“Why is the energy getting stuck?” Shelly asked. I looked up to find her staring down at Cynnia, who was frowning at me.

“Because she’s a nightwalker,” the naturi softly murmured. The pounding of the energy and the crackle of the fire made it nearly impossible for me to hear her. But then it wasn’t her words that unnerved me so much, it was her tone. “She doesn’t have an outlet for the earth magic to flow through. The fire magic, that little bit of who she is, seems to be drawing it in, and it has nowhere else to go but to leave her through fire. She needs an outlet for the earth.”

“How?”

Instead of answering, Cynnia knelt before me and reached over to one of the knives in its sheath on my waist. She slowly unsnapped the safety strap and placed a restraining hand on my shoulder as she pulled the knife out of its sheath. She met my gaze, her wide eyes swimming with fear. “Please don’t let them kill me,” she whispered, then plunged the dagger into my heart.

Just as quickly, she jerked the knife out again and let it and me fall to the ground. I hit with a heavy thud as new pain radiated through my entire body. The fire around us was extinguished with a sudden whoosh, and both Stefan and Danaus were on Cynnia in a flash, while Shelly stood in the background gasping for air. I lay on the ground, feeling the blood flow out of me and into the grass beneath my chest, and with it, the power of the earth finally flowing out of me.

I turned my head enough so there was no long grass sticking into my mouth. “Don’t hurt Cynnia,” I murmured, speaking as loud as I could. Luckily, I was dealing with creatures with superb hearing.

“She tried to kill you!” Stefan argued, sounding like he was standing somewhere above me.

“She saved me,” I said, wincing as Danaus helped turn me over on my back. A puncture wound to the heart couldn’t kill a nightwalker, but it could definitely slow us down. Nothing short of decapitation or the total removal of the heart would kill a nightwalker. As well as immolation, but that fate wasn’t for me.

Laying in Danaus’s lap, I closed my eyes and focused on the different energies I could now feel in, around, and through me. There was the soul, or so-called blood energy, that made up my existence. It was cool and calming, filling me as it mended the wound in my heart. Danaus’s powers also flowed about me, cautious and worried, but not seeking entrance into my weakened frame. He hovered on the outside, waiting for an invitation, or at the very least, a sign that I wasn’t healing as he expected.

And I could now feel the earth’s power, warm and light, flowing up from beneath me. The energy pulsed around me and through me as if it had its own heartbeat. The power seemed to flow out of me just as quickly as it flowed in, as if recognizing that it had wandered into a dead creature.

“Mira?” Stefan demanded in his cold voice, drawing me back to the present and the dilemma at hand.

I opened my eyes to find him holding Cynnia by her hair, a knife blade pressed so close to her throat that a thread of blood was streaming down her neck. I paused for a moment to wonder if we still needed her alive. She had fixed my problem with the earth magic, and I had a feeling that Shelly could now teach me to use that earth magic. I also suspected that keeping Cynnia alive wouldn’t provide me with enough leverage over Rowe to stop him from performing the sacrifice. For that, I had to rely on Nyx.

“I wasn’t trying to kill you!” Cynnia cried when I had yet to move. “You needed a tie to the earth. Nightwalkers lose their tie when they are reborn. Your allegiance is based solely on soul magic and the bori.”

Beneath me, I felt Danaus flinch inwardly at the mention of the bori, but he didn’t move or say a word. The hunter and I still had a few things to discuss about our respective origins, but now was not the time.

“So, blood straight from my heart poured into the earth opened my connection to the earth again,” I said, letting my eyes fall shut as I tried to gather my strength. The wound had not been too deep and for the most part had already healed. Unfortunately, the earlier fight, the tug-of-war between the two energies, and the blood loss, had left me exhausted and in need of a fresh meal. “It was a lucky guess,” I murmured, one half of my mouth quirking in a smile.

“It was not a guess!” she gasped.

“Stefan, you can release her. She didn’t kill me,” I said in a weary voice. I opened my eyes to find Cynnia rubbing her neck, her right hand covered in my blood.

“It wasn’t entirely a guess,” she admitted with a sour look. “I knew you needed a way to give your blood back to the earth. We needed to open the gateway. I was just hoping it wouldn’t kill you in the process.”

I choked on a laugh, allowing my eyes to fall shut. With a sigh, I scanned the area around me out of habit, keeping a so-called eye on everyone during my weakened state. I realized something odd then. I felt Cynnia move, sensed her stepping away from me and approaching Shelly, putting a comfortable distance between herself and Stefan.

I wanted to scream for joy and laugh like a madwoman. Instead I had to settle for squeezing Danaus’s hand and biting my lower lip as I pulled myself into an upright position with my eyes still closed.

What? he demanded in my head.

I don’t know what you’re talking about, I denied, but the words came across as far too giddy.

You’re too damn happy about something.

Possibly that I’m still alive.

No. Tell me, or I’ll find it on my own, Mira, he said, threatening to go rummaging around in my thoughts. I wasn’t sure if he actually had the ability to do such a thing, but in my weakened state I wasn’t willing to put it to the test.

I can sense Cynnia over by Shelly, I admitted, pointedly rubbing my closed eyes.

Danaus remained silent for a couple seconds, then his hand tightened on mine in surprise. You can sense her? Without my help? Can you sense any others?

I don’t know. I’m too tired and this may be a temporary thing related to these specific circumstances. Then I opened my eyes and turned my head to look at the hunter, a grin growing on my pale, blood-streaked face. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could?

Bertha was covered in blood when she arrived at Ollantaytambo a few minutes later. The nightwalker looked pale in the faint starlight, while her eyes glowed a deep blue. Her pretty blond hair was stained with blood and her clothes had a variety of new rips and tears.

“We’re being attacked by the naturi. They’re trying to take the lodge from us!” she shouted before her feet touched the ground in front of Stefan. A second nightwalker landed directly behind her, looking the worse for wear. It was easy to surmise that the battle for the lodge was not going well.

With Danaus’s help, I pushed to my feet and walked over to where the three nightwalkers stood. “What’s happening?” I demanded, releasing my hold on his arm so that I was forced to stand on my own. I was weak, but I needed to muster what strength I had left for the fight we still had ahead of us.

“They started attacking shortly after we arrived at the lodge,” Bertha explained, her eyes briefly flitting to the bloodstain on the front of my shirt before meeting my gaze again. “They’ve tried to set the place on fire twice and we’ve managed to stop it, but they’re wearing us down.”

“We have to abandon the lodge,” interjected the second nightwalker. “Sunrise is only a couple hours away and we have no way to secure it during the daylight hours. We’ll be slaughtered while we sleep.”

I glanced over at Danaus for a moment, knowing that he would be willing to defend me while I slept. He had protected me during the daylight hours in the past, but the illustrious hunter was no match for the horde of naturi waiting for us. That explained why only eight naturi had been sent to see what we were doing at Ollantaytambo. Their main concern was destroying the contingent sent to the lodge.