The Dove Read online

He was still kneeling when Cayetano and his warriors came out of the jungle.

  At first, Cayetano feared Yuma had been wounded. But then the young warrior slowly stood and turned around.

  “It is done,” Yuma said softly.

  Cayetano came forward, holding his torch above his head. The look in Yuma’s eyes was haunting.

  “What happened? Did you see him?”

  “Yes, and he saw me.”

  “What do you mean?” Cayetano asked.

  “He was pointing at me and shouting as he fell.” The invisible grip around Yuma’s heart grew tighter. “I have been cursed.”

  Cayetano’s heartbeat skipped. “No. You cannot know that.”

  Yuma put a hand on his chest and shuddered.

  “But I do,” he said.

  His eyes rolled back in his head as he fell.

  ***

  Back in the palace, Tyhen suddenly threw her head back and screamed.

  Singing Bird’s heart nearly stopped as she grabbed at her daughter.

  “What’s wrong? What happened? What did you see?”

  Adam and Evan knew. They saw Yuma on the ground. They could feel the life leaving their brother’s body as surely as if it was their own.

  Acat didn’t know what was happening, but it was all too much. She began to cry, which only added to the chaos.

  Tyhen jumped to her feet and began issuing orders.

  “Yuma is dying. Adam, Evan, pick two guards and come with me. We don’t have much time.”

  Singing Bird reached for her daughter, but Tyhen slipped out of her grasp.

  “No, Mother, no! This is not for you. This is for me. If I don’t go, he’ll die.”

  Singing Bird was scared. “But this is dark magic. What if—?”

  Tyhen gave her mother a strange look. “Mother, did you forget? Windwalkers cannot die.”

  Singing Bird reeled. Not once had it ever occurred to her that Tyhen could have inherited any part of that. When she saw Niyol’s expression on her daughter’s face, she said no more.

  Tyhen ran out of the room with the twins at her heels. They stopped long enough to pick two guards to go with them, but she ran on without them. They caught up with her at the jungle’s edge.

  Adam grabbed her by the arm. “Stop, Tyhen. Let one of the guards go first with a torch. You can’t see where you’re going!”

  Tyhen could feel the life draining out of Yuma’s body and reacted in anger as she pulled away.

  “You’re wrong. I see everything! You are the ones who need light. Run fast or I’ll leave you all behind.”

  Chapter Two

  Cayetano was frantic. He had no power against curses, and his priests and the twins were too far away to help. He could feel Yuma’s heartbeat but it was too slow. Yuma was the son he would never have and the thought of losing him was frightening. If Yuma had only waited, this wouldn’t have happened.

  But the moment that went through his head, he let it go. If Yuma had waited, they would have been too late. The dark priest and his warriors would have already crossed the bridge and all would have been lost. Yuma had been willing to sacrifice himself to save her, and now they had to try and save him.

  Cayetano leaped up, pointing at his warriors.

  “Pick him up! We go back to Naaki Chava now!”

  The men gathered up their fallen friend, moving as quickly in the darkness as they could safely go.

  ***

  Yuma felt like he was floating. Even though the pressure on his heart was excruciating, the weight of his body seemed to have lessened. He tried desperately to focus. He needed to get a message to Tyhen. She had to know he would never leave her, not even if he walked in the spirit world, but he couldn’t focus so much as a thought.

  I am coming, Yuma. Wait for me! Promise you will wait for me!

  His soul quickened. Tyhen! He should have realized she would know. He wanted to assure her that he’d heard, but he couldn’t promise what she asked. He couldn’t bear for his last promise to be a lie. All he could do was let go, saving whatever strength he had left for the journey ahead.

  ***

  Tyhen’s legs were long, but it was fear that lent speed to her stride. Despite her warning that she didn’t need light, one of the guards had run ahead of her anyway with a torch held high above his head, and when it was necessary, he cleared their path with his machete.

  Adam and Evan ran behind her. In many ways this felt like the night they’d made their escape from Bazat, the man who’d held them prisoner in the next city over when they were children.

  They also knew Yuma was dying. They had already keyed in on the curse that felled him, but they were not healers. They could not save Yuma’s life no matter how fast they ran. It was the worst night of their lives.

  Tyhen was running without thought, moving as fast as she could without heed for the sharp leaves slicing at her face or the blood-sucking insects sticking to her skin. None of it mattered as long as she got to Yuma in time.

  While she was not old enough to begin the journey for which she’d been born, she understood the way of a man with his woman. She knew the emotion of physical pleasures from her dreams, and that she would never be whole without him. It was what kept her running. She had no idea how long they’d been in the jungle when all of a sudden his life force became so faint she could no longer feel it. The panic that swept through her was blinding.

  No, Yuma, no. Don’t go! Wait for me! Do you hear me? I can save you. Windwalkers do not die!

  The muscles in her legs shook and her lungs burned, but the silence horrified her.

  “Please, my ancestors… help me,” she whispered, and then put down her head and lengthened her stride.

  She ran past the guard with the torch, then she outran the light, moving blindly through the jungle toward the man who held her heart. When she began hearing drums and then singing, she knew the Old Ones had heard her cry. Now all she had to do was follow the sounds.

  ***

  Cayetano’s only focus was getting Yuma back to Naaki Chava, and the last thing he expected to see was Tyhen coming out of the darkness, screaming Yuma’s name.

  He caught her on the run.

  “Daughter! Have you lost your mind? Why have you come?”

  She pushed out of his arms. “Where is he?”

  “Here! He is here!” the warriors cried as they lay Yuma down.

  She grabbed the knife from Cayetano’s belt, ran to Yuma, then dropped to her knees. There was no time to explain anything to anybody.

  “Bring the light!” she cried and was instantly surrounded by the men carrying torches.

  She ran the knife across her wrist so fast that they didn’t see what she had done until the blood began to run.

  Cayetano dropped to his knees beside her and grabbed her arm to stop the flow, thinking she was trying to take her own life.

  “No! Don’t!” she screamed and yanked her hand away. She parted Yuma’s lips and let her blood flow into his mouth.

  Cayetano was shocked by what she’d done, and at the same time in awe. This night was a turning point. No matter what happened to Yuma, it was evident the girl he claimed as his daughter was a child no more.

  Tyhen leaned down until her mouth was only inches away from his ear, then she began to whisper.

  Yuma heard the voice before he understood the words. He could feel her breath against his cheek. It was Tyhen! Was he dreaming? Was he already dead? Swallow? Did she tell him to swallow? He wanted to ask, but the words were not there.

  Tyhen didn’t know she was crying or that the blood from the cuts and scratches on her skin were dripping onto his face. All of her focus was on his throat, watching for a sign that he had heard her and was swallowing the only thing that would save his life.

  She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.
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  “Please, Yuma, please. Swallow what is in your mouth. You are my heart. You are my life. I cannot do what I have to do without you in it.”

  But when he didn’t move, she fell forward on his chest, sobbing. If he died, she would die with him and fate could do what it wanted with her people. She would have no part of this battle of good and evil without him.

  ***

  When Yuma finally felt the liquid in his mouth, he automatically swallowed. The taste was slightly salty, metallic. He swallowed again and again until his mouth was empty, then waited to die, but it didn’t happen.

  Something was changing. The fist around his heart began to ease. He was no longer floating, and the weight of his body felt almost crushing. It took him a few more moments to realize something was on his chest, something he needed to move.

  When Yuma suddenly raised his arm, Cayetano let out a war cry that made Tyhen jump. She looked up just as Yuma’s fingers ran through her hair, and when he opened his eyes, she took a breath. If he wasn’t going to die, then neither was she.

  Yuma saw the bloody scratches on her face and her tear-swollen eyes and thought she had never been more beautiful.

  “Are you real?” he whispered.

  Her lips were trembling, but her voice was strong. “Yes, I am real, and you are going to live.”

  “How did you save me? I was cursed to die.”

  She leaned close to his ear again so that the warriors would not hear. “Windwalkers do not die.”

  He felt the moisture on his lips and touched it, then frowned when he saw the blood. Then he saw her wrist and his nostrils flared.

  “What did you do?”

  “You shed blood to save my life before I was born. I shed blood to save you,” she whispered, but she was beginning to shake.

  Between the distance she’d run and the blood she was losing, she felt faint.

  Yuma looked beyond her shoulder to Adam and Evan, who were standing behind her. “My brothers, bandage her wound.”

  Evan tore a strip from the garment he wore wrapped around his waist, then knelt beside her and used it to bind her wrist.

  As the men stood watching, they heard the snarl of a big cat, then the death cry of its prey.

  Cayetano frowned. This was not a safe place to be.

  “We go now!” he said.

  Tyhen stood abruptly, and then swayed on her feet.

  Cayetano grabbed her before she fell. “Rest easy, my daughter. I will carry you home.”

  “No, I cannot go,” Tyhen cried.

  Cayetano frowned. “What now?”

  “Take Yuma home, but I have to go to the bridge.”

  “There is no need. They are all dead.”

  “There is a need. Please, my father. The body died, but the spirit did not.”

  The skin suddenly crawled on the back of Cayetano’s neck as he contemplated dealing with a demon spirit instead of the man possessed by one.

  “We will take her,” Adam said abruptly. “She’s going to need us. Leave some guards here. We won’t be long.”

  Cayetano did not like it. He did not hide from his enemy, but he’d seen what it had done to Yuma and feared that kind of power.

  “Then I’ll wait here until you return. Both of you should carry her to the bridge. She’s too weak to walk,” he said.

  “No,” Tyhen said and strode off into the darkness with Adam and Evan behind her, carrying torches to light the way.

  Not a word passed between them as they returned to the gorge. Even before they reached the rim, they felt the evil. The sight of torches still burning among the dead bodies below was eerie, but it was nothing to the spirit hovering above the chasm. It was a ball of fire, pulsing like a beating heart and growing larger by the second.

  “Can you block him?” she asked.

  They nodded.

  “Then do it,” she muttered.

  The twins joined hands and focused as Tyhen lifted her arms to the moonless, star-studded sky.

  The spirit suddenly screamed and shot fireballs into space in an effort to dissipate itself so it could not be contained—but not in time. Adam and Evan put a mental wall around it, giving Tyhen the time she needed.

  She’d never done anything like this before, but it seemed her soul knew how. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Words came to her, then through her, as she began to chant. The drums she’d heard earlier rode with the wind that came sweeping down the gorge, fanning the burning torches below. Then it rose around Tyhen in a high-pitched whine, whipping her hair against her face and tugging on her clothing. She stood within it, chanting louder and faster.

  When it began to spin out into the space above the gorge, the twins were the only ones to bear witness to what happened next.

  One second the angry spirit was there, and then it was not. It had been sucked up into the maelstrom she had created and sent back to the dark where it belonged.

  When the drums stopped, so did Tyhen. She knew before she opened her eyes that it was gone.

  “It is done.”

  The twins remained silent. There was little to say about what they’d seen, but it was obvious what it had taken out of her to do it. Her body trembled from exhaustion. When she turned to walk away, Adam slipped a hand beneath her elbow as Evan took the other. It was time to go home.

  ***

  By the time they reached Naaki Chava, it was nearly sunrise and Tyhen was asleep in Cayetano’s arms. He’d waited anxiously for them to return, and when he’d seen her staggering into the clearing, he swept her off her feet and carried her close to his heart all the way home. He loved her so much; it had never mattered that she was not his own.

  “There comes Singing Bird,” Adam said.

  “She’s crying,” Evan added.

  “Thank you for everything you did,” Cayetano said. “Go rest. I will deal with this.”

  They nodded and spoke soothingly to Singing Bird as they passed her.

  From the frantic look on her face, Cayetano guessed Yuma and the others had already told her what had happened.

  “She’s all right,” he said quickly. “She’s just asleep.”

  Singing Bird was crying as she ran her hands all over her daughter’s body. “I was so afraid. I let her go. I let her go.”

  He didn’t often see Singing Bird’s tears, but when he did, they hurt his heart. “You did the right thing. We’ll talk later. Help me get her to her room.”

  “Yuma said Tyhen cut her arm so I called for our healer to come. She’s there waiting.”

  Cayetano didn’t know how to explain exactly what he’d seen. “She saved Yuma’s life with her blood. I don’t know what’s happening with her, but she’s changing.”

  Singing Bird stared at her daughter in disbelief, then shook off the shock and led the way to Tyhen’s room. Yuma was standing by the door.

  “You are supposed to be resting,” she said sternly.

  “Where is she?” Yuma asked.

  “Cayetano comes,” she said, pointing to the doorway.

  Moments later he appeared with Tyhen in his arms. Before she could explain that Tyhen was only asleep, Yuma staggered backward in shock.

  “What happened?”

  “She’s just asleep,” Cayetano said.

  Yuma wiped shaky hands across his face, and when he spoke it was a statement, not a question. “I will sit with her.”

  Singing Bird touched his arm. “You are still weak. You need to—”

  “I will sit with her,” he said again and walked into the room behind Cayetano.

  Cayetano looked at Singing Bird and then shrugged. “It is beginning. Let him. If we don’t, when she wakes up, she’ll go find him.”

  Singing Bird took a deep breath. She’d known since the night Yuma saved her from Bazat that this day would come. Tyhen was
without experience, but she trusted Yuma would not cross a line until the time was right. She turned around and led the way into her daughter’s room.

  The healer, Little Mouse, stood up the moment they walked in, and when Cayetano lay Tyhen on her bed, the healer went to work, cleaning the cut on Tyhen’s wrist, then smearing the wound with an ointment she’d brought. She placed two medicine leaves on it and then bound it with a strip of clean cloth.

  Singing Bird touched the tiny woman’s shoulder as she spoke. “Thank you, Little Mouse.”

  “Do I stay?” she asked.

  “No, but do not go down to your home in the dark. You will sleep here in the palace until morning.”

  Little Mouse nodded. She knew where the location of the servants’ quarters because she’d slept there before and scampered out of the room.

  Yuma got his sleeping mat and put it at the foot of Tyhen’s bed, then sat down and crossed his arms as if daring someone to make him move.

  Singing Bird sighed. “Call me if you need me.”

  Yuma nodded.

  Cayetano glanced back as they walked out. Acat, the woman who had been Tyhen’s caretaker since birth, was settling down on her sleeping mat and Yuma was on guard. It should be enough.

  ***

  Tyhen slept all the way to sundown. She woke up as Little Mouse was dabbing medicine on the cut in her wrist, then sat up and grabbed her hand.

  “Yuma?”

  Little Mouse pointed at the man asleep on the floor at the foot of Tyhen’s bed.

  Tears welled, blurring Tyhen’s vision.

  “He is well?”

  Little Mouse smiled. “He is well.”

  Tyhen sighed, then leaned back and let her resume her task.

  “Will this mark me?” she asked.

  “Not on your face. You are already healing. Maybe here,” she said, pointing to the cut on her wrist.

  Tyhen felt the tears rolling down her cheeks as she closed her eyes.

  Windwalkers do not die.

  There was so much knowledge she’d been born with, but this was the first time that fact had been tested. Obviously Windwalkers healed fast, too.

  Little Mouse smiled as she left, passing Acat who was on the way in.