“You never gave me that opportunity. You proclaimed me to be a traitor and then ordered my execution before I could plead my case to you,” I growled, taking a step forward. As I did, a pair of swords points dug were pointed at my throat, keeping me from moving any closer. “But I’ve not come to plead for mercy from you. I’ve come to offer you a chance at preserving your own life. It will be your one and only chance. I wouldn’t turn my back on it.”
“My life?” Aurora laughed, tossing her blond locks away from her face. “If you’ve not figured it out by now, we are the ones that are going to destroy Cynnia and her little army. We are the ones that are going to restore order to the planet and save the Great Mother.”
“That would be hard to accomplish without the Great Mother on your side. Is she listening to you now?” Aurora’s face twisted with rage. I was questioning her connection to the earth, something that should have been absolute, since she was the queen of the naturi. But I knew better. During her time in the cage, she had lost her connection with the earth, and I had a feeling it was the reason for the madness that now claimed her fragile mind and spirit.
“How dare you question me?” she screamed, pointing one quivering finger at me.
“In all the years that you have known me, have I ever lied to you?” I demanded. She knew that I had never told her a falsehood in the all the time I’d served her. She would know if I were lying to her. “Just a quick meeting to discuss the future of the naturi people. Isn’t that what’s best for both sides? What’s best for the earth?”
Aurora stared at me for more than a minute in silence, her arms stubbornly crossed over her chest as if to protect herself from my words. She wasn’t happy, but she was turning over my words in the back of her mind. I was willing to bet that she was hoping to get some valuable information out of me regarding Cynnia’s forces before she killed me, but then I had hoped to gather the same. I just needed to think of a way to escape again so I could get the information back to Cynnia.
“Bring her into the tent,” Aurora snapped before turning in a swirl of robes and reentering it. The swords at my throat were lowered and I was shoved forward. My escort took me to the center of the tent, where I was pushed down to my knees on a bearskin rug in front of Aurora, who was now seated in a golden throne with plush pillows of deep green.
“Leave us alone,” Aurora ordered. The guards hesitated, glancing at each other and then back at Greenwood, who had entered the tent behind me. “Leave us, I said! Do you think I cannot handle my own sister, who has already been bound and beaten?”
“Me as well?” Greenwood inquired.
“Leave us alone!” Aurora screamed, tightly gripping both arms of the chair so she nearly came out of her seat again. No one hesitated. They all quickly scrambled to leave her sight and close the tent door behind them.
I watched as Aurora sank back in the chair and took a deep breath, as if to calm her frazzled nerves. In the shadows of the tent, I could see the lines of worry starting to extend from her eyes, and long, deep furrows at the corners of her mouth, which was perpetually pulled into a frown. Returning to earth should have rejuvenated my older sister, but it seems the healing powers of the earth were not reaching her. For some reason I had yet to understand, she had truly lost her connection with the earth. A part of me wondered if I could restore it the same way I had for Rowe, but I knew she would not see it as the gift that it was, but a power that I had over her, which would only get me killed faster.
“I see that Greenwood is still trying to insinuate himself at your side,” I observed in a low voice. Slowly, I moved off my knees and sat so my legs were crossed before me. Not only was that position more comfortable and less formal, but I could also rise with more stability and speed than if I’d been kneeling.
Aurora gave a low snort and slumped in her chair. “He cares nothing about me or the naturi people. He’s still only determined to see an earth clan member wearing the crown. It’s been eons since they last sat on the throne, and it’s eating away at him still that I did not choose him when we were all younger.”
“But you’re dangling the carrot in front of him now,” I said as one corner of my mouth quirked in a half smile. “Very wise. You’ve won the allegiance of the earth clan under any circumstances so long as Greenwood thinks he may one day become your consort.”
Aurora matched my smile with a devilish one of her own. “He thinks I’m a fool. If I were to make him consort, I would be found the next morning dead in my bed and him on the throne.”
“As long as Greenwood is leading them,” I said, “I would not trust the earth clan. They follow him blindly and will turn on you at a moment’s notice. They have not been what I would call a trustworthy group for centuries.”
“Trustworthy?” Aurora exclaimed, sitting straight up in her chair again and gripping the arms for support. “What do you know of trustworthy?”
For just a second she had forgotten that I was no longer her devoted sister, but her enemy.
“I never turned my back on you, Aurora,” I calmly said, hoping my soothing voice would help to ease her temper. “Not even when you ordered the death of our staunchest friends and allies. I followed your orders to find Cynnia and bring her back home to you. I knew nothing of her plans. I just wanted us to be a family again and enjoy the power that flowed from the earth now that we were home.”
“You never should have been permitted to live,” she sneered, easing back into her chair again. “Father was wrong to protect you. You should have been killed at birth, and now you’re a blight on our people. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was your influence that corrupted our Cynnia in the end.”
“I’m not what’s killing our people,” I firmly said, trying to brush aside the same venom I had put up with for most of my existence. I had to remain focused on the reason I’d taken this risk in the first place. “I know you saw it while we were caged. There was no hiding from it. Our women were no longer producing children, and those few babies that were born died at a young age. And then there were the hunts. Hundreds of our people were slaughtered in the name of treason.”
“And what is your point?”
“Our people are dying!” I cried, outraged by her bland attitude. “We can’t afford another war. Not a civil war amongst ourselves or a war with the humans, who have grown infinitely more dangerous with time. A war will destroy any hope we have of seeing the continuation of our race.”
“Oh, do not act as if you care about our people!” Aurora snapped. “You are the Dark One. The one who should never have been born. You don’t care about a race that never wanted you.”
“Regardless of their feelings for me, I am still a naturi, and I don’t want to see the slaughter of our people to continue. You have to know that we can’t survive much longer as we are. This division of the clans is weakening us.”
Aurora remained silent for a long time, staring just past me, lost in some dark thought. I could only hope I was finally reaching her; that the madness that had claimed her was only temporary and she was coming back to reason now that she was out of the grasp of our gilded cage.
“What do you propose?”
I sucked in a deep breath through my nose and released it through my clenched teeth. “We have to end the wars. All of them. I propose that you leave Cynnia and me alone. Leave us to pursue a quiet life and let us simply return to the earth. I also propose that you abandon this need to destroy the human race. Pursuing a war with the humans will not only lead to exposure after centuries of being little more than a myth, but they will actively hunt down those of our people that remain. We will eventually be wiped from existence.”
Aurora’s reply was a low laugh that grew both in volume and intensity until she was nearly rocking in her chair. And then the laughter stopped almost as quickly as it started. She stared at me with cold, merciless eyes that held no memory of the fact that I was her own flesh and blood.
“You want me to abandon the earth?” she whispered.
“But that’s exactly what you want if I am to leave the humans untouched. You’re proposing that I abandon the earth to those monsters.”
“Attacking the humans will destroy our people.”
“You must be willing to make sacrifices for the Great Mother!” she cried, shaking her fist in the air. She slammed it down on the arm of the chair before leaning forward to glare at me. “The humans are destroying the earth. You cannot be blind to that even if you have lost all contact with the earth.”
“I am aware of their actions,” I admitted.
“Then you must know that they cannot continue to go unpunished. That is why we were created. We must protect the earth at all costs, preserve and nurture her strength. If we protect the earth, then she will in turn give us strength in battle.”
I shook my head sadly at her. She wasn’t listening to me at all. At one time she had closely listened and considered my counsel, but now she was deaf to my words. “If we continue on this course, there will be no one left to protect the earth. You are leading our people to extinction.”
“No, I am leading us to salvation,” she proclaimed with a beatific smile. “However, I am happy to see to your extinction before I turn my attention to our other traitorous sister and her band of misfits.”
“Aurora! This is a mistake!”
“Guards!” she shouted in a loud, angry voice. In the blink of an eye two guards pushed into the tent and stood on either side of me. Aurora sat back in her chair again and absently waved one hand in my direction. “Take her outside and kill her.”
“Aurora! You’re not just killing me! You’re killing our people!” I shouted as the two guards hooked their arms through mine and lifted me up off the ground. They proceeded to drag me out of the tent while I continued shouting at my sister. “You can’t save the earth if Cynnia kills you first! Call off this war now!”
The last thing I saw before I exited the tent was Aurora’s smiling face. Triumph filled her features. She was going to have me dead at long last. She had tolerated my existence for centuries, used me to do her dirty work, and now that I had reached the end of my usefulness, she was happily putting me down.
Thirty-one
As the two guards dragged me down the hill from Aurora’s enormous white tent, I pushed my feet against the slanted earth and flipped over the two naturi, pulling free of their grasp. I quickly backed away from them, remaining wary of the other naturi soldiers closing on me from other directions. I had to think of a way to safely get out of Aurora’s camp, but then I had always known that my chances of escape were extremely thin and highly unlikely.
Tapping into the energy flowing up from the earth, my enormous black wings sprung from my back while at the same time I summoned up a massive burst of wind. I curled my body into a tight ball while extending my wings to their fullest extent. The wind carried me higher into the trees while arrows soared toward me straight and true. Their tips buried deep in my arms and around my body, forcing a scream of pain to rise up in my throat, but I swallowed it back. I had bigger problems. My hands were still tied, and the trees I was attempting to fly through were beginning to reach for me. The earth clan was using its powers to control the trees so their brittle limbs clawed at my wings, plucking black feathers.
The wind gusted again and again, hammering at the trees as they struggled to reach for me while being pushed about by the wind. I was pulled back but found a thick branch with my feet. I shoved off and stretched my wings again, struggling to gain altitude. This was my only hope of escape. If I didn’t get away through the air, they would hunt me down too easily on the ground.
Beneath me the shouting of the naturi increased as I flew higher. Above the din, I could hear Greenwood’s deep voice directing his people to go after me. There was desperation in his tone as his voice rose to a shriek. And then silence fell over the camp. My stomach twisted with a new fear even though I managed to clear the last of the treetops. With the wind blowing fiercely, I flapped my wings once as I turned around in time to see Aurora standing outside her tent, staring up at me. I knew the look of rage that twisted her features, sweeping her beauty aside.
You will not escape me!
You’ll have your shot at me another time, I replied, but I knew she wasn’t going to let me go so easily. Fire surrounded her in a crackling rush before it shot from the ground in a massive swirling vortex toward me. Pulling my wings in against my body, I dive-bombed, plunging back through the trees. A rush of heat surged up one side of me as I narrowly dodged the funnel of flames, but it was still close enough that several of my feathers were singed and burned. Tree limbs scratched at my face and pulled at the arrows and darts that protruded from my body. I dodged the fire in time but was back on the ground again.
Keeping my wings tucked close to my body in case I got a second chance to use them, I ran as fast as I could through the woods. I darted between trees and leapt over fallen logs while sliding through piles of dead leaves left from the previous fall. My arms, tied behind my back, screamed in pain. On my heels I could hear the light footfalls of naturi closing in. I had put enough distance between Aurora and myself that she wouldn’t have another shot, but that didn’t mean I was safe. The rest of her army was hot on my trail. To make matters worse, I was stuck on the ground, while being chased by the earth clan. It was only a matter of time before they halted my progress. I had to get back to the clearing where I had initially landed so I could regain flight.
As I ran, more arrows thunked into tree trunks and whizzed by my head. Laughter followed my progress as they tracked me. My heart pounded in my chest and my lungs struggled to pull in enough air as I plunged through the woods. My legs were starting to ache, causing me to misstep here and there. I slid down a small grade, nearly losing my balance before pushing on like a rabbit being chased by a fox.
This couldn’t continue much longer. I needed to stop and free my hands. I needed to get back into the air. I had spent a lifetime in battle against those that would kill me, but the odds had never been so great in their favor. And in truth, I didn’t want to kill them. I had spilled enough blood of my people and I’d grown sick of it. They followed Aurora because she was the only queen they knew and they had always trusted in her judgment. They didn’t realize they had a choice.
With a grunt of exhaustion, I pushed forward while in the back of my mind focusing on the powers coming up from the earth. I turned the energy toward the skies above me. Dark clouds rolled in overhead, blotting out the sun. For a moment I could feel another force in the area pushing against the coming storm, leaving the sun to break through in sparkling patches. Aurora was fighting me. Gritting my teeth, I summoned up more energy and pushed harder against the spell she was attempting to weave to block my own. We pushed and pulled for several seconds before I could hear her scream in the back of my mind in either pain or frustration.
Clouds poured forth like a black wave, blotting out the sun so that night reclaimed the earth. The wind gusted, throwing my hair in front of my face, nearly blocking my vision as I dodged between one set of trees after another. Occasionally, limbs would reach for me, but I pushed on, moving just out of their grasp. My shirt ripped in several locations and the weight of my wings seemed to grow on my back. They needed to be stretched, lifting me into the sky instead of pulling me down.
As I leapt over another fallen log, the heel of my right foot landed in a sinkhole covered by leaves. I slammed to the ground hard, knocking the wind out of me and nearly breaking my nose as I was unable to catch myself with my arms. Twisting onto my side, I tried to get my feet under me again, but the ground was shifting beneath me from all the leaves.
“Stay down!” ordered a familiar voice. I jerked around so I was lying on my back, looking up at Rowe as he stood over me with swords drawn. The one-eyed naturi charged forward and in a few swift motions killed six of the naturi that had been chasing me. Sliding one sword into its sheath again, he spun around
and walked back over to me. His face was a blank mask, but I could sense the rage boiling inside him. He pulled me up to my feet with one arm, then used the sword he was still holding to cut the rope that bound my wrists together. Then, wordlessly, he shoved me forward.
We never spoke as we ran through the woods. He simply handed me one of the swords and remained one step back to protect me from behind, while it was my job to take out anything that got in our way from the front. For several minutes we plunged through the dark woods, killing anything that crossed our path before we finally reached the clearing.
Standing in the center of the clearing, both Rowe and I threw out our wings while a group of naturi surrounded us on all sides. Plunging the tip of the sword I was carrying into the ground, I held my arms out to my sides, letting the power of the growing storm consume me. Lightning jumped from cloud to cloud, only to be followed by a hammer of thunder. When the naturi had closed in far enough and I could feel the earth beneath my feet starting to grow soft, I called down the storm. The clouds broke open in a tidal wave of rain while lightning pounded the earth in a brilliant blast of white light. My enemies were charred in an instant, leaving me standing alone in the rain with Rowe.
Calling up one last large gust of air, I threw out my wounded wings and caught the wind, allowing it to lift me high into the dark sky. Rowe was behind me, keeping a close watch to make sure we weren’t being followed. I wasn’t willing to take the chance of leading them back to Cynnia in the heart of Savannah while the nightwalkers were sleeping. Kane’s forces remained just outside the city, like Aurora’s, leaving Cynnia’s only immediate defense a handful of naturi and an exhausted witch.
We flew silently for nearly twenty minutes before I decided to land in pasture below that appeared halfway between Aurora’s camp and the camp of the animal clan. I didn’t need to deal with Kane and his people looking as I did. Besides, I had a feeling Rowe might have a few choice words for me that I didn’t want anyone else to hear.
Burn the Night dd-6 Page 33
