Hunters (Spirit Blade Part 1) (2 page)

Nadia clamped her jaw and forced her feet to stay in place against her desire to carry her to the girl's side. While full demonlords could not be injured by any mortal weapons, half-bloods healed quickly from far more severe wounds than what the girl bore.

But Je'Surana had never endured such pain, living a life surrounded by demonlords who accepted her and never having to struggle to survive.

Nadia pushed away the sympathy invading her mind.

"Now, watch and learn." Lord Je'Kaoron turned those cool eyes on Nadia.

A chill raced down her spine as she realized what he intended. The inherited
dispirit
power of Adepts didn't work on demonlords. There was a reason they were the lords and ladies of Derandria; no one was more powerful than the shapeshifting rulers of the world. And now, Nadia had no weapons to defend herself, if it would do any good.

Her heart pounding, she stepped back at his approach into the center of the fighting ring. Light cast down on them from windows high above along one side. Like many of the structures of Acropa Je'Gri, most of it had been carved from the mountainside, and this had only one side facing the sun.

"I'm sorry about Je'Surana," she said.

Je'Kaoron's eyes narrowed slightly, but he said nothing.

Nadia shifted aside, and he followed with a menacing casualness that made the hair at the back of her neck stand up. If he was upset at her stabbing Je'Surana, Nadia would be lucky to survive this encounter.

Now, she wished she held the dagger of souls. Its darkness had kept her from touching it since returning to Acropa Je'Gri after it took the life but not the spirit of Je'Rol—she hadn't used the spell on him but she hadn't intended to kill him in the end. His death had been an accident for which she had grieved. The dagger had proven successful in inflicting suffering on a demonlord, the only weapon she had ever known to have that ability. In this fight, it might have been her only chance to win, and she didn't even have that.

Je'Kaoron stalked her around the fighting ring, the soft tap of his steps like the ticking of a clock counting down to her death.

She had never fought demonlords. Rather, she had always shown respect to appease them, hiding her disgust…until she met Lord Je'Kaoron. He wasn't like others.

His first strike came as a combination of a kick she avoided and a punch that caught her shoulder and sent her stumbling around in time to avoid his next attack.

In a small opening, she hammered her fist into a pressure point on his side. He grunted from the sudden exhalation and took a moment to catch his breath.

"I didn't want to hurt her," Nadia said in the hopes that she could appeal to his sense of decency. Never before had he attacked like this. Rather, he had provided solace after the death of Je'Rol, lying as a tiger all night frequently to watch over her and accompanying her in the gardens. He had stopped her from taking her own life, always there in either form with the weight of his presence.

And he had been the voice of reason to Je'Rekun's plans, carrying secrets and sharing only what Je'Dron wanted his brother to know and setting up Je'Rekun's defeat and Je'Dron's return to power. He opposed the killing of humans, a belief promoted by High Lord Je'Dron through the domain.

But the lethal temper of demonlords was well-realized. Although he now stood in human form, Lord Je'Kaoron was no human. The pale skin and white and black hair tied back from his face were reminder enough of his tiger form. Like High Lord Je'Dron, he was royal Je'Gri, his primary coloring being an almost silvery white with black stripes in his natural tiger form. Like other demonlords, when he transformed into a human, his hide became his clothes in whatever style he chose. Tall and elegant in their human forms, the demonlords had at one time camouflaged themselves to hunt humans as prey.

But they were far superior in many ways.

He attacked with claws that raked her armor.

She spun away and bluffed to catch him again, but where she expected him to be, he was not.

In the instant it took her to realize the truth, she was yanked back against him. An arm clamped around her torso while sharp claws pinched into her throat.

Panic held her frozen and unable to catch her breath.

"My lord—" Her whisper cracked the silence of the hall.

The faint sound of a swallow reached her ears.

"Father, please..."

Slowly, the claws retracted, but the arm around her remained.

In her ear, a barely audible voice said so close that his warm breath blew across her cheek, "We are being watched." His arm loosened around her. Curious to confirm what she suspected, she turned to face him. He stared down at her, but not with the haughty expression of most demonlords when regarding their human subjects. Rather, his face softened to its usual gentle but perplexing expression.

"Thank you, Huntress." He tipped his head and slid past her to return to Je'Surana, whom he scooped up in his arms amid her wincing and eliciting small grunts and gasps from holding her breath in pain.

Uncertain what to say or do—sorry that she had hurt Je'Surana but not daring to interfere with Je'Kaoron's lesson—Nadia watched him carry the girl away in silence.

From the shadows came the soft ruffle of fabric. Fighting instincts sharpened from the calm descending and she whirled to search the direction from which the sound had come. "Who's there?"

Shadows shifted beneath an arch between pillars and reached out for the dagger still on the floor.

"You should have struck a hand higher," a man said, his voice familiar. "Punctured lungs, kidneys or liver. It would have been far more effective."

The hooded figure that stepped from the shadows with the dagger held between black-gloved hands stopped at the edge of the fighting floor. The demon-head with the arrows through it on his bracers matched her own, the arrowheads shimmering green from the inlaid
imera
stones. Another demon hunter, and she was pretty certain who it was but wanting to be sure before she knocked him to his back.

"She's half-blood, Huntress." He sneered the title in derision.

He might as well have declared war.

Fury and confidence boiled over to smother her fear. "Kill a half-blood and face the judgment of a demonlord who cares for her? I would think a fellow hunter would realize the death sentence of such an act."

"It is our sworn duty." He approached and held out the dagger to her. "A job hazard we should gladly risk."

"To give the demonlords one more reason to hate us?" She snatched the dagger from between his hands.

He snorted and lifted his face to let the light under his hood. A fuzz of black hair covered his jaw and encircled his lips.

"No, thank you. I would rather not fall in High Lord Je'Dron's disfavor," she said.

"And you are not in disfavor after killing his son Je'Rol, Nadia TuFalan?" His taunting burned like acid through her, exposing old wounds and the hatred stuck to them.

He should never have re-entered her life.

Pretending not to care, she hurried to the bench where she had left a long cloth to wipe away her sweat after the workout. Except instead of herself, she used it to wipe the blood from the dagger, the blood of the naive and loving Je'Surana whose father could be tempered while being harsh in his lessons to her.

"You did not return to the temple."

So, they had noticed her absence from the gathering. She was but one of hundreds of Adepts. But she was the only woman who had completed the demon hunter training. Other women turned to the sorcery side of Adept training, a more intellectual pursuit than the physical nature of demon hunting, or they remained as teachers and scholars. As she was the only known woman demon hunter, her absence would stand out.

"I was occupied with the Je'Gri."

"Yes, I see."

The teasing in his voice burned through her. She whirled on him, the dagger at his throat while he made no move to stop her. Rather, he wore a grin that matched the gleam in his eyes beneath the hood. She should slit his throat, but something in his eyes stopped her, as it had long ago, when she had feelings for him, before he betrayed her.

"You see nothing!" she hissed.

He put his palms up in a conciliatory gesture.

Slowly, she lowered the dagger, disliking that he hadn't conceded, which meant that she hadn't yet convinced him that nothing more took place between her and Lord Je'Kaoron. That was what he accused her of, and what she fought within herself.

"Why are you here?" she snapped and returned her attention to the dagger.

"The
Kodre du Noctir Te'Mea
sent me."

Her heart stopped. The council of elders that oversaw both sects had sent someone for her. Not only
someone
but
him
.

"Why?" she asked cautiously.

"They want something, a dagger in your possession."

She stared at the dagger in her hands, but it wasn't the one to which he referred.
Sect du Maistri Te'Mea
had gifted her with a particular dagger and a spell. She hadn't understood its purpose until Lord Je'Kaoron had explained that it stole the souls of its victims, including half-bloods, upon the drawing of blood when the spell was used. She had been told the spell would end the life of anyone once the dagger drew blood, a half-truth. She hadn't noticed the blade growing in power with each half-blood soul and becoming more dangerous. She hadn't known to be aware of it, but since Je'Rol's death, she had noticed the darkness and the relief of not wielding it.

"It's not ready." An excuse only. It had nearly incapacitated a demonlord, something none of their weapons had ever achieved.

"They don't care. They want it."

Nadia sheathed the cleaned dagger at her waist. "I'm not finished with it."

She lied. She wanted nothing to do with it, but if the elders wanted the spirit blade that badly, they must have had a reason, and that reason couldn't be good. For too long, the Adepts of Te'Mea had talked of dethroning the demonlord clans ruling their world. In her training to harness her
dispirit
abilities, she had heard rumors hinting of talismans that might overpower the demonlords. Then, she had been all for it.

Now, after realizing that not all demonlords sought to use humans but, rather, desired to co-exist as beings deserving of the opportunities life afforded, she wasn't sure. She had seen a different side to demonlords and half-bloods in the last few months, flipping everything she had believed on its head. Even Te'Mea, the founder of Adept training, had been a demonlord. Granted, her objective had been to teach humans to protect themselves from swarms of natters, but that couldn't have been her only purpose in training the first sorcerers to use what they could of demonlord magic.

"Can it destroy a demonlord?" he asked.

Nadia hesitated, keeping her back to him to avoid revealing her face and he dread of revealing the truth. She looked about but saw no hint of any of the tigers or humans. "Not yet."

Steps tapped close behind her and he came around her side to block the light. "Then I will finish the task."

She bristled and straightened, her eyes level with the top of his broad shoulders. Too often, she had to prove herself. Despite her achievements, they never quit questioning her capabilities. "It is mine to command."

A smile curved up his lips, his face shadowed under the hood with the light behind him. Anger boiled up inside her to see that smug expression. How dare he of all people question her! How dare he return after all those years.

"It was your assignment. By order of the
Kodre
—"

"No! It is my
right
. It was a gift of the sorcerers.
Serae
Emon bestowed it upon me as a weapon to defeat all demons. Who are you to take it away?"

He tipped his head, the shadows deepening beneath his hood, which he threw back.

"Kaelen Dormivou..." Hatred burned through her and she did all she could to keep from thrusting the dagger in her hands through his heart. It might not have been the spirit blade, but it would do the job on a human; besides, he had proven he didn't have a soul after what he did to her.

His lips twitched into an almost smile, but those dark eyes revealed a hint of something sad or regretful, as well he should be.

"I have nothing to say to you." Emotions tangled inside her into a confusion of how to react. Rather, she turned to leave. The Je'Gri should never have allowed him within the city.

A hand on her arm stopped her not a step away, but a spark of anger gave her the strength to yank it from his grasp. "Do not touch me," she growled and spun away.

He grabbed her again and pulled her near. "Listen to me, Nadia," he said in a low voice. In an ancient tongue taught only to Adepts from the book of Kirian, he said, {"Forget us. The
Kodre
seemed...anxious to get that blade. Several others were presented at the gathering but none satisfied them. Yours is the last not examined."}

She pulled her arm away, afraid of the implications of his words. {"It will remain that way until I feel it's ready."}

{"How will you know?"}

{"The demonlords will know."}

He sucked in a breath. {"They are the last who should know."}

{"They are the ones who revealed the truth. That blade possesses the souls of many half-bloods. It didn't only end their lives when it drew blood. It stole their spirits. That blade is dark magic. It is cursed."}

{"It is strong."}

{"No."} She stepped back, shaking her head. He didn't understand. He hadn't felt the darkness whispering through him when wielding the dagger. He obviously had never wielded such a blade. {"It is evil."}

Before he could stop her again, she hurried away. The dagger was hidden, but that didn't mean it couldn't be found and stolen. It had nearly taken the life of a demonlord, even if he had already been weakened. It wouldn't take much more to make it capable. That could never happen.

In the quiet of sleepless nights of grieving, she had realized the full implications of that dagger and understood; it had fed her hatred of Je'Rol, blackening her heart against the truth that he had left to protect her from himself twelve years ago. In the battle with Je'Rekun's forces five months ago, Lord Je'Dron could have let it slowly steal her spirit; instead, he had helped her see that she could reach Je'Rol even in the blood rage. In the days after, Lord Je'Dron's compassion and Lord Je'Kaoron's support in her grief had shown her how wrong she had been about demonlords, as Je'Rol and Je'Surana had shown her that half-bloods deserved a chance at life. The dagger would destroy all of them.