I looked over at Julian, who shrugged.
“Okay,” I replied, “let’s wait for Horatio and Aisha, and then we can stop for a bit.”
A split second later, the jinni couple joined us. Ridan had flown on ahead already, making sure no danger lurked in wait.
Aisha surveyed the forest. “Horatio and I should span out,” she announced. “This seems to be the densest past of the forest, an ideal location to hide, and the pixi-wagon gives me reason to think that jinn may be nearby. If you head north,” she looked at all three of us, “Horatio and I will go east and west, we’ll cover more ground that way. Call us if you see anything – or if you sense danger. We’ll hear you.”
I nodded in agreement, not wanting to bring up the subject of us having a rest. There would be time enough for that when we found what we were looking for.
“Be cautious,” Horatio murmured, raising his brows in warning. The next moment, the couple had vanished, and we were left to walk ahead.
Yelena started whining again almost instantly. After I snapped at her, she huffed something under her breath and marched on ahead. I wanted to tell her to stop stomping about—she was only advertising to the rest of the forest that we were approaching.
“Let her be,” Julian said, before I could open my mouth.
“That much noise and her blaze of red hair? She’s like a police siren,” I muttered.
“I don’t think there’s much around here that’s interested in harming us—they would have hunted us down already.”
I looked about at the new stretch of forest. I wasn’t so sure that Julian was correct. This part seemed even gloomier than the last. Thick mists settled along the floor, and the place was totally silent—no birds, no rustling in the undergrowth. Nothing. The temperature seemed to have dropped as well. I shrugged off my backpack and pulled out another robe to wear.
“We’ll get warmer as we move,” Julian pointed out.
“Yeah, but it’s damp too—can’t you feel it?”
He didn’t reply, but started moving faster, trying to shake off the chill. I followed him, using my walking stick to feel the steps ahead. In some parts the mists were so dense I couldn’t see the forest floor.
“Aghhhhhhh!”
I heard Yelena scream.
“Yelena!” I called out, running forward with Julian, forgetting to use the stick. We didn’t hear another sound from her, and I started to really panic.
“We’re coming!” I yelled, moving as fast as I could without falling flat on my face. I was about to take another step when Julian yanked me back.
“Hey!”
I stopped. He’d been more cautious and seen what I couldn’t. We were standing in front of a massive pit, our feet inches from the edge. I peered down, trying to see beyond the mists that had covered it from view. Sure enough, I could see a flicker of red hair at the bottom.
“I think I twisted my ankle,” Yelena cried pitifully.
I groaned. “Okay,” I called. “We’re coming to get you.”
I looked at Julian. He was scratching his head, trying to work out how we were going to get down without falling in ourselves.
“Over there?” I pointed to the edge that looked the least steep.
“Hmm… Looks pretty slippery. Maybe we should just call for Aisha and Horatio?”
“Good point,” I sighed. Cupping my hands around my mouth, I started to yell out their names – annoyed that we were calling them back so soon. It had hardly been five minutes.
“Help me!” Yelena called again, looking up at us with indignation.
“We’re going to wait for the jinn,” Julian replied.
“I want to get out now! This place smells weird.”
Despite Yelena’s grumblings, we ended up waiting until the jinn arrived—she clearly wasn’t badly hurt.
“What’s going on?” Aisha asked, appearing suddenly and peering past us into the pit.
“Yelena fell into a pit,” I replied.
Julian stifled a laugh, and Aisha glared at him.
“You tease that girl too much. Why didn’t you get her out?” the jinni snapped.
“We were waiting for you!” I exclaimed.
Aisha tutted loudly, and in the next moment she had vanished, leaving us standing with a frowning Horatio.
A second later, Yelena was back up at the top, covered in dirt and looking furious.
“Thanks for your help,” she said, with as much sarcasm as she could muster.
“Horatio”—Aisha ignored us all and looked to her husband—“come back down with me. There’s a path leading from the bottom of the crater… I think we should look into it.”
I turned to the jinni in surprise, but before I could comment, she and Horatio had vanished. I looked over the side of the pit and saw them floating toward the same edge we were on—the path must be leading beneath us.
“Come on,” I said to the others, drawing them around to the other side of the pit so we could get a better view.
I moved as quickly as I could, my feet sliding on the softer mud of the edges, smacking down the brambles with my boots.
Just as we reached the opposite side, I heard voices echoing from the path they’d just followed. It was small—narrow enough that a single person could get through, but low…I doubted sentries could pass without some difficulty.
“Horatio, Aisha?” I called down.
The voices continued, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
“Do you think we should go down?” Julian asked, already testing that the slope would hold us without creating a landslide.
“Uhh…Okay.” Had they found the jinn? It was certainly a good hiding place—there was no way they would have been found unless they wanted to be. The path looked as if it had been created naturally. Had anyone other than the jinni come down here, they would have dismissed it as a natural formation caused by the crater.
We started climbing down—with difficulty. The soil was soft, but it kept crumbling away beneath us, and we ended up sliding most of the way.
“I’m glad I got out of this place just to go right back in,” Yelena grumbled. She kept wincing when she put pressure on her ankle, and I was starting to worry that she was genuinely hurt.
“We should splint that ankle,” I commented, glancing at her shoe.
“I’ve got bandages in my pack,” Julian added. “I’ll fix it when we get down.”
But as we reached the bottom of the pit, Horatio and Aisha came into view. Looming behind them in a dark red robe was a familiar face.
“Zerus?”
What’s he doing here?
My eyes widened as I came face-to-face with my kidnapper.
I hadn’t seen him again after the night of the imperial trials, where he’d let the nymphs take him under their spell—I’d been left to wander the labyrinth in a daze, trying pointlessly to find a way out. I hadn’t thought about him much after that, to be perfectly honest. I’d assumed he’d closeted himself away in Hellswan castle somewhere, keeping out of the way of his competitive brothers—I’d never really got the impression he was as desperate to win as Jenus or Tejus.
“Human boy,” he replied, his expression indicating that he recognized me, but only vaguely.
“He’s been living down here for a while,” Aisha said.
I looked more closely at Zerus. He certainly seemed to be a bit out of it—not really all there. His eyes kept darting about the place like a trapped rabbit’s, as if he might scuttle away at any moment.
“Did you come here to get away from the Acolytes?” I asked.
He looked at me with confusion, and shook his head.
“The entity?” I pressed.
“There’s dark work at hand here, dark work,” he muttered, his eyes shifting from mine to stare at the floor. He started to rock slowly, shifting from one foot to the other.
Aisha motioned us all to move away.
“He’s obviously not well—mentally,” she hissed. “I can’t get
a straight answer out of him. Is he Tejus’s brother? He keeps mentioning that he’s a Hellswan and that his brother’s calling to him for help.”
“Do you think it might be a trick?” I asked. “Why would Tejus call to him? And how? Can they communicate mentally at this distance—could Tejus reach him here?”
The jinni shrugged, but her eyes softened when she looked back at him.
“I’m not sure this is a trick. He certainly didn’t want to be found—he didn’t want Horatio or me anywhere near him.”
“All right.” I sighed. It wasn’t like he could do much damage that hadn’t been done already—we’d get him back to Tejus for him to deal with. “Let’s question him on the jinn first, though. He might have seen something,” I said, making my way back to Zerus’s trembling figure.
“The end of Nevertide is coming,” Zerus whispered to me as I approached, his voice raspy with fear. “My brother calls for me—he calls for me to save him.”
His dark hair, worn long like Tejus’s, was matted with leaves and mud. He was unshaven, but his cloak and the clothes beneath it were fairly clean. He’d obviously found a stream somewhere to wash himself—which indicated that he wasn’t completely ‘gone’.
“We’ll get you to your brother soon,” I replied in what I hoped was a soothing tone.
He looked even more horrified at that statement, so I changed the subject.
“We’re looking for some jinn—creatures like those two.” I pointed to Horatio and Aisha. “Have you seen anyone resembling them?”
Zerus looked at the jinn inquisitively, as if he was observing their strangeness for the first time.
“I haven’t seen creatures like that.” He shook his head in wonderment. “What did you call them, jinn?”
I nodded.
“I haven’t seen their kind. But this forest is full of strange things…dark powers, whispers. Lights that flash from above, as if they are stars”—he looked up to the mountain range—“and shadows that creep in from the waters. Nevertide is no longer a safe place.”
“What lights?” I asked.
“From the mountains. They come at night—there is power up there.” He shivered and turned away.
“We need to get up to the mountain. Can you show us where you saw the lights?” I asked.
“No! You shouldn’t go up there, human—you should have left this place long ago when Tejus permitted you to leave. Why did you stay?”
I wanted to laugh. Clearly Zerus had been here a while—he’d missed out on a lot. I didn’t think now was the right time to fill him in. “We can offer you help, Zerus. But we need to get to the mountain first—we’re looking for a way to save Nevertide. We believe there are creatures up there that can stop this, stop the entity and the shadow. Please, help us?”
The sentry looked over at our group—two jinn and the three kids who professed they could save his land. He looked doubtful.
“I can lead you to the base of the mountain,” he replied eventually, “and point you in the right direction of the lights, but then you must continue on your own.” He looked despondent for a moment, observing the walls of the pit and the trees that surrounded us.
“I feel there is not much hope for you, little human… Not much hope at all.”
Sherus
I walked slowly to the window, looking for the stars in the rips of the sky. The rest of the land was bathed in a grotesque shade of yellow, as if the sun itself was sick and dying.
Another omen had awoken me—dark and as chilling as the rest, but, as always, with no tangible information that would be of any use to us. My gaze fixed on a single star that blazed through the rip. This single star burned more brightly than the rest. I fancied that it offered hope, a guiding light that told me the rest of the universe was safe—that at least the stars continued to shine, their skies intact, worlds turning as they should.
I wanted to speak to Derek again about the closing of the portal. I knew what I asked was a lot. I had placed a heavy burden on the Novak ruler. If we closed the portal, and could find no way out, then we would most likely perish at the hands of the entity and his army. Was the desolation of GASP too high a price to pay for the safety of the rest of the supernatural realm, Earth and the In-Between?
In my heart of hearts, I thought that it was not.
But then what? What if there came another threat in their absence? Would this decision save the creatures of the dimensions, only to have them perish later?
I turned away from the window. My maudlin fancies, I knew, could drive me close to madness.
Dressing quickly, I left the room, shutting my door behind me. Most of the palace was still active—I could hear the guards and ministers giving orders, and the raucous cries of the human children as they played some game.
Are you willing to lock innocents in here too, Sherus?
I strode with purpose down the corridor toward the main staircase. At the top, I met the jinni queen ascending. I faltered.
“Queen Nuriya.” I bowed respectfully.
“King of the fire fae.” She nodded back, her golden eyes dancing in the dim light of the palace. They reminded me of home—her irises were the very color of the fire opals that decorated my bedchamber.
“You look pale,” she observed. “Has something happened?”
“No more than a dream.” I smiled ruefully.
She frowned, her radiant skin lightly creasing at her forehead. “But these dreams of yours, were they not the very thing that alerted us to the dangers of the entity in the first place? Derek should be informed—it may indicate a shift in the entity’s plans.”
“I am on my way to inform him now,” I assured her, surprised at how pleased I was to hear that she took my omens seriously—that she didn’t believe they were the result of a dark and brooding mind as my sister did.
“I will accompany you,” she replied. “Derek is wise, but vampires do not fully comprehend the subtleties of our magic—that the subconscious and the stars often hold more answers than mysteries.”
I nodded in agreement, wholeheartedly delighting in the sentiment, but also distracted by the jet-black thickness of her hair and how it cast deep shadows against her face.
“Shall we be on our way?” she prompted.
“Uh, yes.”
I continued my journey down the staircase and the queen glided beside me.
When we reached Derek, he was already in deep conversation with his granddaughter Hazel and the sentry commander. Tejus was a man who I had believed shared my stoic nature—who might be on my side when it came to shutting the portal…but his love for the Novak girl knew no bounds. If I suggested anything that might put her life in danger, along with the rest of them, I imagined he’d rather feed me to the entity himself.
“Sherus, Nuriya, just in time.” Derek turned to us both. From his expression, I realized he’d just heard bad news. Tejus and Hazel both looked perturbed—the jinni queen was right. Something had changed.
Derek told me about the visions of the sentry—the shadow seeping out to Earth’s dimensions, and by the sounds of Hazel’s description, the In-Between itself.
“Then I implore you, Derek. Let us find a way to close the portal—before the rest of the dimensions fall to the hands of this creature. I too had an interrupted sleep; visions not as clear as Tejus’s, but I believe they are true premonitions of what is to come if we do not halt his destruction. I heard the stars of the fae screaming, portals ripping, and my kin blackened by the shadow… I fear we are all doomed, Derek, if the entity is released from this cage.”
The vampire studied me with intelligent eyes, but I could see his focus was miles away, strategizing how best to accomplish this task without putting his family and friends in danger.
“We will.” He nodded. “Let me assemble a team to watch the cove. We have to wait for the right moment, or we won’t have a chance. The portal is too carefully watched—clearly the entity suspects what we might try to do. What bothers me is that Tej
us’s vision was so clear…does it know we will try to stop it, believing that we can’t? Or is it something else altogether? A trick to distract us?”
“From what?” I asked. “There is no greater crime than the one shown to Tejus. I believe the entity is taunting us, so confident that it cannot fail it is willing for its plans to be seen—and it will laugh at our efforts to try to stop it.”
“Perhaps,” Derek mused.
“I think Sherus is right,” Tejus muttered. “I think we have no further options than to close the portal…but I want some of us out before we do.”
He looked at Hazel, his gaze determined.
As I suspected, the sentry would happily sacrifice his life for hers. I wondered for a moment if my heart would ever feel that way again, or if I was too old and jaded—had seen too much to experience the violent and altering emotions of love.
Park your melancholy, Sherus! I scolded myself.
We were attempting to save the dimensions from annihilation, and yet here I was like an old and weepy king, mourning some abstract emotion.
“Let us make plans then,” Queen Nuriya replied, bringing me back to the present. “Let us find a way to lock the entity in.”
Tejus
“Commander, excuse the intrusion—two of the flying creatures request your attention.”
A guard stood to attention at the door of the banquet hall, his eyes searching me out from the rest of those assembled at the table. I rose, wondering which creature he could mean—one of the dragons or the Hawks?
“Let me come,” Hazel murmured, “they might have news from Benedict.”
I nodded, and we both followed the guard out of the room. The debate was almost at an end anyway, Derek had made his decision as to who would join him on lookout at the cove, waiting for an opportunity that we might use to our advantage to shut the portal.
We crossed the lawns, over to the edge of the barrier where two of the Hawk boys stood waiting for us. They carried huge bouquets of flowers in their arms, and I stared at them in confusion.