“I am on my way to inform him now,” I assured her, surprised at how pleased I was to hear that she took my omens seriously—that she didn’t believe they were the result of a dark and brooding mind as my sister did.
“I will accompany you,” she replied. “Derek is wise, but vampires do not fully comprehend the subtleties of our magic—that the subconscious and the stars often hold more answers than mysteries.”
I nodded in agreement, wholeheartedly delighting in the sentiment, but also distracted by the jet-black thickness of her hair and how it cast deep shadows against her face.
“Shall we be on our way?” she prompted.
“Uh, yes.”
I continued my journey down the staircase and the queen glided beside me.
When we reached Derek, he was already in deep conversation with his granddaughter Hazel and the sentry commander. Tejus was a man who I had believed shared my stoic nature—who might be on my side when it came to shutting the portal…but his love for the Novak girl knew no bounds. If I suggested anything that might put her life in danger, along with the rest of them, I imagined he’d rather feed me to the entity himself.
“Sherus, Nuriya, just in time.” Derek turned to us both. From his expression, I realized he’d just heard bad news. Tejus and Hazel both looked perturbed—the jinni queen was right. Something had changed.
Derek told me about the visions of the sentry—the shadow seeping out to Earth’s dimensions, and by the sounds of Hazel’s description, the In-Between itself.
“Then I implore you, Derek. Let us find a way to close the portal—before the rest of the dimensions fall to the hands of this creature. I too had an interrupted sleep; visions not as clear as Tejus’s, but I believe they are true premonitions of what is to come if we do not halt his destruction. I heard the stars of the fae screaming, portals ripping, and my kin blackened by the shadow… I fear we are all doomed, Derek, if the entity is released from this cage.”
The vampire studied me with intelligent eyes, but I could see his focus was miles away, strategizing how best to accomplish this task without putting his family and friends in danger.
“We will.” He nodded. “Let me assemble a team to watch the cove. We have to wait for the right moment, or we won’t have a chance. The portal is too carefully watched—clearly the entity suspects what we might try to do. What bothers me is that Tejus’s vision was so clear…does it know we will try to stop it, believing that we can’t? Or is it something else altogether? A trick to distract us?”
“From what?” I asked. “There is no greater crime than the one shown to Tejus. I believe the entity is taunting us, so confident that it cannot fail it is willing for its plans to be seen—and it will laugh at our efforts to try to stop it.”
“Perhaps,” Derek mused.
“I think Sherus is right,” Tejus muttered. “I think we have no further options than to close the portal…but I want some of us out before we do.”
He looked at Hazel, his gaze determined.
As I suspected, the sentry would happily sacrifice his life for hers. I wondered for a moment if my heart would ever feel that way again, or if I was too old and jaded—had seen too much to experience the violent and altering emotions of love.
Park your melancholy, Sherus! I scolded myself.
We were attempting to save the dimensions from annihilation, and yet here I was like an old and weepy king, mourning some abstract emotion.
“Let us make plans then,” Queen Nuriya replied, bringing me back to the present. “Let us find a way to lock the entity in.”
Tejus
“Commander, excuse the intrusion—two of the flying creatures request your attention.”
A guard stood to attention at the door of the banquet hall, his eyes searching me out from the rest of those assembled at the table. I rose, wondering which creature he could mean—one of the dragons or the Hawks?
“Let me come,” Hazel murmured, “they might have news from Benedict.”
I nodded, and we both followed the guard out of the room. The debate was almost at an end anyway, Derek had made his decision as to who would join him on lookout at the cove, waiting for an opportunity that we might use to our advantage to shut the portal.
We crossed the lawns, over to the edge of the barrier where two of the Hawk boys stood waiting for us. They carried huge bouquets of flowers in their arms, and I stared at them in confusion.
“Is this some strange custom I’m not familiar with?” I murmured to Hazel.
She shook her head. “No…I have no idea what they’re doing.”