“You can’t win this time, nightwalker,” the naturi taunted, coming at me with another flurry of blows that I barely managed to block.

I wanted to make some witty comment, but as I tried to take a step backward to avoid another blow, my right foot became stuck. Unable to look down, I tugged at it, to find that something had wrapped around both of my ankles. I was trapped where I stood. An earth clan naturi had arrived at the party.

“I’ve got it, Mira!” called Shelly from behind me.

“No! Stay with Cynnia!” I shouted back, trying to keep my focus on the bastard in front of me who was trying to cut my heart out.

“Cynnia?” he whispered.

I didn’t question the distraction. With a quick stab, I plunged the short sword into his heart, catching him by surprise. He dropped to his knees before me, and I relieved him of his head.

“Mira!” Danaus shouted. I turned to find him struggling with a naturi. He had the creature by the wrists, fighting to keep the dagger from being plunged into his chest while another naturi approached from behind. We were being overwhelmed.

“I’ve got it!” Cynnia shouted, to my surprise. There was no warning, no chance to stop her. A bolt of lightning crashed from what had been a clear sky only a few moments earlier and instantly incinerated the naturi sneaking up behind Danaus. It surprised the naturi who was struggling with the hunter. He broke off and tried to take a few steps away, but didn’t get far. A second bolt of lightning struck, burning the naturi to a crisp in an instant.

I turned to find Cynnia on her hands and knees, struggling to breathe. I ran over and knelt beside her, with Shelly on the other side.

“Is she all right?” Danaus called, heading toward us.

“I’ll take care of her. You just get it covered!” I shouted, waving him off. Eight naturi, my ass! There might have only been eight naturi in the immediate area, but they’d taken the time to awaken the surrounding wild life on their way to Ollantaytambo.

Behind where I squatted, I could hear a mix of grunting and the crunch of heavy stones being dropped on one another. The pile was building, but they needed more time to finish. I also needed Cynnia back on her feet if she was going to be able to help defend our position. However, at the moment she was on her hands and knees, heaving up her guts. Shelly stood silently by, holding Cynnia’s hair out of her face while rubbing one hand gently up and down her back.

“Are you hurt?” I demanded when Cynnia finally drew in a cleansing breath, wiping her mouth with the back of her dirty sleeve.

“I—I killed them,” she replied in a shattered voice. “I killed my own people.”

I knew that it was a sad commentary on my own existence that my first thought was to tell her to get used to it, but I wisely kept my mouth shut for a moment. Nightwalkers made a common practice of killing their own kind. So did humans. But not every race was quite so heavy into genocide as we were.

“You saved Danaus’s life and I thank you,” I murmured, causing her to finally look up at me. “Were you hurt casting that spell?”

“Yes,” she hissed, as if suddenly noticing what had to be searing pain. We looked down to find that her wrists were burned and blistered where her manacles touched her flesh. The iron hindered their spell casting, but apparently it didn’t necessarily stop it under the right conditions. A good thing to remember.

I looked up in time to see more naturi reaching the top of the plateau. Our brief rest was over and I needed to get back to the business of defending my compatriots. “Keep your head down and keep each other alive. Danaus and Stefan are almost done,” I said, hoping that I was telling the truth.

I wobbled as I pushed back to my feet. Exhaustion chewed at my limbs and weighed on my shoulders. I was still pulling soul energy from the village and a little from Shelly in an effort to keep the earth magic from entering my body, but it was becoming a losing battle. The fireballs I was maintaining around the plateau to light the battle had grown in size. They crackled and snapped, as if they had developed souls of their own and were angry.

Danaus? Are you almost done? I asked, mentally reaching out to the one companion that I had grown to depend on in more ways than I cared to count.

Soon.

I may need your help.

It was time to let the earth magic in. I was tired of fighting it, and at the moment, it was more powerful and more plentiful than the soul magic I was desperately clinging to. Waving my hand, the large balls of fire hit the ground and rolled to the main path up to the ruins. As they traveled down the path, glomming onto whatever creature they passed, I found myself humming “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” as if the balls of fire had become my broomsticks to command. My head fell back and I stared up at the canopy of stars reappearing now that Cynnia had stopped casting her weather spells. Laughter welled up in my chest as I listened to the naturi scream. It almost made up for the night of torture I faced at their hands centuries ago. It almost made up for the fact that I knew I would be destroyed tomorrow night by either the naturi or Jabari. Almost, but not quite.

I turned to find that the mountain of stones the two men built had a base more than ten feet wide and was more than eight feet high. Only Stefan could now pile rocks on the top, since he could take to the air.

“Are there any naturi in the area?” I called, a waver threading its way through my voice as I fought to contain the energy writhing within my body, searching for an outlet. I had thought to extinguish all but two of the fire balls that Danaus and Stefan were working by, but the flickering flames were the only way I could keep the power from the earth appeased. Otherwise, it would eventually tear me to shreds.

Danaus shook his head as he wiped his brow with the back of his hand, breathing heavily from the exertion. I was willing to take a wild guess that he had tried to keep up with Stefan. Yes, Danaus was fast and half bori, but Stefan was a nightwalker that was nearly an Ancient.

Do you need me? he asked, taking a step toward me even before I answered, but I shook my head, waving him off. I had to find another way to control the power or it would destroy me. I couldn’t rely on Danaus or Jabari always being around to save my ass when I found myself in a situation I couldn’t control.

As I stepped toward Cynnia and Shelly, I leaned forward, my arms wrapped around my middle. The grass under my feet curled and turned black. I was a walking flame, and I needed the naturi’s help to find a way to extinguish myself.

“Help me,” I gasped, kneeling on the ground before them. “I can’t stop it. The power. It’s inside of me. Running through my brain.”

“Let it go, Mira,” Shelly said, placing a hand on my shoulder, but quickly pulled it away and stumbled back a step. I knew she must have felt the charge of energy burning away inside of me, searching for an outlet. She shook her hand and stared at me in wonder.

The power continued to grow inside me, and the trees surrounding the plateau burst into flames like dry tinder too close to a crackling fire. A circle of fire sprang up around us, reaching more than six feet into the air.

“Mira!” Danaus called, sounding worried. I could barely feel him on the periphery of my mind, waiting until he had no choice but to intervene. In the past he had pushed his own powers into me, which in turn pushed out the powers of the earth. But considering the energy and pain burning through me then, I wasn’t sure that he would be strong enough to help me take control again.

“You have to release the energy, Mira,” Cynnia calmly said. “You have to send it back out of your body and into the earth.”

“Don’t you think I’ve been trying to do that?” I shouted, my voice broken and fractured under the weight of the growing pain. “I push against the energy with everything that I’ve got and my only outlet is to create fire, but it’s not enough. I would have to set the world ablaze for it to finally be enough.”