re bleeding again, dammit.”

There was no time to explain as two Ansara warriors came into sight, rushing toward them with deadly intent. One held a sword in each hand, and the other displayed a weak flame of unnatural fire on his open palm. The firebug would have to go first.

“Stay with me,” Gideon ordered as he placed Hope behind him.

As he raised his own sword and erected a barricade of protective electricity that surrounded them both, she muttered, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Dante whirled away from a psychic bolt of energy, and it shattered the tree trunk behind him. He threw himself as far away from the tree as he could, not even daring to look back, because if one of those massive limbs hit him, he would be dead. As he ran, he threw a bolt in retaliation, hoping to keep the Ansara ducking for cover until he himself could find a handy boulder to duck behind.

He’d lost track of Gideon and Mercy in the fierce battle, but he could still sense them there, pooling their strength with his. Together the whole was greater than the sum of the three parts, and they needed every scintilla of power they could muster. There were enough Ansara that they could almost team up three to each one of the Raintree.

An Ansara woman sprang from behind a tree and expertly threw a chain at his ankles. The chains weren’t deadly, but if one wrapped around his legs he would fall, almost as helpless as a turtle on its back, and then the Ansara would make mincemeat of him. The chain flashed toward him, and less than two seconds after the weapon had left the Ansara’s hand, he leaped as high as he could, drawing his legs up like an athlete on a trampoline. With silver fire the chain passed beneath him, whipping into the face of a groggy Ansara who had been trying to get to his feet. The man’s face exploded in a mist of blood.

Dante threw a bolt at the woman, but she was as fast as a cheetah and bounded behind a tree.

He was tiring somewhat, taking a little longer to recharge between bolts. The Ansara had to be tiring, too, but there were more of them.

When had they gotten so strong? How could they have rebuilt the clan undetected? Had an unusually strong Ansara escaped, two hundred years ago and somehow successfully shielded the clan from the Raintree sentinels? They must have established a home place somewhere and used it to feed their power. On a vortex, all things were possible.

Three Ansara erupted from cover, thirty yards to his left, charging him. He spun to face them and shot a bolt at the biggest one; the blast of energy hit the man in the middle of the chest, and he disintegrated from the force, but the other two raced on, and Dante didn’t have time to rebuild enough energy to take both of them down.

Alarm prickled the back of his neck. He didn’t stop to think, didn’t wonder what was behind him; instinctively, he ducked and rolled to the right, coming back to his feet as a six-foot sword hacked the air where he’d been. A woman who had to be at least seven feet tall was wielding the sword as if it were a toothpick. Her lips pulled back in a snarl as she swung it again. He leaped back once more, but the tip sliced him diagonally from the left side of his rib cage and across his abdomen, and down to his hip.

The cut hurt like hell, but it wasn’t mortal. She was too close for him to hit her with a bolt without getting caught in the back-blast, and the other two were only ten yards away now. Desperately he lowered some of the mental shields with which he held back his fire and sent a long tongue of flame licking at her. She fell backward in her haste to escape the hungry red beast. He turned his head toward the other two attackers, and they split up, going in opposite directions, flanking him but keeping a wary distance.

Fire was too dangerous to use on a battlefield. Any battle was chaotic, uncontrolled. He could send out a wall of fire at any time, but with the Raintree engaging the enemy all over the battlefield, he would be killing his own people, too. The larger the fire, the more power and energy it took to control. The risk was very real that, distracted at every turn, he would loose a monster he couldn’t control. No one used fire in a battle.

The tall woman slowly got to her feet, grinning. Holding the sword in a two-handed grip, she began circling him, joining the other two as they looked for an opening.

His ass was likely dead, but he intended to take all three of them with him.

He didn’t want to leave Lorna. The thought pierced him like a lance. He wished he’d told her again that he loved her, told her what to do in case he didn’t make it back. She might be pregnant. The chance was small, but it existed. He would never know. He remembered the sound of her voice, full of outrage, yelling, “Where are you going?” and wished he could hear it again.

He heard her, actually heard her, so hard did he wish it.

Except she was yelling, “What the hell are you doing?”

Every hair on his body stood up in alarm. Aghast, he dared a quick look around and almost passed out in sheer terror. She was running headlong across the field toward him, not looking right or left, her hair flying like a dark flame. A body lay in her path, and she hurdled it without pause. “Fry their asses!” she bellowed, evidently wondering why he wasn’t using his greatest gift.

He had recharged enough of the enormous energy needed for a psychic bolt, and without warning, he shot it at the tall woman. She turned, instinctively bringing up her sword to deflect the bolt as if it were another blade. The blast hit the big blade broadside, shattering it, driving needle-sharp shards of steel into her. She screamed, pierced in a hundred places from her head to her knees. One long shard protruded from her right eye. Shrieking nonstop, she instinctively put her hand to her eye and hit the shard, driving it deeper. She dropped to her knees and toppled over, much as the tree had done.

Dante spared her no more than a glance as he danced in a circle, trying to keep Lorna behind him and out of the kill zone, trying to keep the remaining two Ansara where he could see them. If he could hold them off until his energy rebuilt…

Without warning, one shot a psychic blast at him. Not all warriors could muster enough energy to wield this most powerful of gifts; most used more physical weapons, like the swords, which might be gifted with different powers but were still essentially used in traditional moves. This bastard had been hiding his light under a bushel, as it were. If their tactic had been to let Dante bleed his energy level down before unleashing their own blasts, the ploy had worked.

Lorna never stopped moving, stooping as she ran to pick up a fist-sized rock. “Fire!” she kept screaming. “Use your fire!” She was only twenty yards away, rushing headlong into the circle of death. His blood froze in his veins.

“Yeah, Raintree, use your fire!” one of the Ansara taunted, knowing he wouldn’t. Then the man turned and shot a bolt at Lorna.

He miscalculated, not taking enough time to anticipate her speed. She made a furious sound and heaved her rock at the Ansara, making him duck. “Amateur,” Dante muttered, firing a blast at the bastard-or trying to. He was too tired; he didn’t have enough energy left.

The Ansara wolves circled closer, grinning, enjoying his helplessness as they waited for their own energy to rebuild. They had used far less than he had; it would take only seconds more.

“Link with me!” Lorna screamed. “Link with me!”

His heart almost stopped. She knew what it would do to her, knew the agony…

There was no time for careful preparation, the gradual meshing of minds and energies. There was time only for smashing his way into her mind and tapping the deep pool of power. It fed him like water crashing into a valley after a dam collapsed, a deluge of energy that shot from both his hands in simultaneous bolts. Linked to him as they were, Mercy and Gideon both felt the enormous surge and were fed in turn.

Dante furiously fired bolt after bolt. Tears burned his eyes but never fell, the moisture evaporated by the cascade of energy running through him. Lorna! He could see her on the ground, lying motionless, but her power still poured into him as if there were no limit to it. He didn’t need time to rebuild; the energy was there immediately, flying off his fingertips in white-hot blasts.

Faced with the killing machine he’d become, the Ansara retreated, drawing back to regroup. Agonized, Dante broke the link with Lorna’s mind and charged to where she lay unmoving, her face paper white. There were bodies all around her, testament to how close the Ansara had come. If she hadn’t been lying so still that they must have thought she was already dead, they would surely have killed her.

If he hadn’t done the job for them, Dante thought with an inner howl of savage pain. He fell to his knees beside her, yanking her into his arms.

“Lorna!”

She managed to open her eyes a little; then her lids drooped shut again as if she didn’t have the energy to hold them open.

He had drained her, turned her mind to mush. She had recovered before-but would she recover this time? Mercy and Gideon, not knowing what they did, had also been siphoning power from her. He couldn’t predict the effects on her brain, because what he’d done to her-twice, now-simply hadn’t been done before.

He looked up, looked around for help. The Ansara were retreating, disengaging from the battle. He felt numb, unable to make sense of everything that was happening around him. He needed Mercy. If anyone could heal Lorna, she could.

Lorna jerked in his arms, batting at him with a limp hand, and he realized he was crushing her to his chest. His heart leaped, almost choking him. Gently he laid her back on the ground, hoping against hope as he watched her swallow and try several times to speak.

“Are you okay?” he asked, but she didn’t answer.

He picked up her hand and cradled it against his cheek, willing her to speak. If he could hear her talk, he would know her brain was recovering.

“Lorna, do you know who I am?”

She swallowed, nodded.

“Can you talk?”

She held up her hand like a traffic cop, telling him to slow down, to stop peppering her with questions. Slowly, laboriously, she rolled to the side and began trying to sit up. Silently he supported her, kept her from falling, as he watched her efforts. Finally she could sit, her head hanging down as she took in deep breaths. Dante rubbed her back, her arms, and asked again, “Can you talk?”

She blinked at him, then nodded, the movement as ponderous as if her head weighed fifty pounds.

Thinking she could and actually doing it were two different things. He waited for a sentence, a single word, anything, but she was silent.

In just a few minutes she got to her feet. She stood weaving, staring around her at the carnage, the sprawled bodies. He would have done anything to spare her seeing this. War was ugly, and war between the gifted clans was brutal. No one went to war and came out of it unmarked.

“Honey, please,” he begged softly. “If you can, say something.”

She blinked at him some more, frowning a little; then her gaze wandered back to the bodies around her. She took a deep breath, let it out, and said, “This looks like Jonestown, without the Kool-Aid.”

During the relentless fighting, Mercy lost track of Cael and feared he had gone to find either Dante or Gideon, neither of whom she had seen in quite some time. But now that Dante led the Raintree, she could both fight and heal, as the situation demanded. Both were her right and her duty. She sensed Geol nearby, severely wounded and dying. If she could find him, she could save him. Following the flicker of energy left inside him, Mercy searched the ash-strewn meadow where the bloody bodies and dust particles of dead Raintree and Ansara mingled together, once again united-in death if not in life.

A large, muscular Ansara, his silver hair secured in a shoulder-length ponytail, lifted his sword in both hands as he charged toward Geol, who lay helpless on the ground. Instantly calling forth the power from deep within her, Mercy created a psychic bolt and hurled it into the attacking warrior’s back. The blast exploded through him, shattering his body into dust fragments. She hurried to Geol, knelt down and laid her hands on him, drawing out his pain, healing his wounds. But as with every healing, Mercy paid a high price. Once the process of experiencing another’s suffering and converting it into positive energy ended, she released that energy back into the universe, allowing it to escape from her in vapor form, a mist as green as her Raintree eyes.

When she rose from her knees, weak but revived enough to continue, Mercy sensed someone trying to connect with her. Then, without warning, she heard Eve’s voice.

Daddy’s coming.

Eve?

A thunderous roar shook the ground beneath her feet as hundreds of warriors in blue uniforms stormed into the vast meadow, quickly taking over the battleground. Mercy gasped in horror when she saw the man leading the massive force. Judah Ansara. He had brought reinforcements. Hundreds of Ansara men and women, armed and prepared to fight. There was no way that the Raintree who were united together here at the sanctuary could overcome such a mighty force. But they could and would figure out a way to hold out as long as possible, until more Raintree arrived to continue the battle. Tonight. Tomorrow. They would fight to their dying breaths, every man and woman defending the sacred Raintree sanctuary. This land could never belong to the Ansara.

The fighting slowed and then gradually stopped altogether. Cael reappeared, and his warriors lifted him up and onto their shoulders. He flung his arm high into the air, his sword silver bright and dripping with fresh Raintree blood.

Judah’s troops formed a semicircle around their Dranir, a blue crescent moon of Ansara power. Then an elderly woman, at least as old as Sidonia, appeared at Judah’s side, apparently having teleported herself into the battle, which meant she possessed a rare and powerful ability. Mercy immediately sensed a wave of respect and awe surround the woman and knew that this was Sidra, the great Ansara seer.

The battle weary Raintree followed Dante and Gideon, congregating on the opposite end of the meadow. To wait. To watch. To prepare. Mercy made her way to her brothers as quickly as possible. Knowing their thoughts, she assured them that Eve was safe.

A reverent silence fell over the valley as Raintree faced Ansara on the battlefield.

Mercy stood between Dante and Gideon. The two women with her brothers-Lorna and Hope, she had learned from reading their thoughts-stayed a good ten feet behind them. Mercy could not deny her fear. She might die today, but she feared far more for Eve than for herself. If she and her brothers did not survive this battle…

Dante made no move to initiate an attack. The Raintree continued waiting and watching, mentally preparing, psyching themselves up for what lay ahead.

Cael gestured for his men to lower him to his feet. Once on the ground, he marched toward Judah like a cocky little bantam rooster, at least four inches shorter than the Ansara Dranir. Brother faced brother.

“Hail, Dranir Judah,” Cael shouted.

Cael’s followers repeated his shout. Judah’s warriors stood at silent attention.

“We fight together today, my brother,” Cael said. “To avenge our ancestors.”

Sidra laid her hand on Judah’s arm, her eyes beseeching his permission to speak. With his gaze unwaveringly linked to his brother’s, Judah nodded.

“Choose this day whom you will serve.” Sidra’s voice rang out with loud clarity, as if amplified a hundred times over, her words heard by every Ansara and Raintree within the boundaries of the sanctuary. The old seer lifted her hand and pointed at Cael. “Do you choose Cael, the son of the evil sorceress Nusi? If so, you follow him straight to hell.”

When Cael lunged toward Sidra, Judah raised his arm in warning. Cael halted.

“Or do you choose Dranir Judah, son of Seana and father of Eve, the child of light, born to the Raintree princess and yet born for the Ansara tribe to provide us with the gift of transformation?”

Though Cael bristled and cursed, Mercy barely heard him over her own heartbeat, which drummed maddeningly in her ears. Sidra had shared Mercy’s deepest, most carefully guarded secret with Ansara and Raintree alike-with Dante and Gideon. Her brothers glared at her, shock on Gideon’s face, rage on Dante’s.

“Tell me this isn’t true,” Dante demanded.

“I can’t,” Mercy replied.

“Eve is half Ansara, the daughter of their Dranir?” Gideon asked.

“Yes.” Mercy answered Gideon, but her gaze never left Dante’s face. “When I met him, I didn’t know who he was.”

“How long have you known?” Dante asked.

“That he was Ansara? Since the moment I conceived his child.”

“Why didn’t you tell me…tell us?”

The sound of Sidra’s voice echoed off the mountains, spreading like seeds in the wind, capturing the attention of all who heard her.

“It is your choice,” she said. “To live and die with honor at your Dranir’s side, or be destroyed along with this madman who claims a throne that is not his!”

Shouts of allegiance rang out as the Ansara chose sides. Not one blue uniformed warrior broke formation, and only a handful of Cael’s troops deserted him to join his brother’s army.

“What’s going on with the old Ansara seer?” Dante asked. “It’s as if she’s instigating war between the brothers.” He looked to Mercy. “You don’t seem surprised, which leads me to believe that you know what’s happening, why the Ansara created this lull in the battle to iron out family differences.”

Mercy realized that she did know, at least to some extent, what was occurring within the Ansara camps. “The brothers and their warriors are probably going to fight to the death.”

“And you know this how?”

“How I know doesn’t matter,” she said. “All that matters is that we have to be prepared to fight the winner.”

Within minutes, Mercy realized she had underestimated Cael’s madness. The vision of brother battling against brother, Ansara renegade warriors against the Ansara army, that she had expected altered dramatically when Cael commanded his forces to attack the Raintree instead.

Taken off guard, Dante quickly recovered and started issuing orders, first to Mercy and then to his warriors. He told Mercy to search, find and heal as many of their wounded as possible, then send them back into the battle.

“If we have any hope of holding the sanctuary until reinforcements arrive, we’ll need every Raintree warrior left alive,” Dante said.

As the battle raged around her, Mercy, who occasionally had to use her sword for both protection and attack, combed the battleground, searching for Raintree wounded. In all she found nine, including Echo, who had been frozen in place, and Meta, whose left arm had been hacked off. With the heat from her healing hands, Mercy thawed Echo slowly and drew the frostbite from her body. Before Mercy recovered from the healing, Echo left, rushing back into the battle.

Mercy managed to save eight of the nine wounded, including Meta, whose arm Mercy reattached, but she warned her not to use it during the battle.

“It won’t be completely healed for at least twenty-four hours,” Mercy cautioned.

After expending enough energy to work her healing magic on nine people, Mercy’s strength was greatly depleted, so much so that she could barely stand. She desperately needed rest, hours of recuperative sleep. But there was no time.

As she continued her search, her legs grew weaker and her arms felt as if they weighed fifty pounds each. Her hands trembled. She staggered, then fell to her knees. She clutched her sword tightly but felt her grip softening.

Hold on to Ancelin’s sword! Don’t let it go!

Try as she might, she couldn’t keep her eyes open, couldn’t fight her body’s urgent need for rest.

She toppled facedown onto the ground, Ancelin’s sword slipping from her fingers. She could hear the clatter of battle and smell the scent of death all around her as she lay there in her half-conscious state, drained and defenseless.

She had to find cover, a place to hide away until she could re-energize. Forcing her eyes open, she reached to her side until her fingers encountered her sword. Clasping it loosely, she dragged it with her as she crawled toward a stand of trees less than fifteen feet in front of her. She made it halfway there before a booted foot knocked Ancelin’s sword from her grasp, then stomped on her hand, flattening it against the ground. As pain radiated from her hand, along her arm and through her body, Mercy gazed up into a set of cold gray eyes.

Cael Ansara’s eyes.

He lifted his foot from her broken hand, then grabbed her hair and yanked her to her feet. Realizing that in her condition she wouldn’t be able to fight him, she sent out a psychic scream for help. It was all she could do.

Pressing her back against his chest, he slid a dagger beneath her chin, resting the sharp blade across her throat. He pushed his cheek against hers, and his hot, foul breath raked across her face as he laughed.

“Judah’s beautiful Raintree princess.” Cael licked her neck.

Mercy cringed.

“Too bad we don’t have time for me to show you that I’m superior to my brother in every way.” He thrust his semi-erect sex against her buttocks.

If only she could muster enough strength to command Ancelin’s sword to come to her, she might be able to-

“Release her!” The commanding voice came from behind them.

Before Cael managed to turn around, the hand he held to her throat sprung open, and his dagger fell out and dropped to the ground. Startled by the appearance of a man who had been nowhere near them only seconds before, Cael momentarily focused on Mercy’s rescuer and not her. While Cael was distracted, she directed her core of inner strength on one objective-freeing herself from his tenacious hold.

Just as she managed to break away from Cael, Judah reached out, grabbed Mercy’s arm and pulled her to him. Cael growled with rage as Judah shoved Mercy behind him.

Where had Judah come from, and how had he gotten here so quickly? Mercy asked herself. The only explanation was teleportation, an ability she hadn’t realized he possessed. But why had he appeared, and not Dante, whom she had beckoned with her silent screams?

As Judah faced Cael, he spoke telepathically to Mercy. It wasn’t Dante’s name you called, he told her. It was mine.

Had she actually screamed for Judah to save her and not Dante?

How did you…?

Eve transported me, Judah said. She also heard your screams for help, so she sent me to you.

“How touching.” Cael’s lips curved in a mocking smile. “You actually called for my brother to help you. You must be a fool, Princess Mercy. Don’t you know the only reason he’s here to fight me is because he doesn’t want me to have the pleasure of killing you? That’s a treat he wants for himself.”

Judah didn’t deny his brother’s accusations. In fact, he ignored them completely. Instead he instructed Mercy to lay her hand on his shoulder. When she hesitated, he said, “Trust your instincts.”

She did, and laid her hand on his shoulder. Immediately she felt a surge of Judah’s strength transported into her. Not much, but enough to keep her standing, and enough to enable her to call Ancelin’s sword up from the ground and into her hand.

Cael sent the first wave of mind-numbing mental bolts toward Judah, who deflected them effortlessly, then returned fire. Mercy moved backward, away from Judah, and knew he understood that she could now protect herself with the ancient power of Ancelin’s sword, which left him free to concentrate completely on the Death Duel with his brother.

Cael used every weapon in his arsenal of powers and black magic to attack Judah and to counteract Judah’s superior abilities. Mercy watched while the brothers fought, bloodying each other, exchanging energy bolts and optic blasts, pulverizing trees and brush and boulders within a hundred-foot radius all around them. And then they charged each other, coming together in mortal physical combat, sword against sword, might against might.

Mercy held her breath when Cael pierced Judah’s side, ripping apart his shirt and slicing into the flesh beneath. Judah cursed, but the wound didn’t affect his agile maneuvers as he backed Cael up farther and farther, until he managed to chop off Cael’s sword hand. Howling in pain as his sword fell to the ground along with his severed hand, Cael reared up and, using all his energy, conjured a psychic bolt. Judah deflected the bolt, sending it back toward Cael, who barely managed to escape. As he hit the ground and rolled, Judah strode toward him. Before Cael could rebound and come up fighting, Judah swooped over him and plunged his sword through his half brother’s heart. Cael screeched like a banshee. Judah yanked the sword from Cael’s heart, and with one swift, deadly strike took off Cael’s head.

Cael’s body shattered, splintering into dust. Judah stood there silent and unmoving, his brother’s blood coating the blade of his sword. Mercy rushed to him, her only thought to comfort and heal Judah. Holding Ancelin’s sword in her left hand, she ran the fingers of her right hand over Judah’s wound, then realized his body had already begun healing itself.

Judah pulled Mercy to him and slid his arm around her waist, each of them still holding their battle swords.

“Judah Ansara!” Dante Raintree called.

Gasping, Mercy lifted her gaze until it collided with her brother’s.

“Release her,” Dante said. “This fight is between the two of us.”

Judah tightened his hold about Mercy’s waist. “Do you think I intend to kill her?”

In that moment Mercy understood that Judah had no intention of harming her. He wouldn’t have given her the strength to retrieve Ancelin’s sword if he hadn’t wanted her to live.

“He saved me from Cael when I was too weak to fight,” Mercy said.

“Only to save you for himself,” Dante told her. “Have you forgotten that we are at war with the Ansara?”

“Only with Cael’s warriors,” Judah corrected. “Or have you been too busy fighting to realize that my army was killing more of Cael’s soldiers than you Raintree were? I brought my army here to defeat Cael and to save my daughter…and her mother.”

Mercy’s gaze met Judah’s, and their minds melded for a brief moment, long enough for her to realize that Judah was telling the truth.

Dante narrowed his gaze until his eyes were mere slits. “You’re lying.”

Mercy sensed that her brother was not going to back down from this fight, that he had every intention of engaging Judah in battle, Raintree Dranir against Ansara Dranir. To the death. When Dante stepped forward, sword drawn, gauntlet dropped, Judah shoved Mercy aside and confronted his enemy.

“No, Dante, don’t! I-I love him!” Mercy cried. When he disregarded her completely, she turned to Judah. “Please, don’t do this. He’s my brother.”

Both men ignored her. If only her powers hadn’t been depleted to such a great extent, she might have been able to stop them, but as it stood…

As suddenly and mysteriously as Judah had appeared from out of nowhere in time to save Mercy from Cael, a bright light formed in the space between Judah and Dante. Both men froze, transfixed by the sight.

When the light dimmed, Eve was revealed, hovering several inches off the ground, her body glowing, her hair flowing high into the air, her eyes glistening a brilliant topaz gold. And her Ansara crescent moon birthmark had disappeared.

“My God!” Dante stared at his niece.

“I am Eve, daughter of Mercy and Judah, born to my mother’s clan, born for my father’s people. I am Rainsara.”

An unnatural hush fell over the meadow, the last battlefield of an age-old war, once thought to be eternal. Raintree and Ansara alike laid down their weapons and ceased fighting, then one by one made their way to the area where Eve awaited them.

When the warriors assembled, Raintree behind Dante and Ansara behind Judah, Eve stretched out her arms on either side of her shimmering body and levitated each of her parents upward from where they stood, then brought them to her.

Judah and Mercy looked at each other and recognized the truth. Judah was no longer Ansara. His eyes were as golden as his daughter’s. Mercy was no longer Raintree; her eyes, too, were burnished gold.

Eve’s gaze traveled the expanse of the vast meadow, shadowing all the warriors with her light. As she passed over the Ansara first, at least twenty of them disintegrated in puffs of sparkling dust, and all the others transformed, their eyes as golden as their Dranir’s, and just as he was no longer Ansara, neither were they. When Eve turned her attention to the Raintree, a handful of them, including Sidonia, Meta and Hugh, also transformed. They were no longer Raintree.

“The Ansara are no more,” Eve said. “And from this day forward, the Rainsara and Raintree will be allies.”

Dante and Judah glared at each other, neither prepared to sign a peace treaty, both wise enough to know the choice was no longer theirs.

“My father is now the Dranir of the Rainsara and my mother the Dranira,” Eve said. “We will go home to Terrebonne and build a new nation.” She turned to her uncles. “Uncle Dante, you will rule the Raintree for many years, and your son after you. And Uncle Gideon, you won’t ever have to be the Dranir.”

Eve brought her parents down with her to stand on solid ground; then she led her father to her uncle and said, “The war is over, now and forever.”

Neither man moved or spoke.

Simultaneously Mercy took Judah’s hand and stood at his side as Lorna moved forward and grasped Dante’s hand.

Judah extended his other hand. Tensing, Dante glared at Judah’s hand. He hesitated for a full minute, then shook hands with his former enemy.

A reverent hush fell over the last battlefield.

Send our people home, Judah issued the telepathic message to his cousin. Ask Sidra and the other council members to remain here for now. We will need to meet with Dranir Dante and his brother. In a few days, I will take my Dranira and our daughter to Terrebonne. Mercy and Eve will need time to say their goodbyes, but our people will need the royal Rainsara family to guide them through the transition period and into the future.

Claude issued orders hurriedly. The new Rainsara clan began their exodus from the sanctuary, heads held high, as the Raintree rallied around Dante, Lorna, Gideon and Hope.

Judah lifted Eve off her feet and settled her on his hip, then slipped his arm around Mercy’s waist. “If you need more time…” Judah said.

“No,” Mercy replied. “I heard what you said to Claude. You’re right. Our people need us-you and me and Eve.”