I kept the momentum going, grabbed a kukri blade and threw it at the fourth bird. The blade sang through the air with a sharp whistle as it cut straight through the bird’s neck, perfectly beheading it. The blade sank into the ground beside Maks and I screamed at him.
“Maks, little help here!”
Four down, four to go. The odds were not in my favor because I didn’t dare pull the flail off my back no matter that it warmed considerably as I fought. Much as it could tip the scales in my favor, after seeing what it did to me for killing the White Wolf I wasn’t about to take the chance.
I swung the gun around and pointed it at the bird going straight for Maks’s prone form. The boom of the gun rattled the ice in the trees above us, and a few icicles dangled precariously like miniature guillotines ready to drop.
I was at Maks’s feet, my breath coming in a slight pant. I got off Batman so I could stand over Maks. Three left. One knife and the gun as a stick.
Lila was above me. “You’ve got this, Zam.”
I didn’t have the breath in me to ask why she wasn’t using her acid. That would have been helpful.
The three birds surrounded us easily, spreading their wings. I crouched over Maks. Fighting in the snow was no easy trick.
“I said, bugger off.” I threw the words out as a challenge. The last three birds were the biggest and they came at me in a group. Smart, did I forget to mention that the carrion birds on this side of the wall were creepy smart too? They’d seen their buddies go down, and now they would take me on together.
I braced myself, yanking one of the kukri blades out, the curved edge catching the reflective light off the snow. A weapon in each hand was the best I could do.
“Hang on, Lila. This is about to get rough.” I snapped my hand up that held the kukri blade, but the bird never reached the edge of it.
A swirl of a fur-lined cloak and a man holding a long sword as he stepped out from behind the birds shocked me. The sword made no noise as it cut through the two birds closest to him, downing them in an instant. The last bird spun and leapt into the air. I threw my second blade at it, catching it midflight. The final bird screamed and fell, plummeting to the earth with a thud that belied its size.
“Hello again, Zamira.” A voice I knew and was beginning to dread curled through the air. I turned slowly and found myself facing Merlin yet again, the sword still in his hand, blood dripping from it along with a few black feathers.
This was the third time I’d faced him. Third time’s the charm and all that jazz, was that how it was going to work with him?
“Seriously? Are you following behind like a lost puppy?” I was still trying to catch my wind, and the words were breathier than I would have liked.
He smiled. “I saw you were in trouble, and came to help. That’s the polite thing to do, isn’t it?”
“Supes don’t help strangers. You’re giving yourself away,” I said.
“You were helping him.” He pointed to the still face-down Maks.
“That’s different. He’s my friend.” I went to Maks. I pulled a glove off and put my fingers against his neck. Alive, but his heart was slowing with the cold and whatever injury he’d sustained. Fear sliced through me. I needed to get him warm and stitch him up. “Thanks for your help, but I’ve got to get him somewhere warm.”
“I can help with that. You can stay the night. Again. Though, I’m impressed that you are his friend. Truly.” He grinned, then the grin slipped. “I cannot use magic, so we have to do this the old-fashioned way.” He bent down and pulled Maks up and onto his shoulder with a grunt. “Damn it, he’s a big brute. You sure you don’t want to just let him die?”
Lila dropped to my shoulder.
“Can we trust him?” she asked quietly.
“He’s got Maks. We have to follow him for now, but no, I don’t trust him,” I replied. I grabbed the reins of the two horses, retrieved my knives and settled in behind Merlin.
“You and your little dragon, Lila, are an interesting pair. Zamira, did you know you are well known amongst the supes?” Merlin asked.
I frowned. “No. Why would I be well known?”
“You have a penchant for trying to help the underdogs. That does not go unnoticed in places where it is common practice to eat or be eaten. There are rumors of a woman on a horse who will help those that are hurting if she can.” His brown eyes were—if I was reading him right—amused.
“You find that funny?” I twisted around to check behind us for more carrion birds. They were known to fly in flocks as big as thirty. Thirty and I’d be forced to use the flail again.
“Well, if I don’t laugh, then perhaps I will end up sitting and crying. Life is shitty, Zamira. It’s what you make of the shit that tells me who you really are.”
“Riddles,” Lila grumbled.
I didn’t say anything because his words echoed something my father had told me when I was a girl.
“Zamira, you take this shit here. It stinks, you want to get rid of it, right?” he kicked at the pile of manure in front of him, “but maybe you can use it. To grow your food, to light your fires and keep you warm, to keep the darkness at bay. Shit isn’t all bad; it just stinks.”
I shook my head to clear the past. More than ever before the memories of my family and life in the desert pressed in on me from all sides. Why now? Something to do with the warlock? I suspected that was the case. I gritted my teeth against the anger.
We walked a few hours, just into the edge of the night. I checked the stars when I could, marking our progress and general placement. North, we’d gone north, which at least took us closer to the next guardian’s territory.
“Do you not have questions for me?” Merlin asked as we walked.
I snorted. “Would anything you tell me be the truth?”
“How did you know who she is?” Lila piped up.
“I knew her father,” Merlin replied. “Many years ago, before he came to the desert to find more people like him.”
He could be telling the truth, but my coloring alone gave me away as a desert-born. If you discounted my green cat eyes, and pale skin. I favored my father there.
“Why are you still helping me?” I asked.
“I told you, it is in my best interest.”
Merlin turned his head and lifted both eyebrows. I frowned.
“What do you mean by your best interest exactly?” Now that the questions had started, they lined up to pour out my mouth.
He smiled and then slowed his steps. “Wait a moment, ah, here we are.” He stopped in front of a small hut built in the center of four large evergreen trees. Their branches hung low over the roof, giving it not only extra protection from the weather, but a nice camouflage. Not unlike the last shack. Only this one had leg traps hanging off it and a weathered look that made me think it was older than the first.
He moved easily with Maks’s body on his shoulder like it was nothing despite the grumbling he’d done earlier. The door opened and firelight bloomed, welcoming us forward. Lila groaned as a wash of heat rolled out the door. “Just for a few hours,” she whispered.
I nodded. “Do not agree to anything he offers,” I warned her.
“Got it.” She was off my shoulder in a flash and through the door.
I followed more slowly, looking around. At the back of the house was a pen with a small shelter. I put in both horses, and again, there was food and warm mash for them. They dug in, and I left them there to rest, though I didn’t take all their tack off, just loosened it.
I stepped over the threshold of the small hut and the warmth enveloped me. The door shut on its own with a click and I just stood there, snow melting off my boots and long cloak. The heat sunk into me, making me sleepy within seconds. Not good, not good at all.
I drew in a breath, and the smell of meat cooking assaulted my nose. Garlic, onions, and . . . cheese? The groan that slipped out of me was not my fault. Cheese had not been on my menu for years, and I loved it.
“Go ahe
ad. Eat. You owe me nothing.” The warlock waved a hand at the table to my left. I turned to see food laid out like a damn banquet.
I made myself hold still. “Maks first.”
“Ah, I’ll stitch him up. Not that he deserves it.” That last bit was muttered and I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to have heard him. The warlock spread a hand over Maks’s foot and calf and it was then that I saw the full damage the White Wolf had inflicted. His foot had been mauled, but even I could see it wasn’t broken. Thank the sand gods for that. My hacka paste might have even done it, but I kind of wanted to see what Merlin could do. Surely he’d use his magic this time. A tingle of apprehension flickered through me.
“Can you really heal him?” I took a step toward Maks. If he was the warlock he said he was, then maybe he could help Bryce?
“I can, though it will not be as fast as if I used my magic.” The warlock didn’t look at me. “He will owe me something, but you do not.”
While that last bit was good, about me not owing him anything, the rest was questionable. “Why can’t you use your magic on him?”
“There is someone looking for me. Even a trickle of my magic on the wind could let them know I’m here. And that would not be good for any of us.” He finally looked at me, his dark brown eyes serious.
I suspected he was full of shit and this was his way of covering the fact that he had no real magic, which made me think perhaps he was just a delusional mage believing he was a delusional back-country supe. So what if he had a weird Merlin complex? He was in fact helping us survive and that was fine by me. I was not so proud that I would turn my back on what he offered.
I went to the table, thinking about Bryce. There was no point in asking the warlock about helping my brother. It was obvious there was no skill in his hands if he had to rely on hacka paste, the same as the rest of us. I sat and picked up the hunk of white, creamy cheese that all but called for me to stuff it in my mouth. I put it to my lips and took a bite. The cheese seemed to melt on my tongue, like a rich butter. I might have groaned, but I’ll admit to nothing.
While I ate—slowly, savoring each bite—I looked around the small place. Four walls, two beds, one on either side of the room. An open fireplace humming with heat, and a door beside the fireplace that led out. Just like the last place, really, only a little bigger with a few more creature comforts.
“Why are you really here?” I mumbled around my third piece of cheese. This one had some sort of herb spice in it. Caraway seeds maybe?
“Well,” he paused in his stitching and seemed to think things through before he spoke again. “A friend and I have something of a bet going. We each chose someone we believed in and are doing what we can to help them in their respective goals.”
My mouth all but dried up, despite the flavors. Instincts kicked in. “You mean Steve, don’t you?”
His head snapped around and his eyes narrowed. “How could you know that?”
“I’m a good guesser.” A veritable pain in the ass trait if you asked my brother. It was my ability to guess what was happening that had landed me in the middle of the Oasis when the Jinn had come.
I shook my head, clearing it of that memory before it could take hold. What the hell was going on? For years, the memories had been faded and dull, like black and white photographs. Now, they were bubbling up around every corner.
His hands left Maks and the glow of the hacka paste on fire around the wound faded. “Yes, my companion is trying to help Steve. She believes he is the one who will stop the Ice Witch. I’ve put my money on another horse.” His brown eyes came back to me.
Another horse. Like I was in a race and he thought I’d win?
I burst out laughing. “Shit, you are about to be sorely mistaken. I hope you didn’t bet anything amazing on me.”
I popped another piece of cheese in my mouth, still grinning. “I’m the runt, Merlin. Just like Lila here.” She gave a little wave with one wing tip as she bit into a slice of meat. “I have my place in this world, and it isn’t as a hero. A savior. Or as a wall breaker.” Damn it, where had that last bit come from? My father and the memories were spilling up through me after years of suppressing them.
I wanted to bite those words back and swallow them whole, but it was too late. It had slipped out.
Merlin smiled at me. “That is exactly what you are, Zamira the Reckless. A Wall Breaker.”
Chapter Fourteen
I hadn’t heard the words “Wall Breaker” since Bryce and I had escaped the desert, Ish saving us, the Jinn chasing us, fear along my spine, the last of my family wiped out. And now here I was, the one saying them.
Before Merlin could get another word in, I stood and walked to the door. I needed to breathe. I needed the fresh air of the winter ice to clear my mind and the memories that suddenly seemed to be at the surface of my skin.
I lifted my hand to grab the door—or tried to. The knob was gone and the door was nothing but a flat slab of wood. My jaw ticked and anger sliced through the confusion that had caught hold of me. “Let me out now. I do not do well with being caged.”
“Of course, you don’t. Trust me when I say I am taking a massive chance using even that small amount of magic in order to get you to stay.” He lowered himself into a chair next to the so-still body of Maks. “You are a desert cat, and they don’t like being tied up, held down, chained, caged, whatever it is you want to call it. That is why your father tried to face the Jinn, isn’t it? So that cage he was in—no matter how big it was—would be opened.”
I could feel the blood drain from my face. “How do you know about that?”
He ignored my question. “He tried to take on the most powerful guardian of the southern wall and he failed. Then the Jinn went after your family, cut them all down like stalks of wheat. The blood stained the sands, their dying cries filled the air and fed the Jinn’s power for years.”
His words were like a gong inside my head and suddenly I was no longer in a shack in the middle of the northern climes but back in the desert. Filled with a child’s beliefs that I knew now were wrong.
I ran across the golden sand, the sun at my back, playing with my older brother. Or, at least, I was playing; he was just trying to avoid me. I grinned and ran faster, leaping and jumping as if that would propel me closer to his back end. He was a shifter, a bright lion of the southern desert as were all my family members. Lions with eyes of gold, we were the natural protectors of the supernaturals here from the wildly unpredictable Jinn that had been set to guard this section of the wall.
Then there was me. I ran on four paws too, but smaller paws. A mere house cat to my family’s massive counterparts—and jet black from the top of my head to the tip of my tail. A part of me knew it was not good, that there was something broken in me, weak. But my father didn’t point it out. He said I would find a way to make my size work for me. Like right now. I knew something was up, could feel it on the hot wind, and I aimed to figure out what it was.
I hurled myself forward, using the last bit of my energy, and landed on my brother’s rump, digging all four sets of my claws into his hide to hang on. He roared and spun, his mouth open wide enough that he could have eaten me in one bite. But he couldn’t reach me. He wasn’t flexible enough.
“Zam, get the hell off my ass!” he roared, spinning and bucking in an attempt to loosen my hold.
I grinned at him and stuck my tongue out. “No, take me with you!”
“It’s a meeting with the Jinn. You can’t come,” he snarled.
I unhooked my claws and slid down his back leg to the sand. So that’s what it was. Getting my brother mad was the best way to get the truth out of him. “I’m coming, one way or another.”
“No,” he growled as he trotted away, his footprints deep in the loose sand. I hurried after him, determined not to give up. At thirteen, I knew my mind and I was not easily ignored despite my size.
Bryce didn’t slow his steady pace, but he forgot that I didn’t sink like he did into the
sand.
As he climbed a sand dune, he glanced back at me. “It’s on the other side in the Oasis. You need to stay low and hide if you’re coming in. It’s just a talk tonight; if it goes well, then . . . our world will change.”
I grinned and bobbed my head. The light of the day had faded and dusk fell around us, giving me the ability to hide within his shadow as he crept down the hill. My father ruled the bright lions, if ruling was even the right word. He led them. He was the pride’s leader and protector. He oversaw the other prides that ranged around us. Bryce would soon follow in his footsteps.
Bryce quietly filled me in. The Jinn had requested a parlay, to meet with the strongest of the bright lions. To speak with them of peace. If it happened, Bryce was right, our world would change completely. No more raids, no more losing those we loved to anything more than a natural death, no more fear for the Jinn in the night. The possibility filled me with hope.
I’d never seen a Jinn before. I’d heard they were fearsome, deadly, and cruel. That they had no love for peace but preferred to make war. Those were the truths I’d been raised with. So even in that moment, I wondered why they would ask for peace.
I crept across the sand through the Oasis where the meeting was to take place, the evening sun dropping slowly but giving me cover. I kept to the shadows, my dark body and small size hiding me well.
Parlays were always held near water in the desert, a sign of peace. For without water, the desert would take you faster than any wound or enemy.
The undergrowth was a perfect cover for me and the foliage barely shifted as I made my way to where the spring-fed pool bubbled. Under the cover of thick leaves, I watched as Bryce joined my father and the others of our pride. I knew all twenty of them by name, knew that they fought to protect us and keep us safe. I lay down and put my head on my paws, waiting, nothing moving but my eyes and the tips of my ears.
The bright lions, and our pride of the same name worked to keep all supernaturals safe from the Jinn. They had learned to hide from those who would kill and rule us, fighting only when necessary and working as a pride to take the more powerful supernaturals down. The Jinn were normally creatures of solitude, and so they could be fended off with enough of our pride working together.
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