I couldn't believe my ears. "You forgot about that?"

"It's been nine hundred years."

I couldn't remember what I had for lunch yesterday, so I couldn't throw much blame at him.

It took a lot of wincing and gasping, but I pulled myself to my feet. I didn't think anything was broken, but plenty was bruised. "So how do we open it?"

"We don't."

I froze. "We what?"

"They're meant to protect mages from invading mages. They can't be opened, at least not by any way that I know of."

"Would Mychael or Justinius know a way?"

Dad shook his head. "The more power they throw at those wards, the stronger they'd get."

I looked down the hall and asked an unpleasant question. "Why did the door pick now to close?"

"These doors don't fall unless triggered."

"Someone told it to."

"Yes."

I didn't need any extra time or three guesses to know who was playing with the switches. And to Sarad Nukpana it was exactly that-play.

The lightglobes in the ceiling above us flickered, dimmed, and died.

I hated tunnels.

Chapter 20.

"Sarad knows we're here."

I didn't need Dad to tell me that. The skin between my shoulder blades was doing a fine job. It was itching like crazy. It only did that when something sharp and steely was aimed at my back-or when a crazy goblin was stalking me. It was pitch damn dark, so it could have been either one or both.

Though my little pessimistic voice informed me it wasn't both. Sarad Nukpana wanted me alive, very much alive. That meant no steel, which left stalking.

I summoned a lightglobe, the kind Vegard had taught me how to do, with the blue lightning inside that would fry anything it came in contact with-or anyone I threw it at. It bobbed eagerly by my shoulder.

Sarad Nukpana had to know the tunnels were full of Guardians hunting him. His lair was about to become his prison. He had no time to waste getting the Saghred under his control. To get the Saghred, he had to get me first. But with that iron door and wards crackling behind us, and a dark, one-way tunnel in front of us, I suddenly wasn't all that sure who was the prisoner and who was the jailer.

My breathing was absurdly loud in my own ears. "Dad?" I whispered.

"Yes?"

"We're going to find Nukpana or he'll find us."

"Either's a safe assumption."

"You were the Saghred's keeper for a long time."

"Too long. What are you getting at, Spitfire?"

I shot him a surprised look, and smiled. Leave it to a dad to know just what to say to his scared-witless daughter.

A grin lit his boyish face. "What? I can't call you what Ryn does? I think it suits you."

"When we find Nukpana or he finds us, do you have any suggestions other than let the bastard have it?" It took me a few seconds, but I managed to swallow. "Something sneaky that doesn't involve the Saghred having its way with me?" I tried a smile that no doubt looked sickly. "Because I'm not that kind of girl, know what I mean?"

Dad slipped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. "I know exactly what you mean. You're not like that nor will you ever be."

"Mychael said pretty much the same thing."

Dad gave my shoulders a gentle squeeze. "Mychael's a wise man; he knows what he's talking about."

And I knew what I had to do. Find Sarad Nukpana and try not to get my body possessed by the goblin-or my soul taken by the Saghred.

Two against one, the goblin and the rock against me. I didn't factor Dad into the equation, because when push came to shove, there was only so much help he could give me. This was my battle; no one could fight it for me.

Come and try to get me, goblin.

I took a deep breath and tried in vain to see through the dark. "Let's go."

The formerly well-lit and welcoming tunnel went on for entirely too long. Dad and I weren't running, but we were moving at a good clip and I'd traded daggers for one of my goblin swords. If anything came at me, I wanted to slice a vital chunk out of it before it got close enough to do the same to me. Dad had an elven sword. We stayed close enough to each other for protection, but far enough away to keep an accident from happening if one of us got too jumpy.

Then I heard it, the soft scraping of steel on stone, then silence. We stopped, listening. It came from a side tunnel up ahead. A breath later, something was being dragged, something heavy, like a body. Then silence again. I shot a glance at Dad, his lips narrowed into a grim line. He nodded once.

They knew we were here; we knew they were here. No use trying for quiet. That body being dragged could be Piaras, Talon, or even Tam. My jaw clenched. If it was, that body dragger was mine.

Dad's hand locked around my arm like a vise, his other hand making an arcing motion in front of us. He wanted to shield us first. I was all for that.

Within seconds, we had the best shield I'd ever sensed protecting us. We ran toward the dragging sounds and the shield kept pace about five feet in front of us. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it. Just as long as the murderous son of a bitch in the dark ahead of us could feel my blade through it.

A body appeared on the edge of our light, and a few feet beyond lay another. The attack had been quick and obviously deadly. It was who the victims were that surprised me.

Goblins. Khrynsani temple guards, to be exact.

What the hell?

I whirled around, my lightglobe keeping pace with me. Anyone who would kill a pair of Khrynsani might not be my friend, but at least we shared some of the same goals. No one was there. Just two dead goblins lying on the stone floor, their blood pooling around them.

And drops of blood leading away from them. I caught Dad's eye, then glanced down at the bloody trail. He saw and swiftly moved to cover my flank. I tracked the drops a few yards down the tunnel. They ended, just stopped, as if our Khrynsani killer had either stopped bleeding, which was highly unlikely, or had vanished into thin air.

That was entirely too likely. I knew from unpleasant experience that not all air was thin.

With Dad covering me, I bent to get a closer look at those drops. Goblin blood was slightly darker than the elven or human variety. Though in this light, I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

A body slammed into me from behind, knocking me to the floor, and putting us all in the dark. Keeping a lightglobe going took concentration, and right now all my effort was on skewering the man I was rolling around with while staying unskewered myself. My attacker was wiry and strong. A hand grabbed my wrist and slammed my knuckles hard into the floor, once, twice, three times. My fingers surrendered without asking me, and my sword clattered out of reach. Dad swore. He couldn't stab anything without risking injury to me, so he spat a quick conjuring spell, and a flash of light flickered and quickly spun itself into a lightglobe. I twisted, catching my attacker with a sharp knee to the ribs. He grunted in pain and surprise, mostly pain.

I knew that grunt.

"Piaras?" I blurted.

The kid froze with his forearm against my throat. His expression was nothing short of stunned amazement.

"Nice attack," I managed past his arm.

Piaras scrambled off of me until his back hit the far wall, dagger still clenched in his fist, amazement turned to fear. The kid looked scared to death.

"Don't worry," I quickly assured him. "No harm done."

Scared turned to extreme caution. "I felt . . . I thought you were . . ." Piaras's chest rose and fell with quick, shallow breaths.

The Saghred.

Dammit.

I sat up and straightened my doublet. "I stink like a soul-sucking rock, don't I?" Battle-hardened Guardians didn't want to be anywhere near me. What did I expect from a cadet, even if that cadet had known and trusted me for years?

Or used to trust me.

I got to my feet. "The Saghred's the only way I can find Sarad Nukpana," I explained. "It's not controlling me; I've just loosened my hold a little so it can track him."

Piaras was holding his dagger arm tightly to his chest. His tunic sleeve was slashed and bloody.

"You're hurt."

"It's just a cut."

"You're bleeding." I started toward him. "Let me-"

"Raine, no!" Instantly, Dad was between us.

Keeping me from touching Piaras.

A retort died on my lips. I knew why he'd done it. With sick realization, I knew.

I'd almost killed Piaras. I could have done worse than kill Piaras.

The Saghred had been quietly waiting. Knowing that to take care of that wound, I would have to touch Piaras, and if I touched even one drop of Piaras's blood . . .

The Saghred would have taken him.

I was the walking Saghred. Piaras's bleeding made him a sacrifice waiting to happen.

I backed against the far tunnel wall, into the dark where monsters belonged, my breathing ragged.

Piaras used his legs to push himself up, his back sliding against the wall while cradling his arm against his chest. "It's only a cut," I dimly heard him tell Dad.

Dad cut a strip of cloth from his own undertunic and used it to bandage Piaras's arm. Mychael could have healed it, closed the wound, stopped the bleeding. But Mychael wasn't here. Dad was. He'd been the Saghred's Guardian and bond servant for centuries. He knew the danger. If he hadn't dived under that door, I would have found Piaras and I would have . . .

"Thank you." Horror at what nearly happened choked my words. "I'm so sorry, Piaras."

His fear turned to confusion. "I don't understand."

He knew he didn't want the Saghred touching him, but aside from a natural revulsion of the Saghred's evil, he didn't know why.

I told him.

When I'd finished, I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. "Good instincts, kid. You knew you were dealing with a killer."

"You're not a killer," he said vehemently.

"But the rock is. And right now, we're one and the same." My throat constricted as I spoke. "You need to stay away from me." I stared at my dad for a long hard moment. When I spoke, my words were clipped and hard. "Once Sarad Nukpana is dead, contained, confined, or whatever the hell it is I have to do to him-we're going to find a way to separate me from this damned rock."

Dad smiled with a baring of teeth. "Know it, Daughter."

Piaras's mouth fell open. "Daughter?"

Oh crap. That was the problem with secrets-remembering who not to tell.

With a pair of dead Khrynsani at our feet and probably more on the way here, there wasn't time for the extended version. "It's long and complicated, but yes, he's my father. I'll explain later. Have you seen Sarad Nukpana?"

Piaras managed to drag his eyes away from my dad. "Only a glimpse."

"Was he solid?"

"Hard to tell; he was wearing a cloak." Piaras glanced down at the dead goblins and looked a little pasty.

Dad shone his lightglobe on the bodies. One across the throat, the other through the heart.

"You killed them." I didn't ask it as a question. Piaras had every bit of Sarad Nukpana's sword skills, and had obviously put them to lethal use.

"I had to; I had to get Talon out of there."

Oh hell, Talon. "Where is he?"

Piaras pointed at the wall at my back. "In there. These two were guarding him."