Blood Before Sunrise

possible so he’d have plenty of time to get his hooks into me. And I played right into his hands. Awesome.

Moira nodded, sidestepping me again to look past me. “I assume once he killed the Lyhtan, Faolan tried to kill your protector as well. He wouldn’t have wanted anything to interfere with his plans to manipulate you into bringing him here. We don’t have time to unravel these mysteries now, however. We’re running out of time, and we should be tracking Faolan like the dog he is, not standing here, talking about it.”

Moira had a point. Every second we stood around hashing this out was time I couldn’t afford to lose.

“He’s very powerful,” Moira said. “And the magic at his disposal…ancient.”

“More powerful than you?” I asked.

Moira pointedly ignored me, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed. Either Faolan had one-upped her in the power department, or she found it insulting that I even asked. It didn’t matter to me which it was. Power or not, magic be damned. That bastard was going down.

“Okay,” I said. “What now?”

Moira looked to the sky, the once navy blue of night becoming lighter with the rising sun. A day that had passed in an hour. Moira reached around her back and produced a long dagger from her belt. The obsidian blade ran with veins of green and from the looks of it, it was just the weapon I needed. “Take this,” Moira said. “You’re going to need it. It’s time to hunt.”

I needed Moira’s help if I was going to stop Faolan before he eradicated humanity from the face of the earth. I could sort out the details of this shit storm later-after I was safely home with Tyler and Faolan was dead and gone. I gingerly poked at my side, wincing as my fingers found the stab wound. “Worked over” didn’t begin to describe how I felt. I didn’t heal as fast as I should have, and I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to hold my own in a fight while I was at such a physical disadvantage.

“You’ll be fine by the time we find them.” Ugh. I knew she could sense my thoughts.

“You sure about that?”

“I live here, don’t forget,” Moira said as we negotiated a stream. “It may take longer than you’re used to. But you’ll be back in fighting form before you know it.”

“I usually heal fast. Almost instantaneously.”

“O Anel isn’t like the mortal realm,” Moira said. “You became stronger once you were called to serve as a Guardian. Can you imagine how weak you’d be here without that newfound strength?”

My recent evolution had definitely beefed me up in the strength and healing departments. Not to mention that I could become incorporeal no matter the hour. Well, usually, anyway, when someone wasn’t laying down the mojo on me. “So, I guess it’s sort of like being Superman?”

Moira gave me a curious look.

I rolled my eyes. “You know, he’d have been weaker, fallible on Krypton. But on Earth, he’s got all sorts of superpowers.”

“I read a Superman comic once. Years ago. Reaver gave it to me. I suppose, yes,” Moira laughed. “Something like Superman. In order for you to be strong enough to be a decent protector here, you are afforded the benefit of being superior in the mortal realm.”

Comic, huh? I guessed since she lived in O Anel most of the time, she wasn’t exactly up on pop culture. Or any of the many Superman movies that had been made over the years. “About that,” I began, not sure how I wanted to broach the subject. “Faolan said you live here and Reaver lives in the mortal world. Is that right?”

Moira quirked a brow. She’d perfected her snark to facial expressions only.

“Why is that?” I continued, undeterred by her sarcastic expression. “How can you possibly be a decent protector when you’re required to live an entire world away from what you’re meant to protect?”

“Reaver is the Time Keeper of the mortal realm, and so in the mortal realm he must live. I am the Guardian of the key to the mortal realm. The doorway opens from O Anel, and so it is here that I must reside,” Moira said. “Balance must be maintained.”

“So, since Brakae is the Time Keeper in O Anel, she has to stay here all the time? She can’t ever leave?”

“It is different for Keepers. When she was chosen,” Moira said, “she became one with this realm. She has been bound to the essence of time.”

I snorted. “You realize that makes absolutely no sense, right?”

“It is not our place to question Fate-or the gods. We are meant only to serve.”

“Serve,” I said. “What an appropriate word. Because it seems to me I’ve just become a slave.”

Moira sighed heavily and shook her head. “Think of it this way, Darian. There is a plank resting on a stone. At one end is the mortal realm; at the other, O Anel. If Brakae stands with Reaver at the same end of the plank, it will tip to the ground. But if they each stand at one end, the plank will balance straight on the stone. The natural order requires balance in all things.”

“I dreamt about her, you know. Brakae. A couple of times.”

“Keepers aren’t without their own power,” Moira responded. “She can’t leave O Anel, but she has ways to reach out to you if she needs you.”

Creepy. But not an entirely ineffective way to communicate with your counterpart when she lived, oh, an entire universe away. She’d been trying to warn me about Faolan all along, and even my subconscious had been too stubborn to listen. “I suppose she can send messengers too? Say, for instance, a falcon?” That annoying little bird had delivered the key to me and had gotten my attention when Brakae wanted me to use the pendulum. Apparently she had more than a few tricks up her sleeve.

“Certain animals do have the ability to travel between the realms.”

“How the hell did you figure all this out?” Because last time I checked, I hadn’t been invited to any Guardian orientation seminars. “How did you know the rules? Where to live, what to do? I mean, sorry, but it flat pisses me off that no one prepared me for any of this.” Good God, I was starting to sound like a broken record.

“Not that it matters now,” Moira said, “but we knew the first time we met you at the PNT Summit. Reaver was quite interested, and had the day gone more smoothly, we would have approached you at the conclusion of the day’s proceedings.”

By “more smoothly,” she meant if Delilah’s supposed kidnappers hadn’t dropped her off gift-wrapped and beaten to a pulp. The whole of the Summit’s participants had fled the facility in the midst of the drama. If I’d only known it was a setup and that I’d end up the kidnapped one, the whole thing would have gone down completely differently. “Reaver was interested?” I said. That was an understatement. He’d used magical influence to try to push me to my knees-and right at his feet-but he didn’t realize I don’t bow to anyone.

“No. I suppose you don’t.” Moira smiled, once again listening in on my thoughts. “But it wasn’t a show of strength on his part like you think.”

I stopped her, closed my eyes, and felt Brakae’s presence shift to the west and change course. “Then what was it?”

“He was testing your strength.”

“Did I pass?”

“That,” Moira said as she retrieved the bow slung across her shoulder, “has yet to be seen.”

Chapter 27

Moira put a finger to her lips and tuned out everything around her as she closed her eyes and listened. I kept my mouth shut for a change, deciding I was far and above the wingman in this mission. The hairs on my arms and at the nape of my neck prickled, danger plucking at my senses. With silent fluidity, Moira slid an arrow from the quiver at her back and nocked the bow, drawing the string back taut, ready to shoot in the blink of an eye.

What is it? Hey, she’d heard my thoughts before; it was worth a shot.