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.”
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.
Three
Rowe snapped awake with a single magic word. He blinked a couple times before glaring at me. He had been in mid-rant when I laid a hand on his shoulder and cast the spell, sending him into a deep sleep. Of course, I had a feeling that it was effective only because the iron collar was keeping him weak and he was a member of my own clan. For some reason, the sleep spell I cast only worked on members of the wind clan.
“You put me under a spell, you evil witch!” Rowe snarled.
“It’s not as if I could trust you to sleep beside me peacefully,” I replied, edging toward the entrance of the cave we had found shelter in during the daylight hours. The sun was in the process of setting over in the west, casting the sky in vibrant shades of pink, purple, and orange. I was still waiting for the dark blues and murky blacks to move in before we set off once again.
I removed the barriers and protective shields I had put up as a warning system should anyone get too close to our hiding place. However, I didn’t step outside into the open forest. There was something approaching. In fact, I grabbed Rowe’s arm as he tried to walk past me into the forest, forcing him to stop.
“Something is coming,” I murmured, cocking my head to the side as I tried to listen to what the wind was whispering to me. The Great Mother was constantly talking, revealing her secrets, but only to those willing to listen.
“I sense nothing.” Rowe attempted to jerk his arm free from my grip, but I only tightened my fingers around his muscular forearm. Pulling him down to his hands and knees, I forced him to dig his fingers into some soft earth just at the entrance of the cave.
“You may be willing to take chances with your life, but I am not,” I said. “Now listen to what Mother has to say. Someone is coming.”
“I find it hard to believe that the Great Mother would have anything to say to you, Dark One,” Rowe scoffed.
My temper snapped once again, and I shoved him hard in the shoulder so that he landed on his butt. “Have my skills waned?”
“What?”
