Dawnbreaker (39 page)

“You failed,” Aurora snarled. “Your job as defender of our people is to protect us, especially the royal family. First, Cynnia was taken from her home and brought to earth, and then she was held prisoner by a nightwalker. Your existence is dependent upon the simple premise of protecting us and you failed at that, child who was never meant to live!”

“I did the best I could. I don’t know how she managed to get to earth. I searched everywhere for Cynnia. I’d give my life for her,” Nyx argued, pushing to her feet.

“And so you shall,” Aurora said with a broad smile. “You failed to protect the young princess, so your punishment is death.”

“Aurora!” Cynnia cried.

“You can’t do this! I haven’t failed you,” Nyx argued, her right hand hovering near the hilt of her sword as if she was preparing to be attacked at any second. This naturi was a born fighter, and she was not about to go quietly into the night like her older sister wished.

Mira! What is going on?
Danaus suddenly demanded from behind me.

Aurora is cleaning house,
I replied.
I don’t think she trusts those around her, and now that she plans to start a new reign of power here on earth, she wants to be surrounded by only those that she can trust.

Turning my thoughts to Jabari, I repeated my guess at the situation, and asked,
Won’t this leave her vulnerable?

Possibly,
he patiently replied.
Only if she doesn’t have replacements already picked out. I’ve seen this done once before. A new Liege of the nightwalkers takes over and destroys the existing Coven, replacing it with members only he can trust as a way of solidifying his power. Aurora has two younger sisters who can claim the throne, and she no longer wishes to worry about the line of succession.

To my surprise, Cynnia spoke up, in a cold, implacable voice that closely matched her sister’s in authority. “You can stop the charade if this is the grand scheme you have concocted to eliminate both Nyx and myself.”

Nyx twisted around to look at Cynnia, who was rising easily to her feet.

“Aurora’s most trusted weaver Harrow said that she knew I wanted to go to earth and stop the war that Aurora planned to pursue,” Cynnia said to Nyx. “She pretended to side with me and my wishes, so she was the one to take me through the barrier to earth. Once here, she tried to kill me, calling me a traitor to the crown.” Turning her head to look at Aurora, I caught the flash of a dark smile that sent a shiver down my spine. “She admitted that it had been your plan to have me killed here and blame it on the nightwalkers. She told me everything as I slowly killed her.”

Aurora said nothing as she returned to her seat on the wall, her guards closing in around her. Cynnia took a step closer to her sister. Her posture seemed straighter, her shoulders stiffer than I remembered. Looking at her now, I realized that I had been duped by the little naturi.

“Nyx couldn’t find me because I didn’t want to be found,” she sneered. “I had no idea which naturi sided with you and would brand me as a traitor, which would try to kill me on sight. Your trustworthy consort Rowe? My own beloved sister Nyx? What wouldn’t they do for you? So I hid.” Cynnia turned and flashed me a wicked grin. In truth, I had to smile back at her. I saw her plan now and it was brilliant. She’d hid in the arms of her enemy, knowing that I would keep her alive as long as she proved useful. And as the sister of the queen, how could she not prove useful?

“Bravo,” I murmured with a shake of my head. Cynnia acknowledged my comment with a slight nod before turning back to her queen sister.

“Silence!” Aurora shouted in a shaky voice. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or her own sister. Her lovely face was flushed and her hands were balled into fists in her lap. “You are a traitor to the crown.”

“I’m not a traitor because I want something other than the endless war with the humans and the nightwalkers that you have planned. It’s not treason to want peace,” Cynnia threw back at her.

“You cannot live in peace with the humans!” Aurora screamed, lurching forward to her feet. “They are destroying the earth and I am her protector. I have returned, and I will now return to the task of cleansing the earth of all human life so the Great Mother can once again flourish.”

“You’re wrong,” Cynnia said, confidence overflowing in those two words. “The earth has picked a new mistress to protect her. Your reign is over.”

“You conniving little witch! You will never succeed me as queen of the naturi!” Aurora roared.

“Yes, I will,” Cynnia calmly said, then turned to look directly at me. “
After
the protector of the earth is through with you.” It was only then that I realized she was talking about me—the new protector of the earth.

“Nyx, if you want to save Cynnia, I would grab her now,” was the only warning that I was willing to give. Cynnia might have used me, but for now it appeared that we had a common goal. For that reason, I was willing to keep her alive, but my entire focus was on destroying Aurora.

Twenty-Nine

F
or the first time, Aurora met my gaze. In that moment, I saw all the hatred that she had harbored for me and my race boiled down into a single look. In the blink of an eye, I knew that she blamed me for the naturi’s entrapment, their failure to escape for five long centuries, and now the loss of her sisters and her consort. I was the root cause of all her problems—the Fire Starter.

But the expression lasted for less than a second before her face was wiped clean of all emotion. It didn’t matter. I had seen it, and it brought a broad grin to my face. I wanted her to hate me. I wanted her to hate me with the same mindless virulence that I hated her kind.

“She’s the new protector of the earth? The Fire Starter? A nightwalker?” Aurora demanded, waving her hand toward me. “That’s impossible. Nightwalkers have no tie to the earth.”

“And yet she can control fire,” Cynnia quickly countered.

“That is all she can control!” Aurora snapped, her temper flaring briefly before she tamed it. Watching her, I was beginning to see similarities between her and her younger brother Nerian. Both had a madness about them, a burning need for control of everything—situations and people.

“I know she can do more,” Cynnia replied, growing calmer for each notch that her sister grew more irrational and desperate. “She can hear the earth speaking. How long has it been since the Great Mother spoke with you?”

What is she talking about, Mira?
demanded Jabari mentally in a too sweet voice that had me cringing inwardly. A part of me didn’t want to survive what was coming simply so I wouldn’t have to answer the questions swirling around the Ancient’s brain.

Are we three all who are left alive?
I inquired, obviously avoiding his question.

No, there are several more, but we are surrounded and pinned down. We cannot hope to take them on directly.

I had known that much even before Jabari sent those few words skidding through my brain. We couldn’t take them on directly. Kneeling as I was, I closed my eyes and reached down with my right hand to run my fingers through the cold grass. Beneath my hand I could feel the deep pulse of the earth beating up through the ground and into the surrounding air. The spell Rowe used to open the doors had not used all the energy in the area, as at past sacrifice locations. In fact, it felt as if the power was growing stronger the longer than I sat there. It once again pressed against my skin and demanded that I notice it, like a cat wanting affection.

Frowning, I opened my eyes again to find Aurora watching me closely. She realized now that something was off, and I smiled back at her. I wished I had more time to experiment with this new power, but there simply wouldn’t be time to become an earth magic expert. Fire Starter was going to have to do.

“Can you hear her?” I asked, cocking my head to the side as if listening to a whispering voice. “She is pissed. And I mean royally pissed.”

“Of course she’s angry!” Aurora screamed, taking a step toward me for the first time. The guards followed beside her, while the one with the sword pressed to the back of my head shifted the edge of his weapon so it dug into the back of my neck. We were all balanced on a knife, and I was about to throw us off.

“She’s no longer looking for a great protector, Aurora,” I murmured, pressing my right hand flat against the earth. I closed my eyes at the same time I pressed my left hand against my chest, over the wound the Cynnia had made just the other night, essentially closing the flow through my body, forcing the energy to once again well up within me. “She’s looking for an executioner. A weapon. And that is what I do best.”

Get everyone out of here!
was the only warning I had time to send to both Danaus and Jabari.

Rolling onto my side, out of the reach of the naturi that had been guarding me, I immediately set him on fire. The orange and yellow flamed enveloped him. He swung his sword blindly in my direction twice before falling dead. I tried to set more fires, but Aurora was there in an instant, putting them out again. Frustrated, I picked up the sword of a fallen naturi, determined to take out my opponents one by one. But we were outnumbered fifty to one.

Danaus, I need your energy!
I cried out to him as I was surrounded by four naturi, each trying to decide who would attack me first.

It didn’t work last time,
he countered, sounding just as harried as me.

Push the earth energy out of me first. Just like at Crete.

The first naturi attacked, and I deflected the blow while dodging the second. I slashed at a third, cutting him across the stomach, succeeding in getting him to back off a step.

And then it hit me. The warm energy of the earth was flushed out of my body in a rush, followed by Danaus’s own bone-crushing energy. I fell to my knees again as pain ripped through my body at an alarming rate. I screamed, letting the sword fall from my limp fingers. There wasn’t time for thought or focus. I could feel the bori in Danaus, recognize it after our earlier encounter, and it was starving. His power consumed me and then flowed out across the field. I watched as the four naturi around me were instantly reduced to ash as we destroyed their souls in the blink of an eye. Twisting around, I located Danaus and Jabari several feet away from me, surrounded by naturi. A second later those naturi also went up in a puff of gray and white ash.

“Kill them! Kill them all!” Aurora screamed at the naturi that surrounded us.

“No!” Cynnia screamed at the same time. She tried to run toward me, but Nyx grabbed her arms, holding her back. “It’s not supposed to be this way! You weren’t supposed to destroy us all!”

I knew what she meant. She had expected me to destroy Aurora and the rest of the naturi nation that would follow her. She had not expected me to wipe out so many of her kind in order to get to her beloved sister.

And in truth, I knew that I was wasting time and Danaus’s energy by killing all those naturi that surrounded us. Aurora was my goal. She always had been. Gathering up as much of the hunter’s energy as I could, I turned my attention to the queen, who stood with her back to the wall, surrounded by a wall of naturi. Her beautiful face was twisted with rage as she shouted orders at her people to kill me. Yet after the display of power that Danaus and I had already shown, they now hesitated to approach us.

I let my eyes narrow and my senses reach out to the find the soul of the queen of the naturi. It wasn’t hard to find. It was a great beacon of light in the center of all the darkness that filled that valley. The souls of the other naturi were just thin wisps of smoke in comparison to the light that emanated from her. With Danaus’s energy balled up inside of me, I attacked the beacon of light. But nothing happened. I poured everything I had into crushing her soul, incinerating her from the inside out, but it didn’t make a dent.

Behind me, I heard Danaus cry out, and at the same time his energy instantly left me. Before me, Aurora’s laughter rang out across the mountain. She knew I couldn’t kill her as I had killed so many of her own people. She was pure earth energy and couldn’t be killed by something that was half bori and half whatever I was now.

“Kill her, Mira!” Jabari snarled from behind me. “You are the weapon of the Coven. I command you to kill her!”

“Kill me? You can’t touch me, little nightwalker,” Aurora mocked. “I am the queen of the naturi, protector of the earth. You cannot harm me.”

Pushing to my feet, I swayed once and raised my head to look at the golden-haired woman that would be the scourge of my people. I mentally reached out for Danaus but could no longer sense him. A ripple of pain screamed through my chest and rage bubbled in my veins. The bori I had at my disposal that could have defeated her was no more. I had to turn to the other power I had at my fingertips and pray that it would be enough to destroy her. Maybe Cynnia was right, that I had been chosen by the earth to be her newest weapon—replacing Aurora. I could only hope so.

Drawing in a deep breath, I reached out to the earth energy I felt swirling around me, pushing against my skin and threading its fingers through my hair. I pulled it into my body, allowing it to fill in the places where Danaus’s energy had once been. It pulled it in and mentally closed the hole that Cynnia had left in my chest, holding the energy within me so it filled my cells and poured into the marrow of my bones. The energy filled me until my soul was screaming and the monster that lurked inside of me cried out in pain. I felt as if I was killing myself with blinding sunlight.

With a sweep of my hand, the naturi that surrounded Aurora exploded in a roar of flames like a set of Roman candles. The queen screamed in frustration and surprise. I could feel her exerting her own energy to put them out, but I wouldn’t allow it. I pulled more energy into my body and surrounded Aurora and myself with a wall of blue flames much as I had at the Sanctuary Lodge, setting up a perimeter. The flames reached more than ten feet into the air and separated her from the rest of her people. Around me, I could feel both Aurora and other members of the light clan fighting to put out the flames, but I was drawing the energy directly from the earth, fueling it with her anger. The flames never wavered.