The forest in the morning sunlight was, oddly, not a lot more comforting than it had been in the shadows. Panic raced through Adda's veins as she listened desperately for the sound of battle behind her. There were no sounds at all, of course. The Shifters had one thousand years of practice fighting the Quatori silently. Still, Adda hoped for any indication of how the battle was going. Any hope that she hadn't just lost everything. A feeling of dread had settled firmly upon her and, no matter what she did, she could not shake it.
That's because she will kill us as soon as she has what she wants.
Oh? You're talking to me now?
Vou's attention is elsewhere for the moment. Seeking for the crystal, actually, so that she can kill us faster. You won’t fool her for long, you know.
I know.
What is your plan, then? Certainly, you can see that running would have been the wiser course?
Adda decided to ignore Nex. If he didn't have anything constructive to say, then she couldn't waste her time arguing with him again. The problem was that he was right. She should have run. Then, at least, she might be free to act from the sidelines, without Nex's sister...Vou…threatening her every step.
But then, if she could sense Nex messing with the shadows the night before, perhaps running wouldn't have helped. Maybe they had already been doomed.
Adda thought, for a moment, about running now: she was faster and she had the advantage of wolf form. Surely, she might outpace Vou.
You might, but you won't outpace Morakamouth.
Shit. She had forgotten about him. With Nex's words, she couldn't help but turn her face upward and search the sky. She couldn't see the Dragon, but that didn't mean he wasn't out there, just waiting for a command to swoop down and crush her. What she needed was an advantage, one that the woman, Vou, wouldn't sense.
She thought about that. For whatever reason, Vou had possessed a human. There very well could be an advantage right there. Both Adda's senses and her physical abilities should outmatch hers, though Adda wouldn't count on winning a close conflict with her, the Quatori had too many tricks and she was no warrior. Adda could change form, and that would make her a great deal faster than Vou, but, as Nex had pointed out, the woman had the allegiance of Morakamouth, so she couldn't count on that, either.
But, Adda did have one thing that neither human nor Dragon would: her sense of smell.
Subtly, she raised her face, and inhaled deeply. Nex had fallen silent again, so she assumed that Vou was attentive once more.
A bird braved the oppressive silence, cheeping loudly and fluttering deeper within the brambles it occupied. Nothing else stirred, the smaller creatures hid within their burrows, waiting for the sense of danger to pass. Anything larger had likely vacated the area long ago.
Their scents still lingered, though. A small herd of deer, passing through. By the tinge of bitter fear mingled with the smell of sweat, they might have wandered so far to escape a predator.
Adda caught, briefly, the Alpha's scent, tangled with Scet's musk. She expected that, since they had passed that direction only a few hours before. There was, however, another scent.
Shifter. It was faint, and not out of place, given the camp nearby, but this Shifter was not one of Scet's new pack members. This Shifter smelled a lot like home.
Careful not to alert Vou, Adda changed course, working her way westward and away from the cave slightly.
What if she was putting more innocents in danger bringing Vou to them? No doubt the noble thing to do would be to lead her away from the scent. But, then again, what if they could help?
In fact, the more Adda pondered over the smell, the more likely it seemed that the old Alpha had a reserve force prepared.
Six knew the man was crafty, but she doubted he was as suicidal as the situation made him appear.
Vou changed her course seamlessly to match Adda's. How, Adda couldn't say. She certainly couldn't see, and though Quatori hearing was excellent, she shouldn't have been able to hear Adda, either. Shadows still swirled around her, flowing and turning like the currents in a river eddy.
The scent grew in strength, increasing Adda's nerves as she walked westward. Definitely more than a single lone Shifter. The smell was so obvious now she feared that Vou would catch on and dispatch her before they could reach whoever was out there, but it seemed her assumptions had not been wrong. She might be a powerful Quatori, but her human's nose was as dull and useless as Adda had come to expect. She did make a sound that could be interpreted as impatience. It took much of Adda's constitution to pretend to ignore it, and not cringe, or turn to assess whether she was about to lose patience with her wanderings. It wouldn't be long before she figured out that Adda was stalling.
Adda inhaled once more, sorting through the slightly different cues reaching her nose.
This was a larger group than she had anticipated, but what solidified her choice, confirming she had made the right decision, was the smell of metal. Not just Shifters, but warriors were nearby.
It was not the scent that alerted Vou, in the end, to Adda's treachery, but sound. The warriors, however they knew to be in the valley—and Adda noticed that, as she neared them, she approached the same location that she and Scet had been led through the mountain pass—were not soundless.
A yelp of surprise rang out as they closed in. Apparently, these new warriors weren't as prepared as Adda had thought. It was quickly silenced, but the damage was done. Adda's charade had been exposed.
She whipped around, better to see her doom coming than to have it at her back. Before she could face Vou, a wave of power slammed into her. Adda flew from the ground before smashing down, hard, several feet from where she had stood. The pressure of whatever the woman was doing became unbearable.
Adda grunted as the air whooshed from her lungs, her body flattened against the dirt and roots of the forest floor. Pain shot along her side from where she landed, and in her head, where Nex writhed. She could only manage the tiniest of inhales. It felt as though the weight of a Dragon sat on top of her. She was fairly certain that wasn't the case, but if she was about to be smashed into a puddle, it hardly mattered how the act was performed.
She pressed against the ground, struggling to resist somehow, to rise, but she found that her own muscles refused to obey.
“A trick, Nex?” Vou was behind her, but she had approached within reaching distance, and Adda was certain now, the way she knew the sun would rise in the east and set in the west, that her death was upon her.
The pressure increased in a wave. A physical blow, hard enough that she felt a snap, sharp pain racing through her chest. Her face, already aching from the fall, ground into the dirt, her cheek burning where the flesh was pressed so tightly she feared it would split.
“You haven't changed,” Vou continued. Her cold voice came from above, but Vou was not touching her.
The shadows, Adda realized, were the force she was contending with. If she focused past the pain and fear hammering through her chest she could sense their presence, their obedience. She tried once more to breathe, but dirt filled her nostrils, and, try as she might, she couldn't loosen her jaw from its tightly clenched position. She was going to suffocate. Which might, she reasoned with herself, be a more pleasant way to go than to be aware of being slowly ground to dust.
Still, Nex had been correct about her. She didn't want to die. Even now, in the throes of pain so intense, she would live, any way she could manage.
Cede me control, Adda...temporarily.
Nex's voice was strained, almost as if he, himself, were in as much pain as she was.
Now, Adda.
“Bargaining for your possession, Nex? The Dark Goddess should know one of her creatures is so desperately weak. It is your fondness for mortals that is going to end you, how is that for irony?” The woman crouched down, her posture a cruel mockery of sympathy and camaraderie. “I am going to put out your misery, Nex, and then I am going to turn each and every one of these mortals. They would do well as members of my army, don't you think?”
Her words were the turning point in Adda's mind. What choice did she have? As certain as she was that Nex must be evil, this woman was far more so. And it was no longer only Adda's life hanging on her choices. If Nex could counter Vou's attack, Adda might just save Scet and the pack, as well. She held on, one second longer, hoping that the nearby warriors might intercede. But either they would not step in for one such as herself, or they were not aid for the old Alpha as Adda had imagined. In the end, there was nothing left to do but die, or give Nex what he wished.
As soon as the thought brushed her mind, Adda felt a new pressure, this one more uncomfortable than painful. And then it was if she were being walled off from her own body, her mind trapped in a corner. She could still see the events happening, but she couldn't feel her limbs, or make any attempt to control them. But, blessedly, the pain was gone, as well.
Fear still thrummed through her. What could Nex do against such hatred and raw power? What would happen to her if he got them killed? Would she still move on to the next life?
Regret for her decision hit her hard.
Surprisingly, Nex managed to gain some control over her wayward form. If he felt the pain she had experienced, he didn't show it. He pushed off from the ground, an energy, like the power in the air during a storm, pushed out from her core, disturbing the shadows, forcing them back, uncertain.
“Your power cannot contend with mine,” Vou growled. “Morakamouth has provided me with Dragons to feed upon. When was the last time you took flesh?”
Nex did not answer, just continued to rise. Unlike when their positions were reversed, Adda could not sense his stronger emotions, but she guessed that, even though she, herself did not feel the pain of Vou's power any longer, he did.
The shadows moved, too. They writhed and slithered about the copse, reminding Adda of the darting fish she often spotted in the river near her pack's encampment, but some were pulled toward her. Power shimmered in the air before her eyes, and as the first of the shadows veered Adda's direction, more and more joined them, until the spot where she stood grew quite dark. Nex's shadow shield now rivaled that of Vou's, or rather, what Vou's had been, since she had dissipated hers to slam Adda into the ground.
That choking laughter sounded once more, managing to be both disgustingly wet sounding and vastly frightening at the same time.
“You cannot use shadows to hide from me. Your imprisonment has softened your mind.”
“I am not trying to hide from you,” Adda's voice rang out without any input from her. It was likely the strangest sensation she had experienced since...actually, if she thought about it, it was no longer that strange. The words, too, perked Adda up. They sounded smug and confident, nothing like the Nex that had been cowering and writhing in the back of her mind earlier.
The words barely had time to hang in the air when a force slammed into Vou, hard enough to make her step backward. Adda followed Nex's gaze, having no choice, of course. There, in the center of Vou's chest, was a thick shafted arrow...with black fletchings. Three more followed in quick succession, all landing within a finger width of each other.
Nex stepped back, pulling the shadows with him, one small movement at a time, until they were next to a very large trunk.
Vou screamed, not pain or death, but rage bursting forth with the sound. She whipped around to face the new threat, the one that she hadn't scented.
Shifters melted out of the surrounding forest, hard, dangerous looking Shifters. A familiar woman was at their head, dressed in leathers with a plethora of weapons tied to her body. Illaise. She held one of the bows, a black fletched arrow knocked and ready, but arrows were not going to bring down this foe.
Let me out, Nex, I have to warn them.
Adda could feel her head shake and a slow grin spread across her face.
You are too soft. That woman will kill us just as quickly as she is trying to dispatch Vou. And besides Adda, I am not nearly done with my turn yet.