The whispering ceased, as did the entity’s power. Tejus and I fell to the floor, my back and head pounding where they had been knocked.
“Hazel! Are you all right?” Tejus groaned, staggering up by holding onto the wall. Dimly I nodded, and took his hand as he reached out to pick me up from the floor.
“We need to go after him,” I gasped, trying to keep my eyes focused on something, but the walls and the castle kept spinning around me.
“One moment,” he rasped. He clasped me to him, and I leant my head against his chest. I didn’t know if it was providing comfort or keeping himself balanced, but I inhaled the scent of him and found a small semblance of comfort in his pounding heart.
“Let’s go,” he murmured, releasing me.
We set off in the direction that Benedict had headed, no doubt straight for the passage.
“We need to run if we’re going to catch him,” Tejus breathed. “Can you?”
I nodded, picking up the pace as we hurtled along the corridors. My body was screaming in agony, every inch of it hurting. But I knew if I stopped for even a second, I would give up, and above all I needed to stop my brother before he re-entered the passage.
When we reached the hallway, I realized we were too late.
The red and black robes of the sentries lay in a crumpled pile.
No…oh, God—please no!
I came to a halt at the passageway. It was empty. The door swung gently on its hinges. One of the sentries moaned, their eyes closed, oblivious to the world.
I had failed my brother again.
Tejus
Hazel had cried softly all night.
I hadn’t slept, not knowing what to do other than pace up and down the living room, feeling disgusted with myself for how helpless I seemed to be against the power of the entity.
I didn’t trust myself to try to comfort Hazel. Not in the reckless and furious mood I was in. My lack of power left me desperate to take hers, to completely and utterly consume her, burying all that I felt in her willing, loving touch. I could not allow myself to surrender that way.
The words of the entity did not leave my mind. I turned them over and over again in my head, trying to make sense of them. What had it meant when it spoke of being my creator? Was it something I was to understand literally, or was it just the egomaniacal talk of an omnipotent, powerful force? It too had called me a false king, the same words used by my mother in the desert. Why? My power had been won fairly—I had taken part in the trials, proven my worth.
Except Hazel had the stone all along…
Was that the reason I was declared false? Did her borrowed power mean that my crown was undeserved? I could hardly bear to contemplate it. If that was the dark, twisted truth, and I was in fact a false king, then would I not also be a false emperor if I succeeded in the trials? And then more importantly, would a false emperor be able to read from the damned book, to hold power over the entity and the stones? If not, then I was dooming Nevertide to a fate that centuries of rulers had fought to prevent.
“Your highness, the trials are to begin soon.” Lithan appeared at the doorway to my chambers.
“Prepare the birds,” I replied. “The guards and ministers—have they woken yet?”
“Some have regained consciousness; the others look to follow shortly.”
“And the humans?” I asked.
“Safe—the entity didn’t go near them.”
I dismissed him with a nod, walking to my room to change. I would let Hazel sleep until I returned. She needed it, and I didn’t know what we would next need to face to return her brother. If that was even possible.
The birds were waiting in the courtyard. I wanted to be early, to see if I could get a chance to be alone with Queen Trina Seraq. Benedict’s mention of her name had surprised me. I had known for a long time that Queen Trina refused to play by the rules—that she had scant regard for her people, or anyone really who wasn’t her. I knew of the nymphs, her indulgence in a variety of practices long forbidden in our land…but I had not imagined that she would go so far as to embroil herself in this. The fool. Did she even know what she was dealing with?
As I kicked my vulture up into the air and we soared up and away from the castle, I recalled Hazel’s insistence that the Acolytes were active once again. I had started to believe that she was right, and I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps they were Trina’s current pet project. If I was right, then it did not bode well for any of us.
We set down a few yards from the Pavilion. Dawn had broken over the mountains in the distance, casting a pink, reddish glow across the mists of the valleys and the dew-soaked grass. It was peaceful here, miles from my castle, as if the world had paused for a few moments before the day’s pace began.