“Mira, I think I can—” Ryan started, but I quickly cut him off.

“No, you can’t. You’re still a human, Mr. Warlock, and can be used as a sacrifice. Both you and James have to be away from the site. Jabari will focus on the other sacrifices. Ryan, I need you to hang back until James has been freed. If Rowe or any of the other naturi tap into the weather again, I need you to stop it.”

“Mira, that’s earth magic. Not my strong suit,” he argued.

“You have to try.” I flipped the safety off the gun again and took a step toward the entrance. “Do whatever you can to interfere with the spell. We’ll try to keep them away from you so you can work.”

Turning, I walked toward the entrance and up the stairs without looking back at anyone. I knew that none of the humans were decoys. Rowe wasn’t taking any chances. We had stopped him once, and now he was betting we wouldn’t be able to stop all three sacrifices.

As I reached the top of the stairs, a high-pitched screech rent the silence of the night. I cringed, lowering my head as if I expected the wrath of the heavens to fall on me at that second. Not quite. Two of the harpies from Venice had come to Knossos to help Rowe with the sacrifice. And we had obviously been spotted.

Sneaking around one of the remaining walls, a smile lifted my lips. The idea was to let me protect the seal and kill Rowe. The positive aspect to the plan was that I could kill every naturi that stood between him and me. I knew I would find a bright side somewhere within this nightmare.

We edged closer to the central courtyard. Only a handful of naturi stepped forward to harry us. With Jabari tagging along, they were quickly dispatched with little trouble before any of them could fire up their special powers. I wasn’t surprised. The main force of the naturi was pulled back to defend the sacrifices.

The wind suddenly picked up, shifting twice before it blew at my back, pushing me forward. Climbing over a low, broken wall that surrounded the courtyard, I tightened my grip on the knife and gun. Rowe stood a few yards away, legs spread and hands on his hips. He smiled at me. Behind him more than a dozen torches flickered and danced in the wind. Spread before us across the wide courtyard were the three humans; two men and one small child. They had been tied down, their bodies stretched out from east to west. Just like at Stonehenge not so long ago.

“Is this all you brought?” Rowe demanded, arching the eyebrow over his one good eye. “I thought last night was a little scouting party. But this is it?”

“Why waste the manpower when four is all we need?” I mocked. “We’re ending this tonight.”

“I agree.”

A duet of screams filled the air above me. Reluctant to take my eyes off Rowe, I looked up in time to see the two harpies plunging toward me, their fleshy wings pulling in close to their bodies to increase the speed of their fall. I lunged forward, slamming against the rock floor while Danaus and Jabari dove in opposite directions. Pain exploded in my ribs as I hit the ground, but I pushed it aside and kept moving. Rolling onto my back, I lifted my gun, searching the black skies for the mythical nightmares. But they were gone.

Rolling to my knees, my head snapped back as pain exploded in my jaw and I cried out, falling to my back. Rowe was on me in a second. His fist connected with my cheekbone, both sides of my face now throbbing in pain. The naturi straddled me, his knees pressed against my hips.

“You should have taken my offer,” he growled, and slammed his fist into my stomach. “We would be on the same side now.”

I swung my right hand up, trying to aim the gun at him. “Never,” I grunted.

Rowe easily knocked my hand away, but I was counting on it. I swung my left hand up, burying my knife up to its hilt in his side. He screamed, backhanding me as he pulled away. His blood covered my hand, causing the knife to slip out of my grip as he stumbled off.

I pushed back to my feet, the pain in my face beginning to subside. I tried to get my bearings as Rowe hurried away to heal the latest wound I had inflicted on him. But I didn’t have a chance. They attacked silently this time and I wasn’t watching the skies.

The winged naturi swooped down in a rush of wind, blotting out the meager starlight. I’d taken half a step back when impossibly long talons dug into my arms and shoulders. A scream was ripped from my throat as my feet left the ground, matched by the sweet sounds of their laughter as they carried me off.

I tried to twist from their taloned grasp, but the claws only dug deeper into my flesh and muscles until I could feel them scraping against bone. Blood streamed from my shoulders, soaking into my cotton shirt, still stained from last night’s battle. Lifting the hand that held the gun, I tried aiming it at either of my two captors as we rose higher into the night sky. I managed to get off only two shots before the gun was ripped out of my hand, and looked down in time to see it plummeting to the earth, which was steadily receding farther and farther away. The ruins were drifting away too as the pair of wind naturi carried me to the north, toward Heraklion and the sea.

With each flap of their massive wings, a gust of wind hit me. A chill flashed across my body, cooling the blood that crawled across my stomach in a growing stream. A reflexive shiver shook me, causing their talons to dig deeper. I had to get free. Danaus and the others were outnumbered. James had to be saved. Rowe would complete the sacrifice soon, and the power…I couldn’t feel the power any longer. The harpylike naturi had carried me far enough away.

My head fell back and a bubble of laughter jumped from my throat a second before both of the naturi holding me erupted into flames. Their screams echoed across the skies as their clawed feet opened, releasing me. I moved quickly, grabbing an ankle of each naturi before I could fall back to the earth. Pain burned in my shoulders, threatening to loosen my grip, but I held tight. If I lost sight of them or lost contact, I wouldn’t be able to keep the fire going.

The flames ate at their flesh, burning holes in their fleshy wings until we were all plunging to the ground in a hideous heap of burning, melting flesh. The naturi in my grip twisted and screamed, not so much fighting me, but simply trying to escape the pain. I finally released my hold on their legs as the ground approached with surprising speed. I had made this mistake before, not paying attention to where I was falling. The last time it happened, I’d been impaled on a tree limb and barely survived the encounter. And Sadira wasn’t around now to save my sorry ass.

Plummeting to the ground, I looked down to discover I was falling into an orchard. Damn it. Ready-made stakes. I lost sight of the two naturi, so the fire I had created instantly went out. Crossing my arms over my chest in a desperate attempt to shield my heart, I crashed through the smaller upper branches. My feet hit a larger branch, but I just as quickly slid off so that I landed across it. Something cracked. Whether it was my ribs or the branch, I don’t know, but only a moment later both the large branch and I were laying on the soggy ground.

I wanted to stay there awhile. Pain throbbed in my body in half a dozen places, and I wanted to collect my thoughts before adding to the network of cuts and wounds that crisscrossed me. But a pair of low moans pulled me back. The two wind naturi had crashed through a tree right behind me.

Using the trunk of the tree I’d fallen through to help me to my feet, I hobbled over to where the naturi were writhing on the ground. Their pale pink skin was now black and flaking off in bits of ash. Their wings had burned straight through, leaving them grounded. But then, we all knew they would never fly again even if I hadn’t destroyed their wings.

Their screams lasted for less than a minute as I once again encased them in bright orange flames. I felt no remorse, no regret, no doubt. The naturi intended to do the same to every other creature soon enough.