Hidden

It came back to him swiftly, like a lost friend returning to break bread once again. Kalona had been Nyx’s chosen Warrior. He had spent lifetimes battling Darkness more fierce than this.

Yes, they multiplied when shattered, but break their necks and they could not instantly regenerate. They were lesser minions.

Kalona laughed as he whirled and struck and fought. It felt so good to be doing what he’d been created for again! In the midst of battle, he saw Neferet silently watching.

“You think to defeat me with puppets? For centuries I battled such as these in the Otherworld. You shall see that I can battle them for centuries once more.”

“Oh, I am quite certain you can, betrayer. But she cannot.” Neferet pointed her long finger at Sylvia Redbird who was still trapped and suffering within the cage of Darkness.

“With Kalona’s blood filling you

Obey me, be faithful and true

The turquoise will no longer save her life

His power will be my avenging knife!”

The tendrils instantly obeyed Neferet. They released their suction-like hold on him and, bloated with his immortal blood, swarmed Sylvia Redbird. She screamed and lifted her arms, attempting to block their onslaught. The stones she wore still slowed them, that was obvious, but not enough. Through power stolen from Kalona’s immortal blood, several tendrils were able to withstand the protection of the turquoise. They sliced into the old woman’s flesh. Then, as the tendrils weakened and smoked, they slithered back to him to feed. Kalona fought them anew, but for every two he stopped two more broke through his defenses long enough to cut his flesh and drink his blood. Refortified, they returned to attack Sylvia.

Sylvia Redbird began to sing. Kalona did not know the words, but he heard the intent clearly. She was singing her death song.

“Yes, Kalona. Please do remain and battle Darkness. You serve only to feed Zoey’s grandmother’s tormentors. They will eventually break through her protection, but with your help her end will happen sooner rather than later. Or, perhaps, once the protection of the turquoise is broken, I won’t kill her. Perhaps I will keep her and make her truly my pet. How long do you believe one old woman’s sanity will withstand the torments of Darkness?”

Kalona knew Neferet was right. He could not save her—he could not command Darkness away from her. Instead Darkness would use the power in his blood to torture her.

“Go! Leave me!” Sylvia paused her song long enough to shout the words to Kalona.

He knew she was right, but by leaving the old woman there he would have to return to the House of Night having been defeated by Neferet. But he had no choice! If he remained and battled Darkness all that would be left of Sylvia Redbird would be her mortal shell. Neferet would not be able to control her anger. When the turquoise no longer protected the old woman, Neferet would destroy her. Though it wounded his pride, to be victorious, Kalona had to retreat and then return to fight another day. The immortal spread his mighty wings and launched himself from the balcony, leaving the tendrils of Darkness, Neferet, and Sylvia Redbird behind.

Kalona knew where he must go. He flew high and fast, and then dropped with inhuman speed, landing in the center of the House of Night campus, directly in front of the life-sized statue of Nyx. Kalona knelt, and then he did what he had not allowed himself to do until that moment. Kalona gazed up at the marble likeness of his lost Goddess.

No, he corrected himself silently. It was not Nyx who was lost, but me.

The incarnation of Nyx that the sculptress had chosen to capture was, indeed, lovely. The Goddess was naked. Her arms were upraised, cupping a crescent moon. Her marble eyes stared straight ahead. She looked beautiful and fierce—magnificent and powerful. Kalona would have given anything if she would simply touch him again.

“Why?” he asked the statue. “Why did you accept my oath and allow me to walk your path again at the moment it cost me dominion over Darkness? Now I have had to allow Neferet to defeat me. I had to leave a kind old woman entrapped and tortured. I failed! Why accept me just to allow me to fail?”

“Free choice.” Thanatos’s voice carried the power of authority and command. “You know even better than I what that means.”

“Yes,” Kalona continued to gaze up at the statue as he spoke. “It means Nyx does not stop us when we make mistakes, even if it costs us, and those around us, dearly.”

“Being immortal you might not have realized this, but life is a lesson,” she said.

“Then I will forever be in a classroom,” Kalona said bitterly.

“Or you could look at it as an unending chance to evolve,” Thanatos countered with.

“Into what?” He stood and faced his High Priestess. “Did you not hear me? I failed. Sylvia Redbird remains entrapped by Darkness over which Neferet holds dominion.”

“First you asked into what you could be evolving. My answer is: choose. You are definitely a Warrior. But what type is your choice. Dragon Lankford was a Warrior. He almost chose to become bitter and hard, an oath breaker and a betrayer. All because his love was beyond his reach. You may do the same.”

“You know.” Kalona said.

“That you love Nyx? Yes, I do,” Thanatos said. “I also know she is beyond your reach, whether you want to admit it or not.”

Kalona pressed his lips together. He wanted to cry out his rage—tell Thanatos that he believed the Goddess had touched him—that perhaps she was not beyond his reach. But he remembered how the door to the Goddess’s Temple had solidified under his hand, barring his entrance. His certainty faded.

“I admit it,” he said shortly.

“Good. As to your second question: yes, I heard you. You could not rescue Sylvia Redbird because you no longer command Darkness.”

“Yes.”

Thanatos’s gaze went to the slash marks that covered his body. They were healing, but they still wept with blood. “You battled Darkness.”

“Yes.”

“Then you did not fail. You fulfilled your oath.”

“And by fulfilling it, I could not do what you asked of me,” he said. “It is a disturbing paradox.”

“It is, indeed,” Thanatos said.

“What now? We cannot allow Neferet to torture the old woman. She plans to control Zoey through her grandmother. Zoey would be a powerful ally for Darkness to gain, even if she was being used against her will.”

Thanatos shook her head sadly. “Warrior, all that you have said is true, but you have missed the point.”

“The point?”

“Neferet cannot be allowed to torture an old women because it is inhumane. If you understood that, Nyx would not be so unreachable.”

“I understand it!”

Kalona and Thanatos turned as one to see Aurox. He had been sitting on the stone steps of Nyx’s Temple, silent and watching, unnoticed by either of them.

“Why is he not under guard? Or at least locked in a room?” Kalona said.

“I do not need a guard or a prison any more than you do! I chose to come here—to turn from Darkness—just as you did!” Aurox shouted at Kalona. “And if I’d gotten to Grandma Redbird’s home sooner, or not left at all, I wouldn’t have let Neferet steal her away. I would have fought harder for her!”

Kalona strode to him, grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt, and tossed him to the ground at the statue’s feet. “You could not even stop yourself from killing Dragon. You attacked Rephaim. You cannot fight Darkness, you foolish creature. No matter what your brave words and your oh-so-noble intent, you were created from Darkness!”

“And yet I do not have to be told that an old woman’s life is not only important because of how her granddaughter could be used!” Aurox hurled back at him.

Kalona reached for him, wanting to shake Aurox by the scruff of his shirt again, but Thanatos interceded. “No,