When she rose from her knees, weak but revived enough to continue, Mercy sensed someone trying to connect with her. Then, without warning, she heard Eve’s voice.
Daddy’s coming.
Eve?
A thunderous roar shook the ground beneath her feet as hundreds of warriors in blue uniforms stormed into the vast meadow, quickly taking over the battleground. Mercy gasped in horror when she saw the man leading the massive force. Judah Ansara. He had brought reinforcements. Hundreds of Ansara men and women, armed and prepared to fight. There was no way that the Raintree who were united together here at the sanctuary could overcome such a mighty force. But they could and would figure out a way to hold out as long as possible, until more Raintree arrived to continue the battle. Tonight. Tomorrow. They would fight to their dying breaths, every man and woman defending the sacred Raintree sanctuary. This land could never belong to the Ansara.
The fighting slowed and then gradually stopped altogether. Cael reappeared, and his warriors lifted him up and onto their shoulders. He flung his arm high into the air, his sword silver bright and dripping with fresh Raintree blood.
Judah’s troops formed a semicircle around their Dranir, a blue crescent moon of Ansara power. Then an elderly woman, at least as old as Sidonia, appeared at Judah’s side, apparently having teleported herself into the battle, which meant she possessed a rare and powerful ability. Mercy immediately sensed a wave of respect and awe surround the woman and knew that this was Sidra, the great Ansara seer.
The battle weary Raintree followed Dante and Gideon, congregating on the opposite end of the meadow. To wait. To watch. To prepare. Mercy made her way to her brothers as quickly as possible. Knowing their thoughts, she assured them that Eve was safe.
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.