“Try again.”
I jumped at the sound of my teacher’s harsh voice, gripping my sword tight and blinking back tears. I sniffed, trying to stay quiet, and resumed my stance.
“Wrong!”
I jumped again, unable to help myself. No matter how much I expected to hear the censure, it stung every time. With a deep breath, I focused on the move to come. If I didn’t master this, my parents wouldn’t permit me an audience with them. Showing them what I’d learned was the only opportunity I had to see them.
“Again!”
I resumed my stance, then lunged forward, sweeping out with my sword. Before the movement was even over, I knew that I’d done it improperly.
The door slammed shut behind me, even worse than the sound of my teacher shouting.
He’d left.
The key clicked in the lock.
My shoulders drooped and I sobbed.
I was worthless. No way I could do this.
A sweep of blue light caught my eye, rushing in through the open window.
Draka.
The Phantom dragon landed gracefully beside me and enveloped me in her wings. Comfort and warmth flowed through me. Not as good as the rare moments when my mother embraced me, but good enough.
As good as I was going to get.
I woke with a gasp, my chest feeling empty and heavy at the same time. Darkness blinded me. I blinked frantically until my vision adjusted. Pale moonlight filtered through the windows, illuminating the artistically rustic furnishings in the lavish bedroom.
Roarke’s house.
I was in Roarke’s house. I was an adult. No longer the child in my dreams.
I pushed a shaky hand through my hair, which was damp with sweat, and sucked in calming breaths of cool air.
Had that been me in my dream? Sure felt like it. I’d never had a dream of my childhood before.
So was that why I’d always been so good with a sword? I’d been practicing since I was a child? I hadn’t been very good back then, though. It had been something that my parents had wanted me to accomplish, but I couldn’t.
My heart ached as yearning for my parents swept through me. It didn’t matter that my memories hadn’t been particularly good. I still wanted to see them, desperately. I’d lost some of that desire over the years as I’d grown to love Cass and Nix, my new family. But this felt just like when I’d been fifteen and awoken with no memory. I longed for my family. Wished for them.
Tears prickled at the backs of my eyes, but I forced them away.
There was no time to be weak or wallow in self-pity.
So what if my parents had locked me in some horrible tower and made me practice with a sword until I had blisters on my hands? And that now, I still wanted to see them more than anything?
Focusing on that wouldn’t fix the problem ahead of me.
Had they even loved me? asked the mean little voice inside my head.
Draka had loved me, though. I tried to focus on that. But I hadn’t seen the Phantom dragon since she’d appeared to me last week when she’d helped me kill the Ubilaz demon. Was she okay?
Fates, I hoped so, even if I didn’t get to see her again.
At least I had one figure from my past on my side. And my deirfiúr. Roarke and I had agreed to go to Ancient Magic in the morning and present our problem to Cass and Nix. Hopefully they’d have some ideas. Between all of us, we’d come up with something.
Right?
Chapter Six
The wind was bitter cold when Roarke and I stepped out onto his front porch the next morning on our way to Ancient Magic. Sunlight sparkled through the trees, and the rush of the river cut through the silence of the morning.
I glanced around at the forest, but saw nothing besides the big trees that surrounded Roarke’s place. We hurried down the steps to the drive where his car was parked about ten yards away. Dreams of the car’s ferocious heater were warming me from the inside when the snapping of a branch made my hair stand on end.
I whirled around, expecting a bear.
Instead, I saw a demon.
Stupid me, expecting a bear. I knew what hunted me, and it wasn’t bears.
The demon was a tall, slender variety that would look harmless if not for the fact that it had six-inch claws that dripped with a neon yellow substance.
Poison. No question.
Its yellow gaze searched mine, as if trying to decide why I didn’t look like an Ubilaz demon but possessed its power. Finally, it hissed, “Abomination!”
“I’m getting so sick of that word.” I sneered at him. “What, you don’t like me?”
At least, they really didn’t like the idea that I’d taken another demon’s power.
“Get to the car,” Roarke said. “I’ll take care of it. You can’t risk killing it and adopting another power.”
As much as it annoyed me, he was right. Until I knew exactly what this demon’s power was, I didn’t want to steal it. I sure as heck didn’t want to become poisonous.
I backed toward the car, keeping my gaze trained on the demon. I was so intent that I almost didn’t notice the other monsters who crept from the woods.
All demons. Two dozen of them. No, more than that.
“Roarke!”
“I see them.”
The demons must have congregated during the night, hiding behind trees and waiting for us to exit. I adopted my Phantom form, letting the icy magic flow through me.
A tornado of black mist whirled around Roarke, and his magic surged on the air. A moment later, he burst off the ground, his dark gray wings carrying him into the sky. He was grace and power incarnate. He could handle this.
But more demons slunk from the trees.
More, more, more.
So many different species, so many different types of magic. The signatures were intense—everything from the smell of rotting eggs to the feel of slime, slipping between my toes.
Roarke swept through the air, picking up demons and hurling them into trees so hard that their bodies broke like matchsticks. He was so fast that he was nearly a gray blur, streaking through the air. Their claws never had a chance to land. Screams rent the air as he worked, demon bodies piling up left and right.
But no matter how fast he killed them, more appeared, creeping toward us from the trees. It was a nightmare.
My palms began to sweat, and my muscles ached to take action.
Watching Roarke fight the demons alone was torture. Just standing here, waiting to be rescued, was the worst. I should be helping. I was the one who’d caused this problem.
Soon, there were three demons only twelve feet away. Roarke was taking care of the rest, but he was outnumbered. There were just too many. While he was breaking the neck of one massive demon, four others jumped upon his back.
No!
I searched his attackers frantically for poison claws but saw none, thank magic. But they were still overpowering him.
We needed help. Where was Draka?
“Draka! Pond Flower!” I cried.
But neither dragon nor dog showed.
Roarke held his own against the four—no six, now—demons who had piled onto him, but there were still too many dropping down from perches in the trees.