“Fine. You?”
My brother nodded. He was standing next to me, providing his services to another minister. Everywhere I looked I could see members of GASP standing stone-still, running down like batteries. Only the witches managed to stay strong, using their own innate power to uphold the barriers. For the rest of us, there hadn’t been time to ask where or how we would replenish our energy supplies, but it would have to be done swiftly if our efforts to repel the shadow worked.
Suddenly, a shout went up.
“It’s withdrawing!”
I looked up, the shadow having worked itself almost completely over the bubble of protection that the barriers had provided. Now I could see it drawing back. Slowly, inch by inch, the impenetrable blackness of the shadow was being replaced by the lighter tones of the evening sky.
“It worked,” exhaled the minister in front of me.
“I thought our time might have come,” Lucas muttered grimly.
I knew what he meant—the ice that had grasped at my heart was like nothing I’d ever felt. There might not have been anything physical to fight, but I had felt like this evil could kill me from the inside—crushing my brain and senses till there was nothing left but the madness of a broken mind.
Why hadn’t it?
What I had felt, the power that had come from that shadow, could have ended us, I was sure of it. We had maintained the barriers, but for how long would we have been able to do so? Our strategy had been to repel, not to attack. We were weak—without weapons that could fight the shadow effectively, why had it not continued to remain, waiting till we had exhausted our energy supplies?
The shadow vanished, the whispering dying off to be replaced with the gentle rustling of the trees in the wind.
“Uh, brother?” Lucas prompted.
“What?” I snapped, irritated to have my chain of thought broken. Lucas gestured to the approaching figure of Tejus, making his way through the GASP members and sentries who had sat down on the ground, resting.
I had seen my granddaughter working the sentry magic along with the others. Clearly, this was what Kira had warned me about. It pained me to see what she had become. I still didn’t know enough about their kind to truly understand why she would have wanted to do such a thing—most likely it was the sway of her boyfriend. Had infatuation blinded her? Or had she chosen this life with a level head… all for this man? My only fear was that she’d had no choice in it at all—perhaps not because of Tejus, even I could see that he cared deeply for her, but by some other sentry. But it didn’t feel like my place to ask. Her mother would untangle the story eventually, and what needed to be done would be done. The only reassuring aspect was how comfortable Hazel had seemed in her own skin—not just as she created the barriers, but from the moment we had found her in the forest. She had transformed, in more ways than one, and perhaps this new life was one she embraced wholeheartedly.
“Tejus,” I acknowledged with a nod of my head. For now, I would give him the benefit of the doubt. Ash was behind him, looking as weary as I felt.
“There’s something about this that doesn’t make sense,” Tejus muttered, looking around at the empty night sky.
“I know. I can’t help but think we’re missing something…what was the point of that? Why has it just vanished?”
“We were winning?” Lucas replied.
I shook my head.
“No, we were surviving. We were not winning.”
Silence descended on the group—Lucas looking confused, Ash and Tejus both appearing frustrated.
“A distraction,” Tejus growled suddenly.
He was right. It was the only strategy that made sense.
But for what?
Ash groaned out loud.
“Follow me,” Tejus barked, hurrying back to the castle.
He raced along the hallways, Ash, Lucas and I in close pursuit. He entered one of the rooms, revealing a sentry guard, passed out cold on the floor.
“JENUS!” Tejus bellowed, heaving back a trap door set in the stone floor. He disappeared from view, and after a few seconds, we followed him. We entered a dank basement, where two more guards lay on the floor. In the center of the room there was a cage—almost like a large bird cage, inch thick in filth.
“That parasite!” Tejus swore.
“Who?” I demanded, turning to Ash, hoping I could get some actual answers out of him.
“Tejus’s brother. They don’t get along.”
I exchanged a glance with Lucas, who grimaced.
That sounded familiar.
“Do you think he’s in league with the Acolytes? Do you think any of them were left alive, to help him?” Ash asked Tejus.
“I can’t see how we’d think otherwise.” Tejus sighed. “I think he escaped here.”
Tejus pointed to one of the floor stones. It was in place, but the barrels and other items that covered most of the floor and walls had been moved away from it.
“Someone must have come in this way too,” he continued, moving the stone back from the floor. It revealed a hole in the ground—small, but large enough for someone to crawl through. I cursed them for not checking the room properly. It should have been completely secured.
“He wouldn’t have been able to do this on his own. He was too weak,” Tejus muttered.
“Why weren’t we told of a prisoner down in the dungeons?” I asked.
“We didn’t think he posed that much of a threat. Queen Trina was dead, as were the rest of the Acolytes. We assumed. I didn’t imagine for a moment that the entity would have much use for him.” Tejus’s reply was furious, and I knew from my own experience that the anger was directed inward.
Ash muttered something about ‘pride before a fall’ and Tejus silenced him with a stony glare.
“Do we go after him?” Lucas asked.
“Would there be any point?” I asked the sentries.
“The stone is marked with the old Acolyte rune,” Ash replied, looking closely at the slab. “It probably leads back down to the cove—they have a temple there. I don’t think we should risk it. Not now, anyway.”
“All right,” I agreed. “Move the stone back. Is there a seal you can put on it?”
“We can put a barrier in place.” Ash nodded. “I’ll get the ministers on it. In the meantime, we need to try to understand what the entity wants with Jenus—I thought it was too powerful to want another servant. What can Jenus do for it that it can’t do for itself?”
That was the question. If Tejus was right, and his brother was indeed weak, then what would this power want with him? And who had rescued him in the first place?
We made our way back up the stairs. When we entered the hallway, Ben, River, Sofia, Rose, Caleb, Hazel, Ruby, Grace and Lawrence were waiting for us.
“What happened?” Hazel asked. “Has he gone?”
I filled in the other members on the situation with Tejus’s brother.
Hazel was the first to offer her theory.
“It must have been Abelle. She’s the only Acolyte alive—”
“That we know of,” Ash interrupted. “And she hated Jenus. I know most of what she said was a lie, but I’d swear on my life that wasn’t.”
“Don’t defend her,” Tejus snapped. “If she is in league with the entity then she’s going to be willing to do what it wants. Even if that means pulling my loathsome brother from his sewer.”
“Let’s go over the facts,” I asserted, trying to bring some calm to a debate I could see was about to become heated. “This entity has escaped from the lock that the jinn placed it in. It has raised an army, so we can presume that it’s grown in strength. Yet it has not faced us. I agree with Tejus, I don’t believe that the shadow is the entity itself. If it were, I believe it would speak to us just like it did in the portal. So why has it not fully risen—what is missing?”
“Queen Trina,” whispered Hazel. “He used her from the start, he must have wanted something from her—maybe something more than just opening the por
tal.”
I nodded. She was the missing piece. Killing her was the only time that the sentries had been one step ahead.
I thought about the entity and its prison of stones.
A non-corporeal being.
“It reminds me of the Elders,” I muttered. “They didn’t have physical form and so took other bodies. I have, mistakenly perhaps, been assuming that the shadow is an effective weapon—but perhaps its army can’t take on physical form, and neither can the entity itself.”
“Which is what it needed Queen Trina for, but its only option now is my brother,” Tejus said.
“And Benedict,” Hazel agreed. “Throughout all of this the entity has needed bodies to accomplish what it can’t.”
“But what does it need a body for?” Grace asked quietly. “It has an army, the portal is opened, what is it waiting for?”
“That is what we don’t know,” I replied.
“Shouldn’t we try to stop Jenus from getting to the entity then?” Lucas snapped. “Why are we just standing around doing nothing, waiting for it to come to us?”
“We can’t risk another trip to the cove, not without the right weapons,” Ash replied. “I won’t let my people risk their lives like that.”
“And GASP can’t, we’re too weak,” I reminded Lucas. “It would be a mistake. How do we heal?” I asked Ash.
“Your energy rebuilds itself. Unfortunately, you just need to wait it out.”
I looked from Hazel to Ruby incredulously. This was madness. We didn’t have the time for bed rest.
“What about your crystals, Tejus?” Hazel asked. “Are there more of those around Nevertide? They helped me during the trials.” My granddaughter looked uncomfortable for a moment.
“There are,” Tejus replied, “but far away from here. We’d have to cross the northern forests – and even then it would take me days to fill the stones with my energy.”
“No way,” interjected Ash. “No forests. I’m sticking by what I said earlier. The entity’s army seems stronger there. We should stick to open land. It’s too risky.”
“So we just have to wait?” Lucas exclaimed.
“Wait,” Ruby replied suddenly, “what about the water—it has rejuvenation properties, right? We’re going there anyway, but it can heal GASP and the rest of us too. Maybe we can even take the kids. We might need to use them for syphoning again.”
Sofia shuddered at the mention of the children who had been kidnapped—used and abused too much by the sentries already.
“No,” my wife interjected. “They’ve been through enough. I want to leave them out of this.”
Ruby nodded in understanding, looking a little shamefaced. I took pity on her. We all knew what it was like fighting for our lives against impossible odds—we used what tools we could in the moment, hoping that the consequences weren’t too severe.
“You’ve protected them from danger long enough.” I spoke to Ruby directly. “We can’t worry about them during a battle. The sentries can use GASP—we should provide more than enough energy once it’s replenished.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Lucas said. “Let’s go.”
Tejus looked at Ash, who nodded.
It was time.
Sherus
It was still nightfall when we rode out. We were all weak, tired and depleted by the magic of these strange creatures. The dragons and the Hawks flew ahead, scanning the land for danger…but how would they spot a shadow? I didn’t agree with Derek’s decision to ride at nightfall—especially not on these deformed bull-horses, which seemed horrifically unnatural to me. I chose to float along beside my sister, who had also chosen to ride. Some of the sentries rode on large vultures, and some joined our ranks on foot. Few spoke, and we mostly peered into the darkness that surrounded us, waiting for the whispering to begin.
Ghouls’ Ridge was where we were headed—what good could come of a place with that name?
“Peace, Sherus,” Lidera murmured softly. “I can see your mind spinning. These waters sound like our only hope.”
“We should have traveled in the daylight,” I grunted.
“We’re exposed either way. I agree with King Derek—better to travel as soon as possible.”
I ignored my sister. She tended to agree with anyone who wasn’t me. I couldn’t help but think the whole mission was a disaster. The portal was still open—those wretched creatures could get out at any time, floating onward into the In-Between and destroying my kin. Why had we not just closed it and left these sentries to their fate? Their own emperor had been foolish enough to release it in the first place—perhaps it was right that they should pay for their mistakes.
Like you did?
I sighed heavily. Benjamin. He had been the reason I hadn’t faced the consequences of my own father’s deal with the ghouls. I owed Derek and his kin this much.
The vampire king rode up to me, letting the others ride ahead as his bull-horse fell into step alongside me.
“We need to understand exactly what the entity wants,” Derek said. “More specifically, why he might seek to destroy the In-Between once he has finished in this dimension.”
“I have been wondering that myself, but I haven’t come to any valid conclusions. If I knew what kind of creature this entity actually was, perhaps I would understand more. But no one seems to be able to tell us,” I grumbled.
“Go easy on them, Sherus,” Derek reprimanded me. “They are mere children compared to you, and you have failed in learning the history of the stones… You are just as much at fault here.”
I grunted my agreement, not willing to wholeheartedly own up to my part in this. But he was right. I had known about the land watched over by the Shadowed fae, but never questioned what they guarded. I should have been more vigilant.
“I am worried about my ability to protect my people from this danger.” I sighed.
“We may overcome them here. Can you sense if any have gotten out and into the In-Between?”
I shook my head. “I believe that I would know—and so far, I feel we are safe. But that is my instinct only, it may not be fact.”
“You have not doubted your instincts up till now, Sherus. Don’t start now. Let’s have hope that we can win this battle.”
We continued on in silence. I watched the stars above—both those of this sky, and those twinkling in the abyss exposed by the rip. To fae, the sky was precious, beloved for all its colors and temperament—the closest our kind came to worship. We read its signs, it told us histories and stories through the configuration of its stars. The degradation of this sky seemed utterly barbaric to me, an act so sinful that it made me shudder every time I looked upon it. What destruction would this creature wreak on my home?
“Derek,” my sister interrupted, “I hear your granddaughter is one of these creatures… I am surprised that Tejus still lives.”
Derek looked straight ahead, his jaw clenching. He chose not to answer my sister and I didn’t blame him. It should be the least of his concerns right now—yet, if it had been one of my own, I wondered how I would have felt.
“He is a supernatural creature,” Derek replied eventually. “And an apparently honorable one, who knows how to command an army, and obviously cares deeply for my granddaughter. I am tired of raging against the men the women in this family choose, only to be proven wrong.” He smirked, perhaps thinking of his son-in-law. “Hazel, I think, can handle him.”
“We fae are less keen on interbreeding, perhaps wrongly,” my sister commented. “Wouldn’t you say, Sherus?”
I shrugged. It was no matter to me.
“I, uh, believe a certain almond-eyed jinni queen has caught my brother’s attention,” whispered Lidera to Derek.
“Silence, Lidera!” I barked.
I sighed once again as the heat rose in my cheeks—I was deeply regretting bringing my irritating kin along.
Ruby
Soon we were approaching Ghouls’ Ridge, our journey uneventful except for the argument betw
een Hazel and her mom, which Benedict seemed determined to make worse. I rode between Ash and Tejus, feeling utterly awkward as every word exchanged floated across to us.
“Do you think I should say something?” I asked Ash quietly.
“No.” He laughed.
“It’s not that funny unless you want to be having the same argument with my mom, which, by the way, as soon as word gets out on the…logistics of it, you will!”
He fell silent.
“Maybe you should say something,” he murmured after a while.
“You’ll make it worse,” Tejus snapped.
I really felt for the guy. It couldn’t be easy suddenly being confronted with the whole of Hazel’s family when I knew he’d only just started to forgive himself for what had happened.
“You know Hazel loves her sentry powers, right?” I said.
He looked at me sidelong in surprise. “It’s been difficult for her—constantly feeling the need to feed,” he corrected me.
“I know that, but it would hardly be much different if she was a vampire. She gets that now—I think she was just shocked in the beginning. She was pretty sold on becoming a vampire. Trust me, if she hasn’t told you already, she does enjoy them. She’s different. More confident. It’s nice to see.”
Tejus didn’t comment again, but I could see him mulling over the information I’d just given him. I could only hope that when the time came, I would embrace my powers the way Hazel had—welcoming them, strengthening them so that I could be of use to my family and the rest of GASP.
I’d seen how impressed Grace, Arwen and the others had been when Hazel had joined the rest of the sentries in upholding the barriers. True Sight, syphoning, impenetrable barriers—they were all going to be helpful in the fight to protect the human and supernatural worlds.
I smiled at Ash, running my fingers across the golden band around my finger. I still hadn’t told Hazel. I couldn’t wait to share the news with her.
“We’re here,” Tejus announced.
I looked up the huge cliff face. At night-time, it looked even more eerie than it did in the day, the mists blanketing the night sky so we could hardly see a thing. I thought about the rest of the Impartial Ministers floating in the water like dead bodies in a lake. I shuddered. At least it would be light in the cave.