“My mother’s family name, before she became a Hellswan.”
I nodded, even more bowled over by the gift. It was obviously a precious family heirloom, and I felt like I was undeserving of it somehow. I hadn’t even known his mother, let alone done anything to warrant receiving something with such sentimental value.
The dagger was beautiful, if not a slightly macabre gift. How very Tejus.
“Here,” he proffered the belt that had been attached to him, “you can use this to hold it.”
“Put it on?” I asked, moving my robes out of the way – I was suddenly much less cold.
He leant toward me, wrapping the belt around my waist, moving closer till I could smell his skin—the warm, musky maleness that was so distinct to him. He tightened the buckle and snapped the clasp into place, but instead of moving back again, he paused where he was. My breath started to hitch in my throat and my heart pounded so loudly I thought we could both hear it. I trembled, trying to repress the urge to touch him, as my hunger burnt like a flame inside me.
“Keep your distance,” I whispered, stepping back from him.
As I was about to turn away from him, I caught sight of something else.
“Tejus—” I started, not knowing how to convey the sight I saw behind him. I couldn’t understand what it was at first—a huge something in the sky, like a giant black star-speckled banner. But as I stared, I realized that what I was seeing was the sky…only somehow the dawn had been ripped apart to nighttime.
Then the earth started to rumble.
I lurched forward, clutching one of the crenellations for support. The very foundations of the castle were starting to shake, and as I looked wildly over the landscape of Nevertide, I could see a large crack in the earth, running through the forests that surrounded Hellswan and traveling upward toward the Seraq kingdom in the distance. Trees, buildings, the cobbled streets of the village and the small stone houses—everything started tipping toward the crevice jaggedly tearing across the land, sliding downward into its black pit.
“It’s started, hasn’t it?” I whispered.
This was the work of the entity. I could feel its evil, its malevolent purpose twisting in my gut.
“We need to get out of here,” Tejus breathed as the tower started to lurch drunkenly from side to side. The stone walls of the keep started to crumble down to the courtyard, sending plumes of dust exploding upward toward us.
Without waiting for an answer, Tejus picked me up in his arms, cradling me close to his chest.
“Tejus, no!” I cried as I felt myself involuntarily starting to syphon off him.
Ignoring me, he ran down the steps to his living quarters. I begged to be put down again, and then abruptly kept my silence as I saw the devastation of the room—the castle was falling in on us. Half of the floor of Tejus’s living quarters had slid down into the floor below. We reached the main staircase just as the tower lurched violently. Tejus ran, panting and pale, down the steps of the tower, the iron creaking and lurching unsteadily.
Run.
The crashing of stone, glass and the fierce explosion of torch fires spreading across the carpets and drapes was deafening. We entered the main hallway and were met with pandemonium.
“We need to get Benedict!” I cried to Tejus, “Julian, Ruby—all of them!” I struggled in his arms as he headed in the opposite direction of the human quarters.
“We’re not…going…back,” Tejus replied with effort as he picked up the pace, fighting through the hordes of ministers and guards who were creating a mass of bodies, unintentionally blocking the main doorway as they all fought to escape.
“We have to!” I cried, but his grip on me only tightened, rendering my struggles useless. I took one last look behind me as the main arch of the hallway started to collapse in on itself, and then my view was blocked completely by screaming sentries.
Benedict…
Rose
It’s working!
The glow of the stones grew steadily brighter, moving from a faint aura to rays of brilliant color that danced off the faces of the witches, jinn and vamps who surrounded them.
I glanced over at Corrine, who shot me a reassuring smile. The witch, like all the others, was perspiring heavily and looked pale—the magic was obviously taking a lot out of them, but still they continued, determined as I was to get the portal open. Mona was muttering incantations under her breath, her chest heaving as if the words were being ripped from her chest.
Looking down at the black tar, I saw its movements starting to pick up—the heavy sludge-like swirls it had been making since we discovered it now started to splutter and twist. A small opening, no larger than a dime, appeared in the center of the mass. I watched, transfixed, as the opening widened, moving from the circumference of a dime to a fist, and then it was the size of a dinner plate, and I could see the hazy yellow-blue of a morning sky.