CHAPTER 10

Blinking in shock at all Adira had read, she let the book fall open to its center and saw a jewel-encrusted dagger, tucked inside its case and hidden by the clever way her mother had cut away the centers of some of the pages. She took the weapon in her hands, turned it slowly, checked out its weight, and tried to imagine herself using such a tool to harm another living being. But the thought made her shiver. She could not believe she could ever do it.

Also, there was more for her to try to understand. More, so much that her mind could barely grasp the enormousness of it.

"Immortal," Adira whispered. And she knew, she already knew, it was the truth.

Carrying the sack over her shoulder, her face concealed within the hood of the dark cloak her mother had hidden away for her, she left the only home she had ever known, for the very last time. There was but the silver of moonlight to guide her as the moon moved from its darkest void toward its first quarter. The thin slice of the gleaming white crescent was barely enough to light her way. She saw no one as she trod down the dirty, and worn-down path on foot, more alone than she had ever been. But she should have sensed the presence. Adira was too wrapped up in sorrow and overcome by grief to use her senses. Even as a mortal, she would have felt the danger, she thought later, for a witch is more attuned to her senses than most. And since she had revived from a state of death, her senses were even sharper than before. They seemed to grow stronger and more intense with each passing hour.

But for some reason that night, she shut them out and focussed only on her loss. Her sadness. The feeling that she had lost the only person left with whom she had a special bond, a connection.

There was, Adira realized, one other, now. Another to whom she felt a powerful bond. An unexplainable link. A man whose touch made her heart flutter like the madly fluttering wings of a captive butterfly. A man... she must never, ever see again.

Those thoughts, those feelings, clouded her mind, dulled her senses, or at least made her ignore them. And then the cloaked figure stepped from a small hedge of trees, into the path in front of her, and a harsh voice whispered, "I knew you would come back here."

Adira came to a halt, narrowing her eyes to see his face, but it was hidden just as hers was, by the folds of a dark hood. Her dagger was still secured inside the book, tucked deep in the bag that hung on her shoulder. She thought of it now and wished she had been wiser in heeding her mother's warnings. And yet part of her still believed this stranger to be no more than a simple mortal. He could not know who she was, much less what she was. Everyone here believed her to be dead.

"Who are you?" Adira asked him. "What do you want of me?"

And in a flash, a dagger appeared in his pale, contorted hand, a dagger so like her own that the sight of it took her breath away. "Not so much," he said irritably. "Only your heart."

It could not be! But it was true, Adira realized as he lifted the blade and came closer and she backed away. Another immortal, one who wished to kill her. The horror of it was suddenly real, far more real to her than it had been as she had read and scarcely believed the words of her mother's letter. Adira glanced around her desperately, but the snowy, twisting road and a few lightless, silent cottages were all she saw. No one would come to her aid. A cold breeze blew snow into her eyes and pushed at her hood, driving it down and away from her face, revealing herself to him. Though Adira realized now he had already known who she was. He had the advantage then over her, for she had no clue as to his identity.

She walked backward, her eyes firmly fixed to the blade, the way it gleamed when it caught a thin beam of moonlight. "I do not quarrel with you," Adira whispered, fear making her voice stiff and low. "Leave me alone, I beg of you!"

His laughter came then, low and frightening. Harsh and hoarse, that sound that made goosebump rise on the nape of her neck. "That is not the way this works, young one. A shame you will not live long enough to learn the rules of this particular game."

Suddenly he lurched forward, swinging the blade in a deadly curve. Adira jumped back, gasping as she felt its razor-sharp tip brush past her stomach. She slipped, because of her damp slippers and numbly cold feet clumsy on the snow-covered road. She nearly fell but balanced herself in time. And he surged again. Adira sidestepped this time, hauling the sack from her shoulder and swinging it at him with all her strength. It caught him from behind and sent him stumbling forward. He went to his knees, and she turned to run for her very life. But within seconds she knew he was after her. She heard his steps keeping pace, gaining on her. She also heard his breaths grating in and out of his lungs as they ran. It seemed his lungs would burst if he pushed himself any harder. He seemed weak. It must have been desperation then, that drove him on. Adira's own heart pounded in her ears, and her breaths escaped in great puffs of silvery steam.

A tree's branch loomed before her, and she saw it only a second before, or she would have run into it. She had to duck low, and as she did, she gripped the branch, pulling it forward with her, and letting it go when it would bear her weight no more. It snapped back, slicing the air, and scattering snow, and she heard him grunt as it hit him. She thought he went to the ground again, but she could not be sure.

The woods along the roadside were her only hope. She could not fight him, whoever he was, and no matter how weak he might be. Adira stood no chance of winning, for she knew nothing of the battle. And he had swung his blade with the skill of long practice. And, well the woods had been her refuge all her life. She knew them as well as she knew the cottage where she had lived. And she took to their protection now, running as fast as she could, never tripping or falling once. She used to boast to her mother that she could traverse these woods blindfolded. Now she was forced to live up to the claim.