Amazon Queen

my eyes.

If Mel was using her energy to hold me to the wall, at least she wasn't doing something else-like drawing a knife to cut out my heart. Which didn't mean someone else couldn't do that part, but I didn't think either of the females in the room would, at least not without a bit more provocation on my part. Plus with Mel's wind blowing as strongly as it was, they couldn't get close enough to me to even try.

So I didn't struggle; I waited.

After only seconds the wind ceased and I landed hard on my feet. Bern did too, but she didn't stop. She hurtled herself across the room toward my loving best friend.

This time Bubbe stepped in. She made a motion with her arm, like she was throwing a bowling ball into the warrior's path. Bern tripped and fell face forward onto her hands and knees. Bubbe, mumbling, made another motion with her hands, this time creating an arch.

Bern leapt to her feet, but I knew no aid would come from her now. It took her a second to realize it, though. Over and over she pummeled her body against the invisible barrier the priestess had created around her.

Bubbe sighed in my direction. 'You wish her to damage herself so?'

I turned to the trapped warrior. 'Bern. Leave.'

She had staggered backward and was preparing to charge Bubbe's invisible wall again. When I spoke, she stopped and stared at me, looking, I knew, for some sign I wanted her to do something other than what I had said.

I shook my head. 'Go outside.'

Exhaling a breath big enough to make her chest and shoulders visibly move, she folded her arms over her body and waited.

Bubbe waved her hands and she was free.

'The babies too. Sunshine would be good for them.' The priestess gestured to the carriers.

'No, leave them. That is why Zery is here after all.' Mel walked over and took Dana's child from her arms. 'Isn't that right, Zery? You're here looking for a baby.'

'How. .?' My eyes narrowed. 'You're working with the sons. . ' Thea had reminded me that Mel had left the tribe, and I'd known she had been traveling with Peter. But I hadn't thought she would have so completely slipped to the other side that she would know even before I arrived why I was here.

'Dana told you his name, right?' She bounced the infant and tapped a finger on his nose. 'Pisto. Do you think your lieutenant would approve?' She looked at me then, her eyes filled with mockery.

We both knew the answer. Pisto had wanted no part of her sister's son. Naming him for her would have only angered my volatile lieutenant, but I knew Dana had chosen the name with only the best intentions.

'Mel,' Bubbe barked, apparently thinking the same thing I had and not wanting it to be said in front of Dana.

Her eyes misty, the young hearth-keeper waved her hand. 'Don't worry. I know Pisto wouldn't have approved of me giving him her name, but I loved her and want to remember her. And I want him to know about her, too.'

Looking horrified, Mel darted a glance at me.

I tilted my head to the side. Mel had always been a little brash. It wasn't a trait she'd had to worry about too much when just living with her tough-skinned family, but Dana was different. She was one of the few Amazons I would honestly term sensitive-a trait that had enraged Pisto more than once.

Dana held out her arms, and a shamefaced Mel slipped baby Pisto into them. Looking humbled, Mel jerked her head toward her mother's workout room. 'We can talk in there.'

I followed her, my head high.

She waited for me by the door. Once we were both inside, she closed it behind us. It was a good-sized room filled with workout benches and weights. There was a plastic half barrel filled with medicine balls and a couple of staffs too.

The staffs were the only weapons in sight, but I knew if Mel planned to attack me it would be with magic anyway-if she intended to hurt me, at least. Her talents might be growing as a warrior, but I could still beat her. . I hoped.

I glanced at my friend wondering how strong she had become, what being the daughter of a son meant exactly. How dangerous, if she was siding with the sons, was she?

She leaned her hip against a weight machine and studied me. 'How? How can we be this far apart?'

'You tell me.'

We stood watching each other for a beat of twelve, neither understanding what the other was thinking.

Finally she pushed away from the machine and began to pace. 'Peter told me what happened. I didn't believe him at first. . ' She stopped. 'Or maybe it's that I didn't want to. I've always known you loved the tribe more than anything, but I trusted. . ' She placed her hands on a stack of weights and stared down at them. Then without warning, she looked up. 'Do you really think this baby is a threat? That there is no choice but to kill him?'

'Kill? Him?' What was she talking about? I frowned. 'Someone's been lying to you. I'm here to save the baby, to take her from the sons. They stole her from her mother. We don't know why.' I waited for dawning to hit her, for the anger to come.

She laughed. 'And you believe that?'

'The high council-'

'Fuck the high council.' She slammed her hands onto the weights. 'They don't even exist.'

I stiffened. It had been a while since anyone had talked to me like that, in fact, no one except Mel, her family, and my mother ever had. I measured my words. 'Of course they exist.'

'Just because they have existed doesn't mean they do now.'

'We. . our new priestess just spoke to them. It's how we learned of the baby.' Someone had been lying to my friend, the sons I guessed, to get her on their side for some reason.

'She may have spoken with someone, someone who was on the high council. . but they aren't now because the high council has split. The members aren't meeting.'

Split? She was speaking gibberish.

I spoke slowly. 'The council has not split. The high council is the Amazons. It always has been.'

She leaned forward; magic snapped around her. Even as talentless as I was in that area, I could feel it, like electricity. The hairs on my arms, legs, even inside my nose, stood, but I didn't back away.

'You can't believe the council is the Amazons. You are not that stupid,' she muttered.

I ground my jaws together. 'You've gotten brave in the last few months.'

She laughed. 'No, I just realized what's important, and what's really worth fighting for. And the council isn't it.'

'The Amazons-'

'Aren't the council. The council was created to serve the tribe, not the other way around. Somewhere, somehow that got messed up. You can't follow them blindly. You need to think, Zery-for yourself.'

I pulled back. 'But we are the council; we give them our power when they accept the role.'

'Do you give them your brain, your soul, your heart? Where does it stop? Have you thought about what killing that baby would mean? It isn't about one child-horrific as even that act would be. It's about all of our children. Dana's baby-he's the son of a son, and not just any son. . the one who was strong enough to murder three Amazons and stake out one of their queens.'

Me. I was that queen.

I opened my mouth to tell her again she was wrong-that I wasn't looking for the baby to kill her. . that it was a her, not the he Mel seemed to think.

But she looked past me and kept talking. 'My son. What about him? He's second generation. They're already watching Harmony; don't think I don't know that. If they find my son before I do, who will be ordered to kill him? You? Would you?' Her eyes were on me now and I discovered I couldn't meet them.

Something was curling around inside my heart, squeezing, making me want to run. Something she was saying rang true.

The Amazons had killed their infant sons before, and now after we had discovered the Amazon sons had gathered together, that they had powers and one had already used those powers against us. . it made sense some