“Any other clues that might give you a head start?” I probed, observing his small smirk.
“Well”—Ash winked at me—“I know a maid who found the phrase ‘see what cannot be seen, destroy before it destroys you’ written on a report that was left lying around in a Hellswan minister’s room—and I think it relates to the trials.”
I thought that sounded quite far-fetched—the line could have related to almost anything, it was so vague—but I hadn’t seen Ash look this confident since we’d practiced mind-sharing, so I didn’t say anything.
“Okay, well, I think I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.” I tried to sound confident for the boys’ sake, but my heart was thumping a million miles an hour and I felt queasy with nerves.
“You need to knock Jenus on his miserable ass,” Benedict said.
“You guys can do this,” Julian encouraged. “I know you can.”
I hope so.
I didn’t want to think about the consequences if we failed.
“We need to go through the servants’ quarters to get out. I don’t want anyone seeing you yet.” Ash beckoned me out into the hallway.
I nodded, but held out a hand for him to wait. Then I turned and hugged Benedict and Julian.
“See you on the other side,” I whispered, inhaling the smell of their warm hair and clothes, noticing how any smell of The Shade had long since been washed away. I felt a sudden pang for home, and squeezed them tighter.
“Ugh, you’re strangling me,” Benedict choked. “We love you too, Ruby.”
I released my grip and smiled. Julian’s cheeks had gone uncharacteristically red. Ruffling Benedict’s hair, I turned back toward the door and followed Ash down the corridor.
Ash opened the door to the kitchen. A line of servants stood waiting on either side of us, lined up to create a passage to the kitchen’s exit.
None of them looked surprised to see me, and all nodded their heads or removed their caps as Ash guided me forward. Some of the younger children smiled shyly at me from behind their mothers and fathers, and I wondered how it was that I’d not heard so much as a child-like squeak the entire time I’d been in the castle.
“Give ’em hell, Ashbik!” an old wizened servant cried out, waving his stick toward us. “Give ’em hell!”
“Show them Hellswans what you’re made of!” yelled another.
A beefy man thumped Ash on the back. “Good work, boy.”
The claps and cheers went on—we could still hear them even after we left the kitchen and carried on through the network of passages and corridors that would lead us out to the forest.
Eventually Ash stopped at a small side door and retrieved a key from his sentry robes. The door slid open, and we stepped out onto the castle grounds.
The air was crisp, and though it was still mid-summer on earth, in Nevertide it felt like fall had already begun. I crossed my arms and rubbed my biceps furiously—the silken robes of sentries did little to keep out the cold.
“You’ll warm up on the walk,” Ash commented, noticing my discomfort.
We came to a small bridge that led over the moat. Ash stepped to the side and yanked an iron lever down. At the other end of the bridge, a small portcullis started to rise, chains clanking and serving as a reminder of just how trapped we were in Hellswan castle.
I ducked down as we walked under it, and Ash did the same. Both of us could fit, but the iron spikes above our heads made me feel uneasy.
“Do you know which way we go?” I asked Ash.
“I know the way,” he replied calmly.
Through the gaps in the trees I could see a long procession of sentries following a main road through the forest—they looked like they were escorting all the champions to the arena. “We’re not going with them?”
“No, we’re going a slightly longer route. I don’t want too many people seeing you before the trials begin—they might identify you, and I don’t want to risk that. Most of them don’t even know I have a human helper, and that works in my favor.” He smiled. “I want the element of surprise.”
Another advantage.
I was starting to think that I’d underestimated Ash. He’d clearly thought this all through and been more cunning than I’d originally given him credit for. Half the time it seemed like Ash had just decided that he might as well try his luck in the trials, but then he would say or do something that made me think that he’d been plotting this for a long time—long before the three of us arrived in Nevertide.
I thought about the line, See what cannot be seen, destroy before it destroys you. It was a brutal statement, one that I would have initially assumed that Ash wouldn’t be able to fulfil. Now I knew that assumption was incorrect—whatever lay ahead, whatever needed to be seen and destroyed, Ash was more than capable of doing the deed.
“That line the maid gave you,” I said as we fought our way past a bramble-strewn tree, “what do you think it means?”
Ash thwacked back another branch that was in my way before replying, “Some sentries are able to perceive what they can’t see with regular sight—it’s something I’ve always had a knack for. Some can, some can’t. I’m lucky in that.” He shrugged.
“What?” His reply made no sense to me. “Do you mean like intuition?”
Ash shook his head. “No. Most people have that, right? I’ll show you what I mean.”
He stopped still in the forest, and turned toward me. His eyes rolled back in his head, showing only their whites. I gasped. It was an unnerving sight, and I found myself backing away from him.
It lasted a few seconds, and then his eyes returned to normal.
“Ahead of us, your friend Hazel is already at the arena with Jenus. She’s got her left hand in her pocket, and her right hand is rubbing her forehead—it looks like she’s already got a headache.”
Ash continued walking, as if he’d done nothing out of the ordinary.
“What the hell?” I called out, running to catch up with him. “What was that?”
Ash gently pushed aside a large tree branch, and we stepped out into a clearing.
“See for yourself,” he replied, nodding in the direction of a large, round stone building that was nestled at the bottom of a small landslide or dry ravine.
I could see Hazel standing outside the arena, next to Jenus. Sure enough, her hand was in her pocket and she was rubbing her forehead.
“How did you see that?” I asked in wonder. The pair of them had been hidden by both the dip in the earth and the foliage of the forest.
Ash smiled, enjoying my bewilderment. “It’s commonly known as ‘long-seeing’—it’s a specialty of mine. I can see through walls, wooden trap doors…”
“You knew we were down there?” I asked, recalling how he’d asked how many of us there were down in that cellar Jenus had locked us in. Ash would have known all along.
“I could see you, yes, which is fortunate—might not have been as willing to help if I hadn’t.” He shrugged and walked on.
What does that mean?
He’d been willing to let us cross the border and go home when we’d first met him, before we’d realized the borders had been locked down. So what had made him save us in the first place? We were rapidly approaching the arena, but I vowed as soon as this was over I’d ask Ash why he’d done it—it was another curious puzzle about the castle chef turned all-seeing warrior.
The building was huge. It towered over us, and its smooth stone surface almost blocked out the morning sun. The arena would probably have been considered magnificent by most, but to me it felt oppressive and monstrous, its form holding untold evils and dangers that lay ahead. I wondered if Hazel felt the same way.
Though she was standing outside the arena, not far from Ash and me, I knew better than to approach her. Jenus would have her on a short leash, and I didn’t want to make that worse by getting her into trouble. Neither did I want him recognizing me.
Ash put a hand on my shoulder.
“She’ll be all righ
t,” he said gruffly. I nodded, and let him lead me toward the arena’s arched doorway.
There must have been a different entrance for the spectators of the trial—the figures who gathered around the arch were clearly all champions. They were armed to the teeth; huge swords dangled by the legs of most of them, alongside collections of ornate and menacing-looking daggers. Some had cruder weapons, clubs with nails spiking out of them, chains and varying sizes of axes.
Next to most of them stood a human.
It made me feel sick to my stomach. Most of them were very young. A girl with dirty blonde hair had her eyes closed and was trembling ever so slightly. Another boy—about the same age as Benedict, maybe younger—looked as if he had been half-starved. We walked closer to the group, and I saw another young girl, the youngest there, crying softly into a scrap of material.
I left Ash’s side and walked over to her.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said, drying her tears with my hands and stroking her hair to offer some kind of comfort. My words and actions were empty, of course. I didn’t know what was going to happen to her in the arena, or after the trials, but I comforted her as best I could.
“What do you think you’re doing?” a sentry snapped at me, looming over the girl. It was a woman—her cold, dead eyes looked me up and down, but just as she was about to open her mouth and bark some more, she backed off, glancing warily over my shoulder. I turned to see Ash standing behind me, a menacing look on his face, warning her away.
I continued to comfort the child. I didn’t care what the sentries threatened. I was overcome with a violent, burning rage that they would treat human children like this. All of us had been ripped from our own worlds to help these monsters in a stupid political fight for the crown—so that they could siphon off our energy like we were batteries there for their convenience.
Enough was enough. I vowed to give Ash all the help I possibly could. Every atom of energy within me would be his for the taking. These sentries couldn’t be given the chance to rule Nevertide—they would continue to cross the dimensions and kidnap humans from Earth, trial or no trial.
Ash winning was our only chance. I would do everything I could to help him succeed.
I looked over at Hazel. She was staring miserably down at the ground—she looked small and dirty, and I’d never seen my dear friend look so lost before.
I hoped that she wasn’t going to help Jenus. I hoped that she would find a way to sabotage his every effort… but there was a large chance that he would be using us as a threat to leverage her assistance.
Don’t do it, Hazel, I prayed, please don’t do it.
Hazel
The crowd of sentries stood waiting by the arch in the arena—the arch that hadn’t been there the day I’d followed Jenus into the forest. Clearly the watchers, those who would be present to monitor the trial, wanted to keep something hidden before the main event, and I wondered what it was.
From where I stood, I couldn’t see into the arena and all I could hear was the low, expectant murmurings of the huge audience within.
I tried to size up the sentries to work out where the competition would come from, but it was difficult. They all looked roughly the same size—the tall, broad frames typical of their kind and the black robes they all wore didn’t really allow for any individual to stand out. Between them they must have carried an entire arsenal of weaponry.
I looked for Tejus in the group, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. It was true, then—I had completely knocked him out of the running. He had been my one chance of obtaining freedom for me and my friends, and I had destroyed it. It didn’t make me feel any better that I had been manipulated by Jenus—the outcome was the same, and my role in it had been crucial.
A few of the sentries moved to get a better look inside the arena, and as they did I saw the group of small children standing, guarded by their sentries.
They were all so young. Most of them seemed to be in shock, no doubt caused by lack of food and water, and stood staring morosely at the ground. Others were crying softly, trying not to draw attention to themselves.
A slightly older girl, taller than most of them and I guessed around the same age as me, tended to a girl who was crying on the far side of the group. The older girl was wearing a black headscarf and seemed calmer than all the others. I wondered if she’d been in Nevertide a long time.
I turned my head away from the group. I needed to focus.
Staring at the ground, I forced myself to take deep, steadying breaths. I didn’t know what was going to happen when I got inside that arena. I didn’t know what the twisted sentries had in store for us next, but whatever it was I would need to keep my wits about me. I desperately wanted Jenus dead. I wanted my face to be the last thing he ever saw before I stuck a dagger into his throat. The time would come. But for now I had to do my best to keep him alive, to give him everything I had in order to win the trial.
I had to remember that Benedict’s, Julian’s and Ruby’s lives depended on my actions, and I couldn’t let them down.
I wouldn’t let them down.
Reaching inside my pocket, I felt for the stone. The hard, smooth surface comforted me and I ran my fingers over it, imagining its deep emerald-green surface glinting in the light.
Jenus would happily drain me dry in a heartbeat if he needed to. I believed that the stone was my best, and only, chance of surviving what lay ahead. I was convinced that it was an energy stone—waiting and ready to replenish whatever Jenus siphoned off me. I clutched at it tightly, and could already feel the dull ache of my dehydration headache fading. I let it go abruptly. I didn’t know how finite the energy source was—if I could only use it a few times, then I didn’t want to waste a drop.
A loud horn reverberated around the arena.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated,” cried a voice from inside the arena, “as we welcome our champions to the trials of the Hellswan kingdom!”
The horn sounded again, and I was shoved along by Jenus as we joined the other sentries and their humans all filing into the arena. I stepped though the archway—Jenus and I were the last pair. As I did so, a small gasp came from one of the children. It was a little boy, and he was looking past me with an expression of fear and bewilderment. I turned around and saw that the archway had completely vanished—with no sign that it had ever existed in the first place.
We were trapped.
I looked up at the crowds. None of them seemed particularly bothered that we were all enclosed in a deathtrap. The sentries merely eyed the champions with interest. I idly wondered if they’d taken bets.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they had.
At the opposite end of the arena from where the champions stood, a gilded balcony had been erected to rise above and out from the tiered stone benches. It was decorated with swathes of red velvet fabric, and a large throne stood waiting, empty, in its center. The seat could have been for none other than the emperor, and I suspected that he must have still been too sick to attend.
I would have been glad of his absence if I was still working with Tejus, but as I was now Team Jenus, the absence of the emperor would be a handicap. I recalled how he’d bent the rules to help his favored son as best he could in the first trial—now that he was not here, the games would probably be more fairly refereed.
Not good.
I had been counting on the emperor’s bias to help Jenus along.
The rest of the royal box was full—but I didn’t recognize any of the sentries there, though I assumed that most of them had been at the grand dinner I’d had to endure a few days ago. I searched the hooded faces for a sign of Tejus, but I couldn’t see him.
Perhaps he was elsewhere in the crowd—demoted from the royal box because he couldn’t control his human, or maybe, now he was out of the running, he no longer cared who ruled Hellswan and had decided to stay back at the castle.
I looked up at the golden disk that still floated in the sky, hovering above the center of the
arena. It was such a strange thing. Now that I was beneath it, I could see it was about 3 feet in diameter, but it cast no shadow on the floor—as if it were so thin that the sun shone right through it.
“What do you think it will do?” I asked Jenus, hearing the nervousness in my voice. I wanted to be prepared as best I could for whatever the gold disk threw at me—if Jenus could tell me anything at all it could be the difference between our success or failure.
“Shut your mouth,” he bit out at me. “You’re not here to talk.”
I ground my teeth. I didn’t know why I’d expected any help from him, but it made me even more anxious that he clearly didn’t know any more than I did on the properties of the disk. Clearly the emperor hadn’t given him a heads-up like last time.
The ripples of murmurings from the crowd died down, and the arena was suddenly filled with a tangible tension. They all looked down toward the champions, rows and rows of cloaked figures and pale faces waiting expectantly.
My stomach lurched as I waited for whatever was about to happen next.
One of the ministers walked out onto the arena, his footsteps crunching across the dusty gravel and echoing against the stone walls. When he reached the center, I recognized him—he was one of the ministers I had seen in the emperor’s chambers when Tejus and I had visited. He was abnormally tall, even for a sentry, and thin to the point of gauntness.
I shuddered.
“Esteemed sentries and champions.” He spoke with a thin reedy voice, his hands clasped together with barely concealed excitement. “It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the Hellswan kingship trials. Many thousands of moons have passed since we last gathered to appoint our ruler—Nevertide’s most worthy and capable sentry.”
I looked over at the champions. Most of them had risen to full height, straightening their backs and squaring their shoulders as the criteria for the would-be winner were laid out.
“When the horn sounds,” he continued, “the first trial will begin. The rules are exact and will be followed to the letter. No exceptions will be made, and watchers will be observing closely for any foul play.”