“Has the portal been opened yet?” my father asked quickly.
“No, not yet,” Caleb said.
“Then stop it at once!” Sherus roared.
“Our KIDS are in there!” Caleb replied, his fangs shooting out as he hissed at the fae king. “That portal needs to be opened!”
“Get Rose on the phone,” my father commanded. “Before it’s too late.”
Ash
The Impartial Ministers stepped up onto the pavilion. For the first time since I was a young boy, their appearance didn’t stir in me the same reverence and respect that I’d always held them in. Now they seemed as crooked as Lithan, no more mysterious and worldly than the ministers who worked for the Hellswan kingdom…and I had always held them in complete contempt. Jenney and I had spent many long hours in the kitchen discussing their misdeeds—the mistresses, the drunkenness and the narrow-minded attitude of most of them had always reduced us to tears of laughter. Now the idiocy of both the ministers and the Impartial Ministers no longer seemed like a joke, but a deadly mistake. How had the kingdoms continued to let them wield so much power? How had we all been so blind to their limitations?
One of them banged down a wooden staff, designed to command immediate attention. Memenion’s and Queen Trina’s ministers stood to attention immediately, but Memenion barely glanced in their direction—no doubt still fixated on the news I’d just delivered. I knew it had been a mistake to tell him prior to the trial. If anything were to happen to him, I would only have myself to blame.
“We have come to the penultimate trial. Those of you who have gotten this far, congratulate yourselves on your fortitude and know that it will stand you in good stead as you continue to rule your kingdoms.”
I wanted to laugh. What about the kingdoms that had lost perfectly good leaders because of these trials? Hadalix, Thraxus—both good kings who would be missed by their people. It suddenly seemed like a meaningless waste…lives lost because of the games of a few old, decrepit men.
“The trial will be a test of your willpower to see if you can resist the strongest call—that of the heart’s desire. To see if you can put lust and desire aside to do the honorable thing—to answer to integrity, to faith.”
I resisted the urge to scoff. The Ministers didn’t know anything about integrity or honor. If they did, they wouldn’t be standing here, preaching to us as Nevertide sank further and further into its inevitable end. Why were we standing around a stone pavilion, being tested, while the entity rose?
“No weapons will be needed for the trial,” the minister began. “You are the only weapon that will—”
The Minister broke off suddenly as the ground beneath the pavilion started to rumble with a low, insistent tremor. After a few moments, it stopped.
“As I was saying, you alone will be the weapon—”
A resounding crack splintered the air. It was a few moments before I realized that the sound had come from the stone of the pavilion—a split ran through the center, a jagged hairline that divided the stone in two. The split widened, dust pluming up from the stone and the black crevice yawning open.
Everyone staggered back, holding on to the arches as the rumbles from the earth began again, sending the ornate decorations at the top of the arches crashing to the floor and smashing into thousands of pieces. I looked around, noticing that the disturbance wasn’t isolated to the pavilion. All around us the trees were starting to shake. Horrific tearing sounds screamed from the depths of the forest—the screeches of rock cracking and grinding against itself, and then the low rumble of timber whistling through the air as the trees began to collapse.
“What is going on?” one of the ministers roared, slamming his staff down as if he could command nature itself to stop and obey him.
All around us, the ground was starting to split open. The cracks ran across the earth as if nature itself was dividing up the six kingdoms, severing our lands. Rocks leered up from the depths of the soil, jutting off at odd angles, their stone as black as night and jagged.
I heard the cries of the birds; they had all launched themselves up into the sky, too terrified to land, and had begun to circle the chaos beneath. As I looked up, I stumbled backward instinctively—the sky had torn.
That makes no sense!
But it was the only logical explanation for what I could see. The morning sky, gold and pink, had been carelessly ripped open, leaving a long, ragged scar that revealed the night’s sky—an endless black dotted with the cold glow of stars.
What in Nevertide is happening?
I watched, astonished, as one of the arches of the pavilion launched itself forward. As if in slow motion, the stone came toppling down, its already broken tip spearing the body of one of the Ministers who hadn’t thought to move in time—had thought that he was immune to the dangers that ravaged the land around us. His body crumpled to the floor.