Suddenly, a shout went up.
“It’s withdrawing!”
I looked up, the shadow having worked itself almost completely over the bubble of protection that the barriers had provided. Now I could see it drawing back. Slowly, inch by inch, the impenetrable blackness of the shadow was being replaced by the lighter tones of the evening sky.
“It worked,” exhaled the minister in front of me.
“I thought our time might have come,” Lucas muttered grimly.
I knew what he meant—the ice that had grasped at my heart was like nothing I’d ever felt. There might not have been anything physical to fight, but I had felt like this evil could kill me from the inside—crushing my brain and senses till there was nothing left but the madness of a broken mind.
Why hadn’t it?
What I had felt, the power that had come from that shadow, could have ended us, I was sure of it. We had maintained the barriers, but for how long would we have been able to do so? Our strategy had been to repel, not to attack. We were weak—without weapons that could fight the shadow effectively, why had it not continued to remain, waiting till we had exhausted our energy supplies?
The shadow vanished, the whispering dying off to be replaced with the gentle rustling of the trees in the wind.
“Uh, brother?” Lucas prompted.
“What?” I snapped, irritated to have my chain of thought broken. Lucas gestured to the approaching figure of Tejus, making his way through the GASP members and sentries who had sat down on the ground, resting.
I had seen my granddaughter working the sentry magic along with the others. Clearly, this was what Kira had warned me about. It pained me to see what she had become. I still didn’t know enough about their kind to truly understand why she would have wanted to do such a thing—most likely it was the sway of her boyfriend. Had infatuation blinded her? Or had she chosen this life with a level head… all for this man? My only fear was that she’d had no choice in it at all—perhaps not because of Tejus, even I could see that he cared deeply for her, but by some other sentry. But it didn’t feel like my place to ask. Her mother would untangle the story eventually, and what needed to be done would be done. The only reassuring aspect was how comfortable Hazel had seemed in her own skin—not just as she created the barriers, but from the moment we had found her in the forest. She had transformed, in more ways than one, and perhaps this new life was one she embraced wholeheartedly.
“Tejus,” I acknowledged with a nod of my head. For now, I would give him the benefit of the doubt. Ash was behind him, looking as weary as I felt.
“There’s something about this that doesn’t make sense,” Tejus muttered, looking around at the empty night sky.
“I know. I can’t help but think we’re missing something…what was the point of that? Why has it just vanished?”
“We were winning?” Lucas replied.
I shook my head.
“No, we were surviving. We were not winning.”
Silence descended on the group—Lucas looking confused, Ash and Tejus both appearing frustrated.
“A distraction,” Tejus growled suddenly.
He was right. It was the only strategy that made sense.
But for what?
Ash groaned out loud.
“Follow me,” Tejus barked, hurrying back to the castle.
He raced along the hallways, Ash, Lucas and I in close pursuit. He entered one of the rooms, revealing a sentry guard, passed out cold on the floor.
“JENUS!” Tejus bellowed, heaving back a trap door set in the stone floor. He disappeared from view, and after a few seconds, we followed him. We entered a dank basement, where two more guards lay on the floor. In the center of the room there was a cage—almost like a large bird cage, inch thick in filth.
“That parasite!” Tejus swore.
“Who?” I demanded, turning to Ash, hoping I could get some actual answers out of him.
“Tejus’s brother. They don’t get along.”
I exchanged a glance with Lucas, who grimaced.
That sounded familiar.
“Do you think he’s in league with the Acolytes? Do you think any of them were left alive, to help him?” Ash asked Tejus.
“I can’t see how we’d think otherwise.” Tejus sighed. “I think he escaped here.”
Tejus pointed to one of the floor stones. It was in place, but the barrels and other items that covered most of the floor and walls had been moved away from it.
“Someone must have come in this way too,” he continued, moving the stone back from the floor. It revealed a hole in the ground—small, but large enough for someone to crawl through. I cursed them for not checking the room properly. It should have been completely secured.