A reverent silence fell over the valley as Raintree faced Ansara on the battlefield.
Mercy stood between Dante and Gideon. The two women with her brothers-Lorna and Hope, she had learned from reading their thoughts-stayed a good ten feet behind them. Mercy could not deny her fear. She might die today, but she feared far more for Eve than for herself. If she and her brothers did not survive this battle…
Dante made no move to initiate an attack. The Raintree continued waiting and watching, mentally preparing, psyching themselves up for what lay ahead.
Cael gestured for his men to lower him to his feet. Once on the ground, he marched toward Judah like a cocky little bantam rooster, at least four inches shorter than the Ansara Dranir. Brother faced brother.
“Hail, Dranir Judah,” Cael shouted.
Cael’s followers repeated his shout. Judah’s warriors stood at silent attention.
“We fight together today, my brother,” Cael said. “To avenge our ancestors.”
Sidra laid her hand on Judah’s arm, her eyes beseeching his permission to speak. With his gaze unwaveringly linked to his brother’s, Judah nodded.
“Choose this day whom you will serve.” Sidra’s voice rang out with loud clarity, as if amplified a hundred times over, her words heard by every Ansara and Raintree within the boundaries of the sanctuary. The old seer lifted her hand and pointed at Cael. “Do you choose Cael, the son of the evil sorceress Nusi? If so, you follow him straight to hell.”
When Cael lunged toward Sidra, Judah raised his arm in warning. Cael halted.
“Or do you choose Dranir Judah, son of Seana and father of Eve, the child of light, born to the Raintree princess and yet born for the Ansara tribe to provide us with the gift of transformation?”
Though Cael bristled and cursed, Mercy barely heard him over her own heartbeat, which drummed maddeningly in her ears. Sidra had shared Mercy’s deepest, most carefully guarded secret with Ansara and Raintree alike-with Dante and Gideon. Her brothers glared at her, shock on Gideon’s face, rage on Dante’s.
“Tell me this isn’t true,” Dante demanded.
“I can’t,” Mercy replied.
“Eve is half Ansara, the daughter of their Dranir?” Gideon asked.
“Yes.” Mercy answered Gideon, but her gaze never left Dante’s face. “When I met him, I didn’t know who he was.”
“How long have you known?” Dante asked.
“That he was Ansara? Since the moment I conceived his child.”
“Why didn’t you tell me…tell us?”
The sound of Sidra’s voice echoed off the mountains, spreading like seeds in the wind, capturing the attention of all who heard her.
“It is your choice,” she said. “To live and die with honor at your Dranir’s side, or be destroyed along with this madman who claims a throne that is not his!”
Shouts of allegiance rang out as the Ansara chose sides. Not one blue uniformed warrior broke formation, and only a handful of Cael’s troops deserted him to join his brother’s army.
“What’s going on with the old Ansara seer?” Dante asked. “It’s as if she’s instigating war between the brothers.” He looked to Mercy. “You don’t seem surprised, which leads me to believe that you know what’s happening, why the Ansara created this lull in the battle to iron out family differences.”
Mercy realized that she did know, at least to some extent, what was occurring within the Ansara camps. “The brothers and their warriors are probably going to fight to the death.”
“And you know this how?”
“How I know doesn’t matter,” she said. “All that matters is that we have to be prepared to fight the winner.”
Within minutes, Mercy realized she had underestimated Cael’s madness. The vision of brother battling against brother, Ansara renegade warriors against the Ansara army, that she had expected altered dramatically when Cael commanded his forces to attack the Raintree instead.
Taken off guard, Dante quickly recovered and started issuing orders, first to Mercy and then to his warriors. He told Mercy to search, find and heal as many of their wounded as possible, then send them back into the battle.
“If we have any hope of holding the sanctuary until reinforcements arrive, we’ll need every Raintree warrior left alive,” Dante said.
As the battle raged around her, Mercy, who occasionally had to use her sword for both protection and attack, combed the battleground, searching for Raintree wounded. In all she found nine, including Echo, who had been frozen in place, and Meta, whose left arm had been hacked off. With the heat from her healing hands, Mercy thawed Echo slowly and drew the frostbite from her body. Before Mercy recovered from the healing, Echo left, rushing back into the battle.
Mercy managed to save eight of the nine wounded, including Meta, whose arm Mercy reattached, but she warned her not to use it during the battle.
“It won’t be completely healed for at least twenty-four hours,” Mercy cautioned.
After expending enough energy to work her healing magic on nine people, Mercy’s strength was greatly depleted, so much so that she could barely stand. She desperately needed rest, hours of recuperative sleep. But there was no time.
As she continued her search, her legs grew weaker and her arms felt as if they weighed fifty pounds each. Her hands trembled. She staggered, then fell to her knees. She clutched her sword tightly but felt her grip softening.
Hold on to Ancelin’s sword! Don’t let it go!
Try as she might, she couldn’t keep her eyes open, couldn’t fight her body’s urgent need for rest.
She toppled facedown onto the ground, Ancelin’s sword slipping from her fingers. She could hear the clatter of battle and smell the scent of death all around her as she lay there in her half-conscious state, drained and defenseless.
She had to find cover, a place to hide away until she could re-energize. Forcing her eyes open, she reached to her side until her fingers encountered her sword. Clasping it loosely, she dragged it with her as she crawled toward a stand of trees less than fifteen feet in front of her. She made it halfway there before a booted foot knocked Ancelin’s sword from her grasp, then stomped on her hand, flattening it against the ground. As pain radiated from her hand, along her arm and through her body, Mercy gazed up into a set of cold gray eyes.
Cael Ansara’s eyes.
He lifted his foot from her broken hand, then grabbed her hair and yanked her to her feet. Realizing that in her condition she wouldn’t be able to fight him, she sent out a psychic scream for help. It was all she could do.
Pressing her back against his chest, he slid a dagger beneath her chin, resting the sharp blade across her throat. He pushed his cheek against hers, and his hot, foul breath raked across her face as he laughed.
“Judah’s beautiful Raintree princess.” Cael licked her neck.
Mercy cringed.
“Too bad we don’t have time for me to show you that I’m superior to my brother in every way.” He thrust his semi-erect sex against her buttocks.
If only she could muster enough strength to command Ancelin’s sword to come to her, she might be able to-
“Release her!” The commanding voice came from behind them.
Before Cael managed to turn around, the hand he held to her throat sprung open, and his dagger fell out and dropped to the ground. Startled by the appearance of a man who had been nowhere near them only seconds before, Cael momentarily focused on Mercy’s rescuer and not her. While Cael was distracted, she directed her core of inner strength on one objective-freeing herself from his tenacious hold.
Just as she managed to break away from Cael, Judah reached out, grabbed Mercy’s arm and pulled her to him. Cael growled with rage as Judah shoved Mercy behind him.
Where had Judah come from, and how had he gotten here so quickly? Mercy asked herself. The only explanation was teleportation, an ability she hadn’t realized he possessed. But why had he appeared, and not Dante, whom she had beckoned with her silent screams?