Something a bit more masculine than a cuddly mouse with wings. “Jushua, there are things I know about that your small warrior brain will never be able to understand. I can bring you to your knees without thought.” Deki dropped the sword then moved quicker than a spirit-blur. Jushua found his weapon yanked from his hands and imbedded in the hard stone of the castle yard—inches from Nalik’s feet. Jushua himself ended up face down on the ground, his older brother sitting upon him. “Yield, little Jushie?” “If the two of you are finished playing, we have business to take care of.” Jushua looked up at Nalik and was disconcerted for just a moment at how much the reborned one looked like the original soul possessor. Did he have Kilan’s thoughts and memories? Did he remember Kilan giving Jushua his first sword? Training him in the wheat fields that had surrounded the castle that they had called home? Or was it just the physical visage the male possessed, and just a fraction of Kilan’s soul? He did not know how it had been managed. How had his twin Kennera, goddess of the Gaian Dardaptoans, managed to rebirth their siblings’ souls? They had found two more reborn siblings among the Gaian Dardaptoans who had been relocated to the demon world months ago—Havalana the Healer, and the Laquazzeana healer girl Bronwen. Jushua did not know how it was he was supposed to feel about the females. They were not the sisters he had once known and loved—but they were. Dardaptoans believed in the notion of recycled souls. It was something Jushua and his own father had discussed eons ago. But that someone of their Kind had managed to somehow force particular souls to be reborn because of the love that someone held for the rebirthed spirit—that had never been done before the dark sorcerer’s attack. And as far as he knew, save for Kennera and Nelciana Nellana, the Gaian Druid Goddess that Jushua had once been betrothed to, it had not been done since. His mother had embraced the reborn souls with all the fervor that only a mother with a lost child could. Havalana? Possessed the very spirit of the sister Jushua had buried beneath the butterfly tree. How was he supposed to think of that? “What business have we?” Deki was more aware than Jushua apparently. Why was his head so clouded? He looked at Deki and saw the smirk. “What, Jushie? Think you I would not use all the weapons I possess in battle? Forgot you what father and Kilan had taught us?” His brother held out a hand and Jushua took it, the gesture a sign of respect and trust. The fog on his mind immediately cleared. Dekimos had learned a lot in his five plus thousand years hidden in another world. Jushua did not know exactly where his brother had been all those years, and had yet to ask. Dekimos had made it very clear that he was not ready to divulge all of his secrets. And Jushua had to respect that…