The floor of the ballroom was almost entirely obscured by the fallen bodies of the kids. Six black-cloaked Acolytes moved around them, gathering them up in their arms and piling them up by Jenus. He was clean-shaven and dressed in the same black robes as the rest of them, but hadn’t bothered to put his hood up. Clearly he didn’t care that he might be recognized. He turned toward the door as we opened it, smiling at me.
Asshole.
I dragged Jenney off by the arm, heading back toward the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” She tried to resist my pull, but I held on fast.
“He’ll have a getaway—vultures, carriages or something,” I hissed back at her, leading her out through the busted wall in the kitchen and into the gardens.
I looked around for some form of transportation method, but couldn’t see anything.
“Around the side,” I panted. Setting off at a run, we turned the corner of the palace just in time to see the exterior wall of the ballroom explode outward. Shards of sandstone and rock flew across the lawn.
“Go and get any villagers you can find!” I yelled at Jenney. I suspected that for the Acolytes to get access in the first place, they would have syphoned off the guards so heavily they’d be useless now.
Up ahead, I saw a row of carriages, all embossed with the Seraq kingdom’s coat of arms. Clearly Queen Trina also no longer cared about keeping her name clear of all this, and the thought frightened me. It meant we were running out of time.
I ran toward the last carriage, the one closest to me. Just as I reached the back of the buggy, Jenus started to lead the children out. They were all standing upright now, each one of them tied to a thick cord of rope. None of them were fighting or calling out, so either Jenus was able to control them somehow, or they just didn’t have the energy to do anything other than follow one another.
Fight, damn it!
There were Acolytes guarding either side of the procession. If the kids didn’t try to fight back, then there would be no commotion that I could use as a distraction…I just had to hope that the rest of the Hellswan sentries would come running before they left the palace.
Then I saw Yelena.
She was the last kid tied to the rope, her red hair standing out starkly against the Acolytes robes. No way would they be taking her.
Over my dead body.
If that was what it came to, then fine. I was about to be stupidly reckless and rush forward, when I heard the cries of the stampeding villagers rushing around the corner of the palace from the kitchen.
I held on a few seconds longer, waiting till I saw the first furious face breaking through the trees—it was Jenney’s. Behind her were about ten or so other sentries—some villagers, and a few guards and ministers. They all held weapons aloft – some swords, some carrying whatever they’d found in the kitchen as they rushed to the aid of the kids.
The Acolytes were quick to respond.
The first few went down instantly, Jenney among them, screaming out as they were syphoned. Their bodies writhed on the floor, and they clutched at their heads as if they wanted to tear their own brains out.
Focus!
Ignoring the distraction, and the plight of the Hellswan sentries, I picked up a rock from the ground and ran forward into the fray. I headed directly for Yelena, only partly hearing Jenus’s screams for the Acolytes to stop me, but nothing happened. The sentries were performing their own syphoning. Some of the Acolytes left their posts at the rope, bellowing in agony as they got a taste of their own medicine.
The Acolyte guarding Yelena was facing the oncoming horde. Before he had a chance to turn around and stop me, I leaped toward him, slamming the rock into the back of his head, embedding it in his skull.
He screamed out in pain while I started working on the knots that were tying Yelena’s hands to the rope. It kept slipping out of my hands, I fumbled too much in my hurry, and before I knew it, the Acolyte was slowly raising himself up off the ground.
Hurry, hurry, hurry!
The knot came loose just as another Acolyte reached out and grabbed hold of Yelena’s arm.
“No!” I cried out, tugging her away from him. For a few seconds, we tugged at Yelena’s body like she was a rag doll. I was about to let go before one of us dislocated her arm, when the Acolyte yelled out. He released Yelena as he fell backward onto the ground. His body twisted sideways on impact, revealing the handle of a chopping knife sticking out of his back. I looked up to see a villager smile in satisfaction at the dead Acolyte on the floor.
Nice save.
Thanking him briefly with a nod, I picked Yelena up, throwing her over my shoulder with some difficulty—for all her wiry and small appearance, she was kind of heavy. I didn’t wait around to see the outcome of the fight. I could hear from the sound of Jenus’s victorious yells and the screams of the villagers that the Acolytes were winning, and not us.
I ran in the opposite direction of the kitchen, where the coast was relatively clear, praying with every step I took that we wouldn’t be attacked from behind. I imagined Jenus gaining on us, his cloaked figure clamping a hand on my shoulder…I couldn’t turn around to find out, so I just ran all the harder—panting, feeling like my legs were going to collapse beneath me till I reached the main entrance to the palace. Stepping over the bodies of two guards by the door, I pushed it open and slammed it behind me.
After the bright light of the afternoon, the hallway of the palace was complete darkness. Unable to go any further, I dropped Yelena to the marble floor as gently as I could, then sank against the door, catching my breath—and wondering why the hell Ash and the rest of them continually thought it was a good idea to leave us alone in the palace.
Hazel
Tejus and I held back as we journeyed by road to the summer palace. The rest of the ministers, guards and Julian had traveled by vulture. Ash and Ruby rode ahead, choosing to return on bull-horse rather than travel by air. I heard a few mentions of GASP floating over to us, along with some raised voices and stilted replies. I didn’t think the conversation was going that well. No wonder. I didn’t understand why my friend had held the truth about herself back from Ash for so long. It seemed weird, but I knew Ruby well enough to know that she would have a logical reason for it…even if the reason made no sense to anyone else but her.
Night was falling, and the forests on either side of the road looked as creepy as they had in the morning light. I still had the feeling that I was being watched, and wondered if it was the power of the entity. If he was non-corporeal, then could he be everywhere at once, watching us? Waiting for us to fall into a trap? Waiting for the entity to make his next move was doing my head in—the suspense almost felt more torturous than the actual event might be. I nestled myself back into Tejus’s chest, feeling his arms tighten around me. The simple gesture was a reminder that I was safe, at least for now, and at least while he was near me.
“Tejus, did you see many you knew today – in the ruins?” I asked quietly. I couldn’t get the smell or the sight of crushed sentries out of my head. It had been complete carnage.
He was silent for a few moments, and then sighed heavily.
“I looked for Zerus, but I didn’t see him. Perhaps he escaped, I don’t know. He was always very solitary…I rarely saw him during the trials. He might have left Hellswan long before the earthquake. I hope so.”
I registered the name of Tejus’s brother with surprise. Since the night of the old Emperor’s trials, I hadn’t seen Zerus and Tejus had never brought him up. I knew that the brothers’ weren’t close – but I imagined that Zerus’s ‘missing’ status bothered Tejus more than he would like to admit.
“I’m so sorry, Tejus. I hope he got out. If you didn’t see him, maybe he did leave.”
“Maybe.”
“We’ll find him,” I whispered. “Don’t give up on him yet.”
We rode on in silence. I started to ignore my surroundings and my mind drifted to thoughts of the jinni who had locked up the entity in the first place. It
was strange for them to be alone—like I’d explained to Ash, they were tribal creatures, and to just have one jinni mentioned struck me as weird. Also, if there were more, there was the possibility that there still might be jinn living in Nevertide somewhere all these centuries later.
“Do you think the jinni, or jinn, could still be in Nevertide?” I asked Tejus.
“If it or they were, someone would have seen it, surely. How long do they live for, anyway?” he asked.
“I don’t know, exactly, but a long time, far longer than humans. There’s a possibility that the jinni who locked up the entity in the first place could still be alive—if not here, then somewhere else.”
“Then we should start looking for it,” Tejus replied. “I’ll ask Ash to speak to the Impartial Ministers when we return to the castle. Perhaps they’ll know something.”
“Because they’ve been such fountains of wisdom so far?”
Tejus smirked darkly. “It baffles me why all this has been shrouded in such secrecy for so long…I can’t help but wonder if it was to avoid the discovery that sentries are descended from humans, a shameful secret they wanted to keep hidden.”
“I think you’re right, but honestly, I’ve never heard anything so stupid in all my life. This could have all been avoided if the Impartial Ministers had been a bit more open.”
“It seems like a lot of unpleasant things could have been avoided if some of us had been a bit more open,” he remarked, nodding his head in the direction of Ruby and Ash.
“Seriously?” I laughed. “And you don’t think that applies to you?”
“Good point,” he grunted.
I’d never known someone to struggle so much with honesty. It was almost like he thought the world would be turned upside down if he told the truth—that any kind of openness would make me turn away from him in disgust. I’d never known anyone like that before, and if it hadn’t been for Ash I would have wondered if it was a trait specific to sentries, but he had always seemed pretty upfront with Ruby. Which probably made her hiding GASP from him all the harder for him to take. As for the rest of them, the Impartial Ministers, Tejus, all the other ministers and Tejus’s father had pretty much operated in a shroud of secrecy that I doubted we’d ever be able to fully remove and get to the truth.
“Tejus,” I asked after a moment, “why do you think your father risked taking the stone? I mean, I know he wanted Jenus to win the trials…but if he’d read that book, he would have had to be insane to risk it.”
“I’ve been wondering the same thing, but I’m at a total loss.”
We rode on in silence.
“I doubt he hated you or your brothers that much,” I continued after a few moments. I assumed that Tejus would have thought that would be the only possible reason the emperor would have been so reckless and stupid.
“I don’t know about that,” he replied calmly. “Perhaps he was just determined that the Hellswans would continue to rule—and he was right to doubt me. I became king for only a few days, and then handed the crown to Ash.”
“He wasn’t to know that!” I corrected. “How could he?”
I felt Tejus shrug. “He knew me. As much as I hate that fact, it’s true. Maybe he could see I wasn’t as power-hungry as Jenus, and wouldn’t hang on to the crown till the last, dying breath in my body. Jenus would.”
“Do you think Ash will?” I asked.
“I do.”
I agreed with him.
Ruby would have some difficult choices to make.
We trotted up the pathway to the palace gardens, gaining on Ash and Ruby till we were riding side by side. They were both silent, but the tension between them was gone—from the way Ruby was relaxing forward against Ash’s back, I presumed that the argument was over.
Before we entered the clearing of the lawn, Julian ran toward us with Benedict in tow.
“The Acolytes,” Julian panted, “they came—they’ve taken the kids.”
I jumped off the bull-horse instantly, looking Benedict up and down to check he wasn’t hurt.
“What happened?” I asked.
Benedict told us the story, his face pale and contorted with fury.
“Why did you leave us?” he demanded when he’d finished. “That’s the second time something’s gone wrong—and now all the kids are missing, probably being locked up by Queen Trina so she can bathe in their blood or something equally sick and gross.”
“I’m sorry, Benedict,” Ash muttered. “I thought that the danger would follow us, not the other way around.”
“Yeah, well, you should have thought a bit harder. Obviously, they knew you’d be gone, so someone is telling them what we’re up to—or they’re watching us. Jenus wouldn’t have tried it otherwise.”
“He’s right,” I replied, feeling sick. “This was premeditated. They must have known somehow.”
We all started walking back toward the palace. Now that there was a chance we really were being watched, I couldn’t help glancing over at the dense thickets of trees that surrounded the gardens—seeing things that weren’t there, feeling the hairs on my neck prickle.
“Get inside.” Ash hurried us along.
“The threat might also be in the palace,” Tejus replied curtly. “I suggest we have a word with Lieutenant Ragnhild—he’s the likely suspect so far.”
“Agreed,” Ash replied.
Ruby gave a short, indignant snort—I recalled that she’d been the one to warn Ash about the lieutenant. Why didn’t he listen to her?
“Yelena’s the only one they didn’t take,” Benedict announced, walking beside me. “She’s the only one I was able to get free.”
“You went up against Jenus?” I replied, my voice semi-hysterical at the danger my brother had put himself in.
“He was distracted by the villagers,” he mumbled. “And it was worth it—at least they didn’t take them all.”
I put my arm around Benedict, so relieved that he was safe. If Tejus or Ash thought I’d be leaving him alone in the palace ever again, they were sorely mistaken. From now on, we’d be sticking together no matter what happened.
“How is Yelena?” I asked. “Is she okay?”
“She’s okay. I think she’s just a bit pissed off she got syphoned again, and she’s worried about the other kids. Jenney’s with her now—she got hurt as well. The Acolytes are powerful. Jenney says they syphon harder than other sentries. She’s had to borrow energy off two other ministers just to be back to normal, and to me, she still doesn’t look that great.”
I nodded. It didn’t surprise me. If the book was right, then the Acolytes seemed to be linked to the entity—if they shared visions, then it wouldn’t surprise me if they could somehow tap into its energy as well now that it had risen, and all those animal sacrifices probably helped…
Sacrifices.
I stopped walking, a cold, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“The kids—they’re a sacrifice!”
Everyone turned around to look at me. Ruby’s face drained almost entirely of color, while Ash and Tejus looked at one another, both expressions contorted with rage.
“What do you mean?” Benedict asked quietly. “They’re going to be killed? I thought that Jenus would just want them for their energy — like in the trials.”
“We’ll get them before anything can happen,” I reassured him.
I hope we can.
“We will march on Queen Trina’s kingdom at dawn,” Ash stated.
“That will be too late.”
Both Ruby and I looked at him, imploring Ash to do something sooner—not only were the kids in grave danger, but so were the rest of us if the entity took their collective power.
“They’re right,” Tejus agreed. “We should move out in a couple of hours.”
“With what army?” Ash snapped. “We need a proper force, and most of our men are in the Memenion kingdom—we’ll only get one shot at this.”
“I’ll send word out; they can join us as we travel.�
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Ash nodded reluctantly.
“All right then. We depart in two hours.”
We all hurried inside. Tejus went to speak with the guards to send messengers off to the rest of the kingdoms, and Ash disappeared with the ministers.
“I’m coming this time, by the way,” Benedict announced stoutly.
“You are,” I agreed.
He looked surprised at how easily I’d given in, but there was no way I was leaving him on his own again. We would be stronger together, and somehow we would just have to survive this. With any luck, it would be the last hurdle we faced before freedom from Nevertide.
“I need to go and speak to Abelle.” I turned to Ruby. “Make sure Julian and Benedict are ready?”
“I will. But Hazel, be careful. It might not be the best idea.”
I hadn’t had to mention why I wanted to see the herbal apothecary—Ruby had instantly guessed that I wanted to regain my powers for the fight ahead. It was risky to have them, I knew that, but it was riskier not to have them. And it was the only way I had a hope in hell of protecting Benedict and my friends.
“I know, but I need to do this, Ruby.”
She bit her bottom lip, her eyes concerned.
“Trust me,” I replied. “It’s the only way.”
I left them, going off in search of Abelle. I hoped that she would have something to reverse the effect of the potion—I wasn’t sure that I had time for it to wear off on its own. I quickly searched all the rooms on the upper mezzanine. When I found no trace of her, I tried the rooms downstairs, finally finding a large room where all the syphoned ministers, guards and villagers were recovering.
I scanned the room, looking for Abelle, but could see no sign of her. I turned to one of the villagers who was propped up against the wall, looking tired and dazed, but not too badly injured.
“Have you seen Abelle at all?” I asked.
The woman thought about it for a few moments, and then nodded slowly.
“I did,” she replied after a while, her voice drawling and soft. “I think she went to get more herbs from the garden…she’s been such a help.”
A Rip of Realms Page 13
