Jessica Andersen - Dawnkeepers

They had nothing physically in common, and even less in terms of magic, yet they were bound by blood, and perhaps by destiny.

“What if I don’t ever find my magic?” Alexis whispered to her own reflection. “What if I fail?”

For a second her reflected image fogged up and wavered, as though it might answer, as though she’d drawn on the barrier to pull scrying magic she didn’t know how to manage. Then she blinked and the picture solidified, and she realized it wasn’t magic at all. It was tears. And she was being a wuss. She was supposed to draw strength from the barrier on the peak days, not cringe away from it. But with her streaky hair pulled back into a practical French braid and no makeup on, she felt exposed. Cool currents of air touched her body, tightening her skin and making her too aware of the brush of the heavy fabric and the weight of what was to come. Once Strike ’ported them to the safe house near the ruins of Chichén Itzá and they descended into the sacred tunnels below the ancient city, they were going enact the transition ritual and support Patience in her bid to become a Godkeeper, with Brandt as her Nightkeeper mate. And if that brought another slice of jealousy, nobody else needed to know how small Alexis really was, how petty.

There was a quiet knock at the door to her suite, followed by Izzy’s voice calling, “You just about ready, princess?”

Don’t call me that, Alexis wanted to snap. She didn’t, though, because she knew the spiky irritability was the magic, nothing more. And besides, Izzy had called her that long before Nate had turned it into a sneer. The winikin meant it as an endearment, a reminder of what Alexis was meant to be. And maybe that was part of the problem. The pressure and expectations came from her bloodline, from her family’s history. Not from her own potential for a damn thing. In a way she didn’t belong here any more than she’d belonged at the Newport Yacht Club, and she kept wondering why nobody seemed to see it except her.

“Coming,” she called in answer to her winikin , forcing herself to shove the insecurities deep down inside, in a locked section of her soul she opened only rarely, when she was down and needed to feel even crappier about herself. Or on days like today, when other people were depending on her and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to produce enough power to help.

“You can do it,” she told herself. And went out to face the lunar eclipse.

When Alexis reached the sunken great room at the center of the mansion, she found that the others were there ahead of her. The air hummed with magic and nerves. Strike stood with Leah on the raised platform that ran around the sitting area. The rest of them, both winikin and the Nightkeepers, stood on the lower level, shoulder-to-shoulder, looking up at their leaders.

As Alexis took her place with the others, working herself as far from Nate as she could get, Strike nodded and said, “Good. We’re all here.”

A soft golden glow surrounded the king and his mate, growing stronger when Strike reached out and took Leah’s hand. The Nightkeeper’s human queen might not have magic on a day-to-day basis, but when the peak days came around, look out. She and Strike together channeled the powers of the creator god Kulkulkan, who had serious skills.

Alexis suffered another tug of envy. Not just at the magic, but at the connection between the two of them, and the soft, intimate look they shared for half a second before turning to the business at hand.

Which, in a way, was as much about love as it was about war, because the next god to come through the barrier would most likely offer its powers to a Nightkeeper female who had a strong mate at her side.

Alexis glanced over at Brandt and Patience. They stood close together, holding hands and pressed together at hip and shoulder, looking like they’d worked out whatever had been worrying Strike the other day. This time envy tugged stronger at Alexis’s heart. Was love so much to ask for?

“Okay, gang, here’s how it’s going to work,” Strike said. “We’ll link up and I’ll use the boost to teleport all of us to the new site. We’ll drop in the house, not the forest, because the house ought to be secure.”

The Nightkeepers—or rather Jox—had purchased a run-down rental property in the Yucatán over the winter and retrofitted it with a kick-ass security system and emergency supplies, so they could use it as a staging area for trips down into the sacred tunnels. The move had become necessary when the Nightkeepers’ previous passageway to the tunnels leading to the sacred intersection had been destroyed during the equinox battle. Luckily for them—though gods knew it’d been more fate than luck—Leah had known of a second access point near a small house her parents had rented on vacation when she was a child.

Though finding the entrance during the summer solstice of ’84, amidst the massacre itself, had marked Leah and her younger brother and had eventually cost her brother’s life, it’d also meant that the loss of the first passageway hadn’t been the disaster it would’ve been otherwise. Gods forbid they couldn’t get to the intersection and undergo the transition ritual, because the legends said the Godkeepers would be the first and best defense standing between mankind and the Banol Kax when the end-time came.

At the moment they didn’t even have one full Godkeeper, though. Which meant they had some serious catching up to do.

Strike continued, “Once we’ve secured the perimeter, the warriors will go down while the winikin and nonwarriors stay topside and cover the entrance.” The king made it sound matter-of-fact, even though it was a serious breach of SOP.

Traditionally, the winikin stayed back at the training compound and watched the Nightkeeper children. But with only the twin boys to watch over and too few warriors, Strike was pressing everyone into service. The female winikin would protect the twins back at Skywatch. The four male winikin , along with Jade, who hadn’t received the warrior’s mark or the attendant fighting prowess, would be heavily armed and tasked with keeping watch for Iago and his ilk, or any other sign of danger.

Alexis had argued along the lines of tradition, but Strike and Leah had overruled her. Still, the debate had helped them clarify a few fail-safes, so she felt like she’d at least added to the convo and justified her place on what was coming to be known as the royal council.

Leah took over, saying, “When we’ve reached the temple chamber, we’ll link up. Strike and I will take whatever boost we need to man the defenses. The rest of the power should go to Patience and Brandt for the Godkeeper ritual.”

Strike’s expression, which had been serious all along, went deadly intense. “We need this, people.

We need a true Godkeeper, and we need her now.” He looked straight at Patience as he said, “With a Godkeeper’s power, especially if we get another of the war gods, we might be able to get ahead of Iago, maybe even attack him on his own turf. Without it, we’re vulnerable.”

A chill skimmed down Alexis’s spine. Without meaning to she glanced over at Nate. He was staring at the king, his jaw locked, and something told her his thoughts were elsewhere.

But where? And why?

“Any questions?” Strike asked, then quirked a humorless smile. “I suppose I should rephrase that: Any questions I’d have a prayer of answering? Didn’t think so. Okay, let’s link up.”

Without further discussion the Nightkeepers pulled their ceremonial knives from their weapons belts and drew the blades across their palms. Alexis stared at the thin line she’d just carved in her skin, watched it go from shocked white to red, then well up and spill over. She felt the kick of pain and power, the shimmer of magic just out of reach, a wellspring of it that she could touch but couldn’t really tap into, as though something were blocking her, keeping her from reaching her true potential.