“Stop!” I say. “I can do this. I have lived and breathed preparing for this. I am more than ready for wherever this quest shall take me. Let me prove myself to you.” I look up at King Ren and see his shock that I have dared to address him directly. His jaw is hard set and orange rings of fire pulsate around his pupils. “Allow me to do this. Please, Father …”
King Ren looks down at me, meeting my eyes for the first time since the day he told me I was no longer his son.
Gasps of surprise ripple through the crowd of Underlords behind us. My father breaks his gaze with me as someone else comes to stand before him. My brother Rowan lowers to only one knee beside me.
“Send me, Father. I am loyal, and I am no nursling.” He casts a pointed glare in my direction. “I will not fail you.” Rowan has left behind our ancient dialect and spoken each sentence in a different language used in the Overrealm—French, Arabic, Cantonese—probably thinking that because I am not an Elite, I will be unable to follow his words.
“I am not a nursling,” I say to Rowan in perfectly accented American English. “You have stolen honor from me before, but I will not allow you to take this from me as well.”
The Oracle moves to my father’s side. She has turned icy blue once again, and the cold wind that swirls her veils about her body makes me feel chilled to my soul. My father snuffs out the bolt of lightning that had been building in his hand. He squares his shoulders and stares at the Oracle like he’s trying to see past her shroud, into her mind.
“You are absolutely certain this boy is the right choice for Champion? We’ve been preparing for this particular quest for almost eighteen years. Surely Rowan, or one of the Elite, would be better suited.…”
“Sending him is the only way. He is the one.”
The one? The only way? His quest has been eighteen years in the making? What exactly is going on here?
Lord Lex steps forward. “What if we did away with him?” he asks. “Would the Fates choose another in his place? Rowan is ready and willing.”
My mouth goes dry.
The Oracle’s skin turns bright red. “Your words are insulting to the Fates. They will punish this Court for your hubris.”
“Be still,” Ren says. “Lord Lex does not speak for me.”
“Forgive me, Your Excellence.” Lex bows his head, but a cross look plays on his face. “I only speak in your best interest. Need I remind you what the consequences are for you personally, if the boy fails?”
“No, you do not,” King Ren says with a quiet forcefulness.
He turns and says something to his guards that I cannot hear, but I guess their meaning when two of them advance toward me. One guard grabs me by the arm, yanking me to my feet, while the other one pulls my ceremonial sword from my scabbard. He jabs the blunted point into my back, between my shoulder blades. I don’t try to resist, but as they propel me toward the torch-lit altar, I feel as though I am a prisoner headed toward execution.
I search the faces in the crowd of servants who flank the Court and find the one person who might care about what happens to me. My cousin Dax tries to give me a reassuring look, but his face has grown as pale as the marble floor beneath my feet. I look away from him and concentrate on the carvings that adorn the alabaster altar I’m being propelled toward. The stony personages of the first Hades and the original Boon, Persephone, stare forlornly back at me. When we reach the altar, one of the soldiers sends a swift kick to the back of my legs, forcing me to fall to my knees.
“I would have knelt on my own, harpy mouth,” I snarl at him.
He responds by slamming my head against the altar. My jaws smash together when my temple hits the hard stone. Strange bursts of light cloud my vision, and the black, oily smoke from the torches chokes my lungs, but I make it a point not to show any signs of pain. I stay perfectly still, with the side of my face pressed to the cold altar, and watch my father advance on me.
I hear the ring of metal against metal as King Ren draws his sword from the scabbard at his hip. His is not a ceremonial blade—its sharp edges gleam in the torchlight. I try to look up and meet his eyes once more, but he does not return my gaze.
The fear that my father has chosen to listen to Lex’s suggestion strikes into my heart. I am to be done away with so they can choose another.
I grip the edge of the altar to stop my hands from shaking and wish desperately I had something more to offer to prove my worthiness of this assignment. My father glares down at me. And I see it. Behind the fresh anger that flashes in his eyes, it’s still there: that look he used to give my mother before she died—the look that transferred to me after what I did all those years ago—like what he saw before him was the embodiment of every failure, disappointment, and shame he had ever experienced.
As swiftly as fear had struck me a moment ago, a sudden calm replaces it. Resignation. I will not beg as he expects. I will not plead my case again. Instead, I look at him undaunted and ask a final question. “Is your hatred for me so great, Father, that you would risk bringing down the wrath of the Fates on the entire Underrealm in order to deny me my destiny?”
Ren’s jaw tightens. He lifts his sword, grabs me by the hair at the back of my neck, and yanks my head up from the altar’s cold surface. I say nothing more. If this is what he wants, then so be it. Let it come.
Ren swings his blade at my neck.
I will it to be quick and clean.
The sharp edge of the sword slices into my thick braid until it cuts all the way through. The blade nicks the back of my neck just above my shoulders. My skin stings from the shallow cut but I do not flinch.
“Do not call me that again,” he says calmly and lets go of my head. My temple bashes into the altar once more. A cut breaks open above my eyebrow. My blood drips onto the alabaster, staining the cream-colored stone with beads of red.
I am slow to follow what happens next, but I try to focus as King Ren drops the braid he has cut from my head into a large silver bowl. He snaps his fingers and a young servant scurries forward from somewhere in the throne room and lifts the bowl. The boy follows Ren while he approaches the Oracle, the heavy vessel straining his small arms.
My mind is muddled and I almost miss the moment when the Oracle pours some type of shimmering liquid into the bowl with my hair, and then dips a dagger into the mixture. The priest whispers what sounds like an incantation, and then the Oracle hands the knife to King Ren, her blue skin darkening to a turquoise green as he takes the blade from her.
He hesitates. Or perhaps my brain is working too slowly.
“Make the vow,” the Oracle’s priest says.
King Ren holds the dagger out in front of him. I can barely hear anything over the sound of my pulse pounding in my head and my heavy breaths huffing against the stone altar. I make out something he says about the water from the river Styx, the river of unbreakable vows.…
I blink. When my eyes flutter open, the Oracle is standing in front of me.
“Show him,” King Ren says.
The Oracle’s glittering blue hand reaches for me, her icy touch lands once again between my eyes. Her fingers are so cold. I wonder what memory she will steal from me this time, but instead, my thoughts coil inside my brain and my vision flickers black for a moment. A string of images enters my thoughts, layering upon each other until they form one fluid, moving picture.
At first, the images tell a story I already know. It’s the old myth we Underlords are raised on. It’s stitched into every tapestry and carved into every door I have passed in my lifetime, even on the altar I lean upon now, but then the pictures shift and I see the silhouette of a girl standing in a bright light.
We’ve found her—the Cypher. I hear the Oracle’s words inside my head and not with my ears. We have found the one who can restore what has been taken from the Underlords. You are the Champion whom fate has chosen to bring her to us. The outline of the girl grows more defined but I still can’t make out her face. You will have six months to convince her to retu
rn to the Underrealm with you. But she must come willingly. No human can pass through Persephone’s Gate without the mortal’s consent. This quest is your destiny. The fate of the Underrealm lies on your shoulders, young Haden.
I nod and the Oracle’s icy touch lifts off my skin. The images in my head flicker to black. I open my eyes and look up at her covered face.
“Do you understand what you have been shown?” the priest asks.
I don’t know if I do—I have never heard anything about a Cypher in any of my lessons—but the entire living population of the Underrealm is watching me, and I dare not say that I don’t understand.
“Yes.”
“Very good.”
“What is her name?” I ask the Oracle. I need to know her name.
The Oracle takes three steps away from me and then turns to King Ren. She indicates the knife in his hand.
“Finish it. Seal the will of fate,” the priest says for her.
Blue wisps of lightning crackle forth from Ren’s hand and wind their way up the dagger he holds.
I have been struck by lightning several times in my nearly seventeen years—in training and in fights—but I am unprepared for the jolt of pain that sears through my body as my father stabs the electrified dagger into my tricep. I go limp against the altar.
Ren pulls the knife from my arm and then makes several small, burning incisions into my skin—cutting and cauterizing my flesh at the same time. I cannot see what he is doing but it feels as though he is carving letters into my skin.
“You want to call me Father?” he says. “To be my heir? To have your honor restored?”
“Yes,” I hiss through gritted teeth.
“Then you bring this girl to me,” he says, squeezing the wound he’s carved into my arm. It takes every last bit of strength I have not to scream. “You return victorious, and I will crown you as my heir and allow you to call me Father once again. But if you do not bring her to me when the gate between the Underrealm and the mortal world reopens in six months’ time, then mark my words, your hair is not the only thing you will lose.”
He slides his knife up to my throat to illustrate his point, then stalks away to his throne, gesturing to the ranks of Underlords who stand behind me and the crowds of onlookers beyond them. “Out!” he demands. “Everybody, out!”
The crowd quickly snaps back into its lines and begins to leave the throne room, following his order. I start to rise, but my head swims and I steady myself against the altar. I am stuck in a position that looks as though I am half bowing, half standing as the bystanders file out around me. I do not understand what is happening. After all the protestations, I have finally been Chosen. Which means the ceremony is supposed to go on. I am supposed to be endowed with the blessing of the Court. A wreath of laurel leaves is supposed to be placed upon my head, crowning me with glory. There is supposed to be a feast of celebration in honor of the Champions. The servants have been preparing it for weeks.
Instead, everyone is being sent away.
Ren looks in my direction. “I said for everybody to get out.” He speaks with a quiet composure that makes me shiver more than if he had shouted with rage.
I stumble through the now-empty throne room. My head aches, my arm throbs, and my neck feels naked and exposed without my hair. All I want to do is return to my bedchambers and collapse, but I know the challenges of this day aren’t over yet, and I’m not quite ready to face them.
The aftereffects of the lightning that ravaged through my body make it hard to concentrate on staying upright, let alone anything else. Knowing I can’t be seen by anyone at this point, I lean against one of the golden doors at the end of the torch-lit corridor. The strangest mixture of grief, relief, and pride grips me, and I let out the smallest of sobs.
When I regain my composure, I inspect the cauterized scars on my arm and discover the words that Ren has carved there.
It’s the name of the girl I have six months to convince to return with me to the Underrealm. The girl who can give me the status to be elevated over Rowan and the other Elite. The girl who holds the key to restoring everything that has been taken from me:
Daphne Raines.
chapter two
DAPHNE
“It’s do or die, Daphne,” CeCe says, with a sassy, almost devious tone as she wades through the sea of red balloons that separate her workstation from mine. Despite her flame red hair and freckled skin, she always reminds me of Billie Holiday with her warm, old-school, jazzy vibe. “Ask him while you have the chance.”
I know she’s right. Mom could be back any minute, and I am more likely to get a positive answer from Jonathan than her. Especially after the look Mom had made when she answered the phone call that came about ten minutes ago. I figured it must be the bank again, considering she took the handset outside and then all the way into the bungalow she and I live in behind the flower shop. It is calls like this that make me so determined to do what I have in mind.
“Go for it, Daph,” CeCe says, and pushes me through the bouquets of red and orange balloons we’ve been inflating for Ellis High’s September Social. Jonathan and his magenta apron come into view.
I clear my throat. It’s not that I’m reluctant to do what I need to do—it’s that I know I’m a terrible liar. But is it lying if you’re just omitting a small portion—okay, about 56.2 miles’ worth—of the truth? “Hey, Uncle Jonathan …,” I start to say, but the loud clank of the bell over the front door of the shop interrupts me.
Jonathan looks up from the ribbons he’s been cutting into balloon strings. “Can you get that?” he asks, referring to the customer who must have just entered the shop.
“Indie’s up there,” I say. “She can handle it.”
Jonathan balks. “You know she doesn’t have cash register privileges yet.”
I give CeCe a stricken look. I don’t want to lose my chance.
“I’m on it,” she says, and then mouths to me, “Do it!” as she disappears into the balloons on her way out of the back-room workshop to the storefront.
“Welcome to Paradise Plants!” I hear Indie say so enthusiastically, I can imagine the unsuspecting customer jumping at the sound of her voice.
“So … Uncle Jonathan,” I try to say so nonchalantly that it ends up sounding pained instead. I turn away slightly so he can’t see the blush that hits my cheeks. I grab a stray balloon by its string and twist it into the nearest bouquet of red and orange. No big deal. Just doing my work and striking up a conversation with my favorite uncle, who isn’t actually related to me. “Um … so … when I’m done with this, do you think I could get off early? I mean, the decorations are being picked up in a few minutes, and I know we still have some cleanup, but CeCe said she’d stay later so I could beg off a little early. If that’s okay with you?”
Jonathan cuts one more ribbon and then squints his eyes in a way that makes me worried that my not-quite-lying omission of the truth came tripping off my tongue so fast that he didn’t comprehend my words and I’m going to have to start over again. Then he gives me a jolly grin. “Need extra time to get ready for your dance date, eh?”
“Yeah,” I say, concentrating a little too hard on tying the strings of my balloon bouquet into a big knot. “You know me. Gotta look my best for that big date!”
“Daphne,” Jonathan says, his tone shifting ever so slightly lower.
I glance at him and see that his grin has disappeared.
He shakes the spool of ribbon in my direction. “Cut the crap, honey. I do know you. Enough to know you rejected both the boys who asked you. Even after that sweet Richards kid sent you a chocolate-dipped-fruit arrangement from that store in Hurricane. You threw it in the trash.”
“Because I’m allergic to strawberries. You know that.”
“Yes, but you could have let me eat them,” Jonathan says with a pout and drops the spool on his worktable. He reaches into the front pocket of his bright magenta apron. “And I also know where you plan on going this evening in
stead of the dance.” He pulls out a folded-up flyer and splays it out on the worktable. He stabs one of his large fingers at the words: ALL-AMERICAN TEEN TALENT COMPETITION HOSTED BY SOUTHERN UTAH UNIVERSITY. ONE NIGHT ONLY!
Oh.
Crap.
The flyer must have dropped out of my apron when I hung it up during my break. I’d been keeping it in my pocket for good luck. Load of good that had done me.
“Jonathan, I can—”
He holds up his hand in a stop gesture. “Just be glad I found this and not your mother. You know the conniption she would have if she found out you were planning on sneaking off to Cedar City for the evening. You made a deal with your mother not to leave Ellis Fields again without her permission.”
Yes. I know all too well. In my almost seventeen years, I had been on one, and only one, trip outside of my hometown.
Ellis Fields is a tiny speck that you can only see on a Google map of southern Utah if you zoom in real close, tucked into Apollo Canyon and surrounded by miles and miles of nothing but desert and red-rock formations in every direction. My mom is so rooted here that the town legend goes that her ancestors were here even before Ellis was founded. And leaving it isn’t exactly easy, especially when your mom forbids it and you don’t have a driver’s license yet. A lesson I’d learned the hard way when I was almost thirteen years old. After fighting with my mom for, like, the ten thousandth time about how she never let me go on class field trips or even to the Zion outlet malls, which are a forty-five-minute drive outside town, I’d tried to run away to Saint George on my bike. But I crashed while careening down Canyon Road. I ended up sitting on the side of the remote highway, dehydrated, with a flat tire, a broken arm, and a concussion until Mom and Jonathan found me an hour later, merely one hundred yards from the NOW LEAVING ELLIS FIELDS—COME BACK SOON! sign. I did eventually make it to Saint George that day, but it was to spend the weekend at Dixie Regional Medical Center.