A Shade of Vampire 39: A Rip of Realms(31)

“Speak to me then,” I interjected. “You’ve managed to eradicate most of the royalty in Nevertide, surely I will suffice?”

“Their deaths were not our responsibility!” the second minister objected, glancing at the first. They were starting to realize that we could potentially pose a threat—one look at Tejus’s glare and they fell silent again.

“We want to know why you sided with Queen Trina, why you abandoned Nevertide to her,” Tejus demanded. “What did you gain?”

“We d-didn’t,” the first stuttered. “We didn’t!”

“You did,” I shouted back. “You sided with her throughout the trials—you ignored Hadalix’s death, and I’d be amazed if you didn’t give her a heads up at every single trial!”

“She was the strongest contender,” blustered one of them.

“We needed a strong emperor, one who could protect us from the entity, one who would be able to unite the kingdoms and repair the damage done by your father.” The Impartial Minister pointed at Tejus, his old, gnarled finger trembling.

Tejus barked with laughter.

“You fools! Queen Trina is the head of the Acolytes—she’s been aligning herself with the entity since this began. Had you no idea? Were you so arrogant that you couldn’t see what was right in front of you?”

“Nonsense!” one of the ministers cried. “She was the only one worthy of the imperial title!”

Tejus sighed, rubbing his temples in frustration.

“Shall we pull out the rest?” I asked, hoping that at least one of the others might be more forthcoming and reasonable.

“No!” the first minister cried. “Let them heal. We’ll tell you anything you want to know, but leave them to their peace. You are not the only ones who have suffered.”

“But we seem to be the only ones not taking a nap,” muttered Hazel. Tejus smirked.

“What do you know about the entity?” I asked. “We need to know more if we’re going to put a stop to it.” The accusation on my tongue, that they were clearly not going to do a thing, remained unspoken.

“We don’t know much,” one of them replied.

“Just tell us what you do know. I’m running out of patience.”

There was a long pause before one of them began in a shaking voice, “He has risen now. It was foretold…if one ever removed the stones that held him, he would rise—and he would end the reign of the sentries. He will awaken his army from the depths of the sea; they have lain there, waiting, for centuries—waiting for the day when they will be called on by their master to be reborn, and take back the land that was once theirs.”

“What do you mean?” Hazel asked quickly. “An army of what, exactly?”

The old minister turned his rheumy eyes toward her, surprised that a mere girl would demand answers from him so directly.

“We don’t know exactly,” he replied after a moment. “But the entity and his army are the pure forms of sentries. When the first settlers landed here, human settlers, Nevertide—or the ‘Lost Land’, as it was known then—was already inhabited by deadly, vicious and powerful creatures. In awe of these creatures, the humans begged for the powers of the ‘pure’ sentries—and their wishes were granted. Today, we are all the descendants of these human and sentry hybrids.”

“We’re really part human?” I asked in astonishment.

The minister nodded, looking shamefaced. Clearly it was something that brought them great distress, but it temporarily lifted my spirits. I glanced over at Ruby. Our eyes met and she gave me a small smile.

“When the hybrids grew in number and power, the ‘pure’ sentries were banished at the request of the emperor, locked into the stones for all eternity. They became known as the ‘forbidden’—the true nature of them being long ago forgotten, and their mention erased from our history books. Well, most of them.” He glared at Tejus and me, as if we were somehow at fault for knowing about the entity. Was their pride so great that it was more important to keep our enemy secret than to annihilate it? These ministers were insane if that was what they thought.

Still, the information was hard to digest. Tejus remained silent, evidently as stunned as I was. I couldn’t believe that the entity we so feared was essentially our creator—that the shameful secret the Impartial Ministers had tried to bury for so long was our own origin.

“Do you know how we defeat it?” Tejus asked after a few moments.

“We do not,” the minister replied. “The book of the emperor, however, is rumored to have the answer to that question. We must, must progress with the trials if we are to contain the situation.”