What now?
I couldn’t wait for them. Behind the billowing navy-blue robes of the queen, Tejus staggered to his feet. His teeth were clenched and bared as he fought against her will with everything he had left.
“Today,” Tejus panted heavily, “today you will meet the unhallowed creature that made you.”
She laughed again, raising her arms higher and sending Tejus crashing back down on his knees.
No!
Instinctively, I took another step forward, willing to do whatever it took to stop her. My fingers rested lightly against the hilt of my dagger, and I prayed for the courage to do what had to be done.
“Do you think you can harm me, vile human?”
She spun around to face me. I could tell by her malevolent, victorious smile that she had known I was approaching. She smiled broadly, as if it was all some great joke to her, as if I was nothing but a small inconvenience that would be easily disposed of.
“You don’t have the power,” she continued, almost pityingly.
She stepped toward me, closing the gap between us — close enough that I could smell her fragrant breath on my face and the overwhelming frankincense of her perfume.
“But I’m glad that you have come to try, little one.” She reached out and ran her thumb down my cheek. I recoiled at her touch. “I would have hated it if someone had ended you, other than—”
She went silent, her expression changing from malice to confusion.
I had let my hunger flow freely, latching on to her dark energy – drinking deeply the bitter, putrid taste of the atoms and molecules that made Queen Trina the twisted being that she was.
“How?” she whispered, feeling me syphon off her.
“You know how,” I replied with a smile.
I watched her face twist with hatred as clarity dawned on her; Tejus had given himself to me, had connected us — mind, body and soul. The vehemence of her emotion was instant and brutal.
“He belonged to me!” she screeched, the cry tearing from her throat.
“He didn’t want you,” I replied calmly.
“It doesn’t matter,” she spat, then tried to regain her dead smile, “you will never get the better of me, Tejus will never defeat me!”
She stumbled on the last word, falling toward me – her mouth open in silent horror as she realized what I’d done.
I swallowed, pressing the hilt of the dagger deeper, and then upward to pierce her heart. It had slid in so easily, I almost thought that I’d stabbed thin air.
“You…” she breathed. “How could…”
I released the handle. Taking a step backward, I watched as her hands reached around to cover the hilt, touching it as if she could hardly believe that it was there.
“You underestimated me,” I whispered softly in her ear.
I gazed at Queen Trina’s impossibly beautiful face. A small trickle of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth and ran down to her chin. Her eyes, still boring into mine, became glassy. The contorted expressions I had seen her exhibit, from rage to fear, jealousy, lust and vengeance, left her. Her face softened, and I thought perhaps, for just a moment, I was seeing a glimpse of the Queen Trina from long ago—maybe the girl she had been before all of this.
I took a shuddering breath, and my trembling hand reached out again, closing around the hilt as I yanked out the blade. The queen’s eyes widened for a second, and then she fell – tumbling to the ground, black tar spilling from the wound where blood should have been.
“Hazel!” Tejus cried, staggering toward me.
Before I had time to react, I was wrapped in his fierce embrace, his mother’s dagger falling from my hand. I couldn’t continue to touch it in that moment. I closed my eyes against Tejus’s chest. My hunger fled, to be replaced with a painful tightening of my chest as I held back sobs of shock and relief.
She was dead. She couldn’t harm me or anyone I loved again.
From the comfort of Tejus’s arms I heard the ministers dragging the children from the sea, followed by the reassuring sounds of coughing and crying—they were alive!
I broke away from him, turning toward the ocean.
Presumably, with Queen Trina and the Acolytes stopped, the barrier would now be destroyed…and the portal open.
I looked up at Tejus.
Do we leave?
Ruby
Benedict and I ran toward the ocean. We helped the ministers drag the children out, my heart leaping in my chest as I saw they were all alive. The second wave of the army had just arrived, and I glanced over – back to the passage to see Julian hurrying toward us. He grinned broadly, and I returned the smile. It probably wasn’t the time for celebration yet, but this one victory over the Acolytes and Queen Trina made me want to yell and whoop with joy. The children had survived against all odds.
Leaning over one of the young boys, who was moaning incoherently, I looked up, distracted by a huge burst of light that was coming from the water.
The portal.
It was open.
Julian and Benedict saw it at the same time. They both turned to me, their expressions half-hopeful, half-afraid.
Can we just leave?
I turned back to look at the far end of the cove. Ash was bloodied, with his cloak torn, chaining up a few of the Acolytes that they had kept alive. I wasn’t ready to make a choice. I knew that Ash wouldn’t come with me—not now, not when he had the entirety of Nevertide to piece back together again.
My gaze shifted to Hazel, staring at the light, standing next to Tejus.
“What do we do?” Benedict called to me over the noise of the waves.
“I don’t know!” I replied, my voice sounding desperate.
Suddenly, my body lurched forward. The ground had started to tremble. The Viking remains that littered the cove began to vibrate, cracks appearing in the cliff face and the cries of the army rising up behind me.
“Everybody LEAVE!” Ash bellowed.
I wanted to move, but I felt like my feet had frozen to the shaking ground. The portal was only a yard or two ahead. We could leave Nevertide. Wasn’t that what we’d always wanted?
How can I leave Ash?
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. Even if we were to return with GASP, I would have abandoned him when he needed me the most.
“The sea!” Benedict yelled, staggering backward.
I watched, open-mouthed, as a humongous wave built, dragging the water backward from the shore. It grew higher and higher, far over the cliffs of the cove, so high it would have reached the tower peaks of Hellswan castle.
“RUN!” Julian cried.
He picked up the human boy at my feet, flinging him over his shoulder. He grabbed my arm, dragging me backward.
“Wait!” I cried, suddenly aware that the wave had stopped moving. In fact, everything had stopped moving. I could no longer hear the sounds of the ocean, or the rumbling of the earth. The sentries behind us were silent too—their run toward the path had stopped as they turned to face the frozen wave.
I looked down at the exposed sea bed. Beyond the cracked shells, tangled seaweed and the spiny bones of dead fish, I saw stones. Millions of them.
“Th-th-the stones,” I stuttered at Julian, “look at the stones…”
“Are they—?” he breathed.
“I think so,” I replied, mystified.
As we watched, the stones started to glow. They changed from dull grayness to the radiant, multicolored creations that had danced in the locks of the entity. Their colors entwined with the bright blaze of the open portal till the entire ocean seemed lit with a luminous, shining light.
“What does this mean?” Benedict asked quietly.
“I don’t—”
I stopped speaking as a sharp crack came from the stones. A second later came another.
“They’re opening!”
Something is coming.
“Hazel, what do we do?” I screamed in her direction. Do we try to make it to t
he portal, for Benedict and Julian’s sake? There were thousands upon thousands of stones to cross before we reached it. Could we risk it?
“Get back to the palace, NOW!” Tejus roared. The intervals between the cracking of the stones was starting to decrease—more were opening.
I turned to look in Hazel’s direction; I wasn’t willing to make a decision that would affect all of us without her. We had to end this together, that had been the plan. She met my gaze. After a split-second pause she nodded, swiftly. We needed to leave. Now.
“Back to the palace,” I reiterated to the boys.
“Okay,” Julian replied.
“Benedict?” I asked.
“Okay,” he replied, glancing at the portal one last time before he turned on his heel, stumbling back toward the departing army.
Ash was waiting for me at the entrance to the path. His hand clasped around my wrist, tightly, without letting me break my stride. Together we ran from the cove.
Derek
Whizzing through the portal’s exit, I landed on a hard, stony surface. I leapt to my feet immediately and looked to see if the rest of my family and the GASP team were through all right. Sofia had landed nearby, and my daughter, son and their partners were only a few yards away.
“What is this place?” my wife breathed.
I had been momentarily distracted by the sounds of a large group of…humans? Supernaturals? I didn’t know, but they were heading off in the distance. I could hear the distinct clatter of horses’ hooves, and up ahead in the distance, huge birds in flight.
Sofia’s voice brought me back to our immediate surroundings. I looked down at the ground we had landed on, noticing with unease that we seemed to be standing on millions of stones—the same stone that Rose and her team had seen appear out of the portal, containing the soul of our unknown enemy. Further up the shore line, I could see the remains of shipwrecks, looking vaguely like Viking artifacts…was that a longboat I could see?
“Derek, look.” Sofia yanked at my sleeve. She was looking in the direction of the portal, her gaze fixed on an absolutely gigantic wave—frozen behind us.
“Everyone, toward the cove!” I yelled out the order, dragging Sofia back with me. I didn’t know how long the wave would be suspended like that. If it came crashing down, we’d be dragged out with the tide.
En masse, we hurried to the back of the cove—the only way out was a small pathway between the rocks that looked like it had recently collapsed in on itself. There was still just enough space to get through, but if it sustained more damage we’d be trapped.
“Oh, my God—look up!” River exclaimed, breaking our bewildered silence. Following her awestruck gaze, I stared once again in baffled disbelief. Across the hazy, nicotine yellow of the afternoon sky, there seemed to be rips and tears running through it, breaking up the very fabric of the dimension’s reality. A vast, black night’s sky could be seen through the shredding…
What is this place?
“Ibrahim,” I said quietly to the witches closest to me, “have you ever seen anything like this?”
“Never,” replied Ibrahim. Corrine and Mona also shook their heads, not glancing away from the sight before us.
“Dad?” Rose moved toward me. “Can you hear that?”
I fell silent, waiting to be enlightened. I heard nothing for a while, but just as I was about to turn back to Rose and question her, I heard a sound. It was a resounding crack—like an egg splitting open.
“I think it’s coming from the stones,” Sofia murmured.
“They’re opening,” Nuriya asserted, her face paling.
Sherus stepped forward, moving through the group to stand in front of me.
“Derek, we need to depart from this place! If the stones are breaking, then we are all doomed. You heard the voice in the portal—there’s no hope for us if we remain here! We need to leave and close it off again before this power can get out.”
I understood the fae’s concern, but I would not leave my grandchildren, Ruby or Julian behind. I could not and would not ask that of their parents. Neither was I willing to let the malevolent power remain in this dimension. Evidently it had opened the portal once, and there would be no reason why it wouldn’t do so again. No, we couldn’t risk it. We would stay here and fight the danger.
“Sherus, I understand if you want to leave. It is probably a good idea to warn the rest of the fae kingdoms of what you have seen here, but I will not be leaving this dimension without our children.”
“Derek, this is madness!” Sherus exploded.
“We don’t have time to argue,” Nuriya snapped at the fae king.
“She’s right,” I interjected, “we need to get inland as soon as possible. Nuriya, are you able to stop the stones from breaking for a while, delay them somehow?” I asked, willing the jinni to come up with a way to postpone the danger.
Nuriya looked doubtfully at the mass of stones beyond the shore.
“It’s such old, ancient magic…I couldn’t be sure. I think it is too great a risk right now—we should leave here, find safety first.”
I nodded. It was a good plan in theory, but the chances of us finding a safe haven in this unknown land seemed small at best. The best idea was probably to follow the creatures that I had heard riding off into the distance—from the look of the cove there had been a struggle. Bodies lay strewn about, their appearance human, but strange. Taller and larger than most. They had been killed by swords – that much was obvious. Kiev’s team started to check the bodies, while my family inspected the footprints that haphazardly marked the sand. Everywhere we looked, the ground was stained with blood, filling my nostrils with its distinct metallic aroma. If the creatures, whoever they were, were fleeing this place in a hurry, then perhaps they feared the stones as much as we did. At least we would have a common enemy.
“We travel inland,” I announced to the group. “We will begin our search for the children as soon as we can—but first we need to find a stronghold where we can protect ourselves from whatever’s coming out of these stones.”
I led the way through the narrow passage, moving as swiftly as possible, Sofia following behind me.
I didn’t know what we would face when we reached the mainland.
I just had to pray that whatever was coming our way, we could deal with it—that GASP would be able to overcome the dangers of this world as it had all the others…
Ready for the PENULTIMATE book of “Season 5” of the Novak clan’s story?
Dear Shaddict,
The next book, ASOV 40: A Throne of Fire, is the penultimate book in what has been “Season 5” of the A Shade of Vampire series — as we move toward the GRAND FINALE of Season 5 in Book 41!
A Throne of Fire releases February 19th, 2017.
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Thank you for reading.
I will see you again very soon!!
Love,
Bella xxx
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Read more by Bella Forrest!
THE GENDER GAME
The Gender Game (Book 1)
The Gender Secret (Book 2)
The Gender Lie (Book 3)
The Gender War (Book 4)
A SHADE OF VAMPIRE SERIES
Series 1: Derek & Sof
ia’s story
A Shade of Vampire (Book 1)
A Shade of Blood (Book 2)
A Castle of Sand (Book 3)
A Shadow of Light (Book 4)
A Blaze of Sun (Book 5)
A Gate of Night (Book 6)
A Break of Day (Book 7)
Series 2: Rose & Caleb’s story
A Shade of Novak (Book 8)
A Bond of Blood (Book 9)
A Spell of Time (Book 10)
A Chase of Prey (Book 11)
A Shade of Doubt (Book 12)
A Turn of Tides (Book 13)
A Dawn of Strength (Book 14)
A Fall of Secrets (Book 15)
An End of Night (Book 16)
Series 3: Ben & River’s story
A Wind of Change (Book 17)
A Trail of Echoes (Book 18)
A Soldier of Shadows (Book 19)
A Hero of Realms (Book 20)
A Vial of Life (Book 21)
A Fork of Paths (Book 22)
A Flight of Souls (Book 23)
A Bridge of Stars (Book 24)
Series 4: A Clan of Novaks
A Clan of Novaks (Book 25)
A World of New (Book 26)
A Web of Lies (Book 27)
A Touch of Truth (Book 28)
An Hour of Need (Book 29)
A Game of Risk (Book 30)
A Twist of Fates (Book 31)
A Day of Glory (Book 32)
Series 5: A Dawn of Guardians
A Dawn of Guardians (Book 33)
A Sword of Chance (Book 34)
A Race of Trials (Book 35)
A King of Shadow (Book 36)
An Empire of Stones (Book 37)
A Power of Old (Book 38)
A Rip of Realms (Book 39)
A Throne of Fire (Book 40)
A SHADE OF DRAGON TRILOGY
A Shade of Dragon 1
A Shade of Dragon 2
A Shade of Dragon 3
A SHADE OF KIEV TRILOGY
A Shade of Vampire 39: A Rip of Realms Page 17
