Jocelynn Drake - Dawnbreaker

Aurora gasped, her mouth falling open in a silent cry as her eyes grew wide with the pain ripping through her fragile body. The power that I had felt growing within her dissipated.

“Killing you is a lot like killing your brother,” I sneered. “There’s the same look of surprise on your faces.”

Before I could reach her heart, a great stabbing pain plunged into my back, piercing my heart from behind. My focus had been so completely on Aurora that I’d let my guard down. Someone had gotten through the flames and stabbed me in the back.

“Release her and I won’t cut your heart out, little princess,” snarled an all too familiar voice. Rowe had come back.

I released the hilt of the blade and placed my right hand out to my side, away from Aurora, who was now sliding down the wall. Blood soaked into her pure white robes, and her face was quickly turning a sickly shade of gray. She was losing blood too fast, but I knew how quickly a naturi could heal with proper help.

“She banished you,” I rasped, as Rowe continued to hold the knife in my back, his left hand tightly gripping my left shoulder so I couldn’t move. “She abandoned you after all that you did. Don’t you think she deserves this?”

“She was my queen,” he bit out, twisting the knife so that I cried out in pain.

“She turned her back on you. She doesn’t deserve your loyalty.”

“Sometimes loyalty is all you have,” he said just before he ripped the knife out of my back again. He pushed me forward a few stumbling steps. I turned and fell to my knees with the intention of throwing a fireball at him, but Rowe had already taken to the air on a gush of wind. His great black wings were thrown wide like a giant raptor heading for the cover of the black clouds swirling overhead.

Kneeling on the ground, I lowered the blue flames that had surrounded Aurora and me. I was ready to die. I no longer had the strength to fight. The energy from the earth was still pumping through me, but it couldn’t heal the knife wound in my back. Blood was pouring out of my body, weakening me with each second that passed. I was beginning to think that this weapon had finally reached the end of her usefulness.

To my surprise, as the flames died down, I discovered that a great horde of naturi wasn’t waiting for me. In fact, only a handful remained. A scattering of bodies indicated that some had been killed in battle, but most were just missing.

A few feet away stood Jabari and Nyx. Both of their bodies were filled with tension, but neither was poised for the attack. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a handful of naturi rush over to Aurora’s side and gently lift her up. They carried her toward the entrance of Machu Picchu—the closest access to the surrounding brush and nature’s bosom.

“Where?” I whispered, glancing around the now seemingly empty ruins.

“Cynnia has led many of our kind away from this place of death,” Nyx answered, her eyes slowly moving from Jabari at her side to me. “Things are changing. Some are willing to accept her as the next queen.”

“Aurora is not dead. At least not yet. She could still survive…” I said, drifting off. It was the second time in my lifetime I had failed to kill a naturi on this mountain. Five centuries ago I had left Nerian disemboweled here, assuming that he would never survive the wound. He proved me wrong. And now, I hadn’t managed to cut out Aurora’s heart before Rowe attacked me.

“Yes, she could still survive,” Nyx said with a nod. Her voice was as soft and soothing as a forest brook running over smooth stones. “And some will follow her.”

“And where does that leave us?” Jabari demanded.

To my surprise, a half smile tweaked one corner of her mouth as she looked from me to Jabari. “On hold.”

“On hold?” I gasped. I coughed once and wiped some blood from my chin. My body wasn’t healing. I was dying slowly on this wretched mountain.

“If Aurora survives, there will be two factions. The naturi will have bigger problems to worry about than nightwalkers and humans. You will not be our main concern, for now,” Nyx said. She stepped back away from Jabari a few steps and bent forward as a pair of wings with rich black feathers grew out of her back in a matter of seconds.

“What about what Cynnia said? About me being the new protector of the earth?” I shouted before she could take to the air.

A light chuckle rose from Nyx and she shook her head. “I thought that was a nice ploy as well. Struck just enough fear in Aurora. She didn’t get you caught up in that nonsense, did she?”

“It was something to consider,” I admitted.

Nyx chuckled softly again. “A nightwalker protector of the earth? What a funny thought.”

“Take my advice,” I said, leaning forward on my left hand. “Finish off Aurora and save yourself the trouble.”

Nyx again flashed me her enigmatic half smile and shook her head once. “I am the defender of our people. Not the weapon of the earth.”

And then she opened her wings, catching the wind that was sweeping across the mountain, carrying her far from here. Leaving me alone with Jabari and my looming death.

Jabari slowly turned to face me, a grim look on his handsome face. I forced a weak laugh up past my parted lips as he approached me. I couldn’t imagine what he was thinking at that moment but I was about to find out. The wound in my back was beginning to slowly heal and the blood flood was ebbing. I’d survive the stabbing as long as I didn’t sustain any more injuries from my beloved Jabari during the next few minutes. But I had my doubts.

“Protector of the earth,” he murmured thoughtfully, scratching his chin as he looked down at me.

“Fanciful thoughts of a desperate naturi,” I said, trying to easily shrug off the title. It had been something that Cynnia made up in order to strike fear into her sister. It also gave me the confidence to pull as much energy as I could from the earth to strike at Aurora and nearly win. “She needed someone to kill her sister. I was her best choice at the moment. Cynnia would have said anything to put some fear in her sister’s eyes.”

“Yes, but your display of power does raise some interesting questions,” Jabari said. “I’ve never seen you control so much fire at once, and so deftly. One would think that you’ve finally succeeded in mastering your skill. It’s even more interesting that you managed to incinerate those naturi that would have attacked you from above. Did you ever actually look up at them or could you sense them on your own?”

“Jabari, this is all new to me,” I quickly said. I pushed my free right hand through my hair, trying to move it from in front of my eyes, but pain sliced through my body at the movement. My body was still healing. “I’m not sure what I can do.”

The Elder raised his hand above my head and I jerked to my feet instantly, like a puppet on a set of marionette strings. I hung in the air, my body trembling with his power pumping through it. A new pain wracked my frame, and it was all I could do to swallow back a whimper. I was exhausted. With Jabari’s energy flowing through my body, there was no way I could call in the power of the earth to even defend myself. It was either one or the other. The two could not coexist within my system.

“What?” I snapped at him, lifting my head so I could finally look him in the eye. “Afraid that you had lost the ability to control me? No, I’m not that lucky! I’m still a puppet on a string for you.”

“And this power from the earth you can now wield?” he inquired, almost politely.

I shook my head. “Only under special circumstances, like when they perform a sacrifice. I need there to be a lot of energy in the ground for me to access it. I also can’t control it when a member of the triad is trying to control me. Blood magic and earth magic just don’t mix.”