“We’ll stay back from the shore—we’ll just watch from the cove,” I added, not meaning it—but he didn’t need to know that.
Ragnhild looked in the direction of the ocean. The sky was getting steadily lighter—we were running out of time.
“You stay back,” he hissed, “and when we return to the castle, I want your word that you’ll tell Ashbik the truth—that this was all your idea.”
“Agreed!” piped up Yelena brightly.
Jeez. Of all the times for the bossiest person in the world to stay silent.
“Didn’t fancy arguing our cause?” I muttered in her ear as we continued to ride.
“You were doing perfectly well on your own. I didn’t want to remind him that he had a helpless human girl on his mission,” she replied smugly.
Helpless? Hardly.
“Will you two be quiet?” Julian snapped.
I shut my mouth, realizing that I was pushing my friend to breaking point.
We carried on riding alongside Tergor, now moving at a slower pace as we approached the cove. I glanced over at the guard a couple of times, but he didn’t speak to us. Beads of sweat formed on his temples, and his ruddy face grew paler as we continued our journey. He was scared, I could see it.
Why aren’t I?
I held onto Yelena with a steady grip, my breathing regular, my skin without sweat or goosebumps. We were traveling to the cove, the place where I’d almost lost my mind with fear time and time again. Where I’d been possessed, taken hostage by forces so dark and evil that I could barely believe they existed. I wondered if I was done with fear—my body, and my mind just couldn’t fit any more in. Somehow I’d become immune.
“Are you afraid?” I asked Yelena, thinking that it might not just be me.
“Why?” she snapped, affronted.
“I just want to know—honestly. Are you?”
“I’ve been afraid since the day I got here. Doesn’t mean I have to turn and run away from it.”
Her reply surprised me. I had thought that Yelena was so bossy and bull-headed that maybe all of Nevertide’s horrors had just passed her by, that she’d taken it all on the chin. It reminded me of something my dad had said—that true courage was when you accepted your fears, but did whatever you were afraid of anyway. I guessed Yelena was just courageous. Maybe—though I didn’t want to admit it—she was just a little braver than I had ever been. Obviously, I would never actually tell her that.
Ragnhild signaled for the troop to stop. We all came to a halt, Julian struggling slightly with the bull-horse, until Tergor leant over and gave a hard yank on its reins. We all began to dismount—we would be traveling the rest of the way on foot.
“You and you”—Ragnhild pointed at two of the guards—“check that the coast is clear up on the cliff. If it’s safe, the rest of us will travel down the passage.”
The guards nodded, and hurried off.
“The rest of you, wait here until I say so.” The lieutenant glared directly at the three of us. I nodded meekly, not in any hurry to defy him again.
“Ashbik is going to demote me,” he muttered. “Then Tejus is going to lynch me.”
As I glanced over at the lieutenant, a thought occurred to me.
“Is that why you came down to the cove, telling Ruby that Ash had sent you to keep her safe?”
The lieutenant glowered.
“How do you know about that?” he shot back.
“Ruby told us.” I rolled my eyes. “Everyone thought you might be an Acolyte.”
“What?” he asked. “I only went along because I thought if I saved Ruby or Hazel it would guarantee my position—I’ve wanted to be lieutenant of the Hellswan army for as long as I could remember.”
Julian shook his head, clearly thinking along the same lines as me—Ragnhild had nearly got himself banished, never mind demoted.
“Maybe just tell the truth in the future,” I muttered.
Ragnhild looked like he was going to chastise me, but at that moment, the two guards appeared back from the cliff. They looked more puzzled than frightened—maybe nothing had happened?
“There’s definitely something down there,” one of the guards explained breathlessly, “but you’ll have to see it for yourself…I can’t see any obvious danger—though the sea, it’s still frozen.” He shook his head, disbelieving. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“All right.” Ragnhild nodded his thanks. “We travel down to the cove. Is everyone ready? Weapons to hand. You three”—he looked down at us with thinly veiled distaste—“you go last. And if I tell you to get out of there, you do what I say, understood?”
“Understood,” Julian replied firmly.
“Then let’s head out.”
Ragnhild led the procession, following the rocky path down to meet the shore. I could see the extent of the earthquake’s devastation—though it had left the actual cove alone, the cliff had collapsed in some parts, and the passage, carved over time into the rock, had become much more narrow. We followed him in single file, Julian leading the three of us. Yelena reached back and grabbed my hand in hers, squeezing too tightly.
Footsteps were made as quietly as we possibly could, with only the occasional snap of a dried twig or the slight slide of loose gravel.
Soon Ragnhild had passed through the passage, and we followed him out onto the curve of the cove.
“I can’t see anything.” I nudged Julian for him to move out of the way as Yelena dipped back behind me.
Julian didn’t answer me. His eyes were fixed ahead. At first I thought he was looking at the frozen ocean—the tidal wave suspended in mid-air, looking as if it would crash down and drown us at any moment. Without waiting for him to move, I pushed my way past him—and stopped.
Where the Acolytes had been chanting on the shore, there was now a thing. A black heap a few feet high. Out of the top a dome rose—it was made up of the same semi-translucent material as the barriers the sentries made, but inside it, sparks of electricity ricocheted off the surfaces like lightning. It looked like there was a storm inside the dome, and in the center, one thick rope of energy—blindingly bright, all the colors of the rainbow shooting through it.
“What the hell is that?” I breathed.
“I have no idea,” Ragnhild replied, glancing down at me with an unreadable expression. “Nothing good.”
“It looks like a…conductor or something,” I whispered. “But where’s the energy coming from?”
“The bodies.”
Ragnhild looked back at the dome. I was confused—what bodies? I crept closer, squinting against the light of the dome. Oh. The black heap. It was made up of the bodies of the fallen Acolytes…maybe even Queen Trina too, though I couldn’t make out any individual figures. But the dome suddenly made sense—the ‘lightning’ was being sucked from the dead, and pouring into the larger conductor in the middle…but where was it going? Down into the earth?
Ragnhild’s hand landed heavily on my shoulder, making me jump.
“No further, Benedict.”
I stood still.
“We’ll go around the edge. I want to get a closer look at the stones,” Ragnhild continued in a low tone.
I nodded, following the rest of the guards and Julian as we quietly crept around the edges of the cliff, heading toward the sea. As we passed the dome, I could see that the dead Acolytes had been piled up in an almost perfect circle…who had done that?
As we neared the frozen sea, I started to feel uneasy.
There’s something here.
It wasn’t the dome, but something else, coming from the sea. I couldn’t even begin to describe it, or really understand why I was feeling the way I was—I just knew that there was something, something, waiting for us by the water.
“Ragnhild,” I hissed, “I don’t think we should go any further.”
He looked back at me, his face a ghostly white. He could feel it too. I turned to Julian. His expression was tortured, like he had just come face to
face with some unspeakable fear. It was the stuff of nightmares, like when you thought there was something looking out at you from the closet in the middle of the night, and though you couldn’t see anything, you knew it was there—waiting, watching you in the dark.
“We need to go back,” I whispered urgently. “We need to go.”
I took a step back, and my foot crunched on something. Looking down, I saw one of the stones. It must have rolled out from the sea bed. I bent down to get a closer look. It had broken in half like an eggshell. I thought maybe I had done that, but when I looked toward the sea bed, none of them remained whole any more. They had all opened up.
“The stones…th-th-they’ve opened,” Ragnhild stuttered, coming to the same realization as I had.
The air seemed to stir, as if we’d woken something…
“Now—we leave now! It’s coming – something’s coming!” I called out to Ragnhild, no longer worried that my voice was too loud. I didn’t care about anything apart from getting as far away from this place as possible.
I yanked Yelena’s arm. She hadn’t moved since we’d come close to the sea bed. I would drag her away from here if I needed to. We all started to run. Blood pounded in my head, blocking my eardrums to any other sound than the beating of my heart. I screamed as I felt a jolt from behind me, but it was just a guard picking me up—running with me and Yelena in each arm, back to the passage.
Jenus
He had awoken.
Something had happened, finally. I had been afraid that Queen Trina and the Acolytes had not been successful—that they had met their end before their task was done. The land had been so silent, the guards and sentries almost jubilant, as if they had conquered what evil there was in Nevertide.
Fools.
In the darkness of my cell I could hear him whispering to me once again. The promises he had once made to Queen Trina were now offered to his most loyal servant—still alive, still dedicated to his ultimate rise. Promises that would leave me blessed by all his power—to share in his glory, and his reign.
“What do you ask of me, benevolent lord?” I muttered in the darkness, over and over again, too low for the pot-bellied and mead-soaked guards who surrounded me to hear. They wouldn’t understand my worship anyway. They worshiped nothing but themselves, and the false emperor, and my brother — a being even more wretched and broken than myself. I had been offered salvation in the form of the entity, a gift my brother would never receive.
Come to me, my son, the voice would whisper, come to me, and taste a freedom you have never known.
Images wound their way through my mind with the soft caress of a lover. Me, sitting on the imperial throne, staff in one hand, a decree of my rule in the other. On my head the crown, gold and opulent, finally placed on the scalp of its rightful owner. Women who looked like angels, dancing around me in attendance, their silks and gauze brushing up against my skin, their eyes pools of lust as they beheld me in all my power and greatness. And then my brother, the greatest prize of all, sniveling at my feet, begging for my mercy—clutching the ruined, blood-soaked body of his once-human love, her eyes glassy in death, staring up at the stars, her body cold and ready for the grave.
All this will be yours, Jenus of Hellswan, all this and more…
“What do I do?” I cried out, rattling the bars of my cage. I was trapped—tricked by Queen Trina in her last hours—left to the mercy of my brother and the rest of the armies of the six kingdoms. I supposed she’d thought they would end me when they saw me in the Seraq kingdom, the fool. She underestimated the mercy of men—Tejus’s childish hope that one day I would love him again.
But what was I to do? The bars of my cage seemed unbreakable, and even with the roaring drunkenness of the guards who shared this dank hole with me, they watched me closely, their eyes never leaving me. They ensured that the barriers that surrounded me, along with the bars of my cage, never let up.
The only time they had left me, and the barriers had come down, was at Tejus’s request, so his pet monster might feed off me. But even then, I was helpless—weakened by her greed. I couldn’t fight Tejus, not in this decaying body. It had been so long since I’d entered the tar-like waters at Queen Trina’s palace—so long since I’d felt the true force of my lord running freely within my veins. I didn’t have the strength to stand up to Tejus. If I faltered, if he overpowered me, I would be killed. They would see through my lies, see how much I desired escape—if they didn’t already.
“What do I do?” I called into the darkness, hopeless.
He did not answer me, the whispers had gone silent. Had I displeased him? But what choice did I have? There was no friend left to me—the Acolytes were dead, Queen Trina with them. Not that she was ever much of a friend. I alone was the sole worshiper of my lord, and now he was silent.
“Don’t abandon me!” I called again—a whine, a plea.
“Will you stop that racket!” A guard kicked the cage, and like vermin, I shrank back. Would my lord leave me like this—barely able to fend off the insults and jabs from a group of third-class citizens, so beneath me, so beneath my unspoiled lineage?
I held my head in my hands, despair taking over, feeling the absence of my lord’s benevolence and love like a deep wound in my heart.
Ash
“What now?”
Ruby was standing on the balcony that overlooked the rear gardens of the castle. She had been anxiously fiddling with the hem of her robe, pulling at the loose threads as she looked at the rows of tents that had taken over Queen Memenion’s gardens.
“We wait,” I replied simply.
There was nothing else we could do, other than maintain the strength of the barriers, until Ragnhild’s team returned to the castle with news.
“The hardest part.” She smiled ruefully.
“I know.”
Tell me about it.
The wait, the build-up…it was hellish.
“Everything seems so peaceful…it’s unnerving. Do you think there’s a chance that this could all be over?” she asked, her blue eyes half-hopeful.
I shook my head. No way was this over—the book had promised armies rising from the sea, the entity rising to full power. I didn’t believe for a second that the death of Queen Trina and the Acolytes would have put an end to any of it. This was too powerful, so much bigger than the lives of a few sentries.
“I think we need to be prepared for the worst,” I said quietly. “But this is usual for you, right, with GASP and all the supernatural stuff you deal with?”
I’d been trying to get my head around Ruby’s family and home for a while now. I was having a hard time imagining that such a place existed—that she had been exposed to so much strangeness all her life. I had just assumed that Ruby had come from an ordinary home, like me. To find out her life had been so extraordinary took some getting used to.
“I wasn’t a fully-fledged member—not yet…” She paused, realizing that she was implying that one day she would leave here—go back home. We hadn’t really discussed anything like that since I’d become emperor. Things were very different from when we’d first begun talking about Earth. I had imagined leaving Nevertide, entering another land as her boyfriend, getting used to things like television, s’mores, game consoles and everything else. Now I didn’t know what the future held—whether or not I’d be permitted to leave, whether or not I’d want to leave my people behind if we survived this.
“Don’t worry.” I swallowed, trying to adopt an easy manner. “I know you’ll want to go home when you can…I don’t blame you. I thought working as a cook in Hellswan’s kitchens was bad. This is something else.”
She laughed. “Yeah. Things do seem to have gone from bad to worse pretty quickly. The kingship trials look like kids’ play now, right?”
“The power of perspective.” I grinned.
She turned back to the gardens, her smile dropping. Vultures were flying about inside the barrier, getting exercise. One hurtled across the length of th
e balcony, squawking loudly and making us both jump.
“I hope you choose to join me,” she said once we’d both recovered.
“On Earth?”
“Yeah, in The Shade. You’d be an asset.”
To you or to GASP? I wondered, hoping it was the former. I stayed silent, not sure how to respond…I didn’t want to make any false promises to Ruby, and in my heart of hearts, I was hoping that once this was all over, she’d change her mind and want to stay here. I knew that Nevertide could be better—together we could change it, turn it into a place she’d be proud to rule by my side.
“Or at least visit on vacation?” she asked softly, her eyes downcast.
“I can’t answer you yet, Shortie. All I know is that I never want us to be apart, and I’m trying to come up with a way that we can work around that.”
She nodded, turning away from me again.
This is not going the way I planned.
I felt like I was messing this up, badly. I knew that these few moments of quiet were the only ones we’d get for a while; I had wanted us to do something special. I had wanted to remind her that we were good together—that although the odds felt stacked against us, we’d find a way to work things out. Because we had to. For me, there was no other option.
“Come on.” I held out my hand. “Come somewhere with me.”
She willingly placed her hand in mine, looking up at me expectantly. I grinned, trying to look like I had a plan in mind…because I had no idea where we were going. Somewhere more private than this, that was for sure. Anywhere that we couldn’t see an entire sentry army would be good…
I pulled her gently back into the castle, heading for the towers. I was pretty sure I’d seen sentries at the watch posts when we’d arrived—maybe I could politely request some privacy…there had to be some plus points to being emperor.
“Where are we going?” She laughed.
“You’ll see…”
“I didn’t think you knew this castle?”
I don’t.
“I know everything, Shortie. You should know that by now,” I teased, hoping she bought my bluff.