The shadow backed away, and I saw the rest of our group, all struggling to stand, looking around in confusion and anger.
The shadow moved down between the narrow path to the cove. My first thought was of Ibrahim and Nuriya, down by the portal. I staggered forward, using my hands to clamber over to the edge of the cliff.
Nuriya and Ibrahim were trying to make the shadow and the ghouls back off by surrounding themselves with ice fire. It was working on the ghouls—they screeched around the edges, burning themselves when they tried to get close. It wasn’t as effective on the shadow, and they kept having to vanish and reappear to keep the black mass from consuming them.
Jenus and the ghoul queen were fast approaching the portal, and I tried to call out a warning.
I was too late.
Ibrahim and Nuriya were sent scattering by a barrier expelled by Jenus. From this vantage point I could see what was happening more clearly. We too had been hit by a strange force-field, nothing like the translucent glows that the sentries created as barriers, but something stronger, darker. The edges of it burned red, and rather than being transparent, it was the same graying tones as the shadow.
They were knocked unconscious.
I called out in rage, frustrated by my own helplessness. Jenus and his queen stepped toward the yawning portal, and then they were gone—the ghouls and the shadow following close behind.
We had failed.
The entity had just been released out into the world.
Benedict
It was dawn when we finally sent Zerus off with Field. Julian had woken me in the night, telling me what the sentry had been trying to say all along, that Jenus was the brother who had been communicating with him all this time.
I was furious with myself for missing that vital piece of information, and I could tell Julian was too. We woke the jinn and Yelena, and then called for the Hawk boys and Ridan. They had been keeping watch over us from the trees above, and were ready to take him then and there, but Zerus, in his befuddled state, suddenly became terrified of returning to Tejus and the ministers. It took forever to calm him down. He refused all help from the jinn, seemingly more terrified by their strange appearance this morning than he was last night. He was in a bad way. Yelena was the most helpful—she spoke to him for a while, both of them sitting by the re-lit fire, murmuring to one another, while we all paced in agitation, wondering if Aisha or Horatio should get Tejus here instead.
Eventually, whatever Yelena had been telling him worked. Reluctantly he let Field carry him—they would fly back to Memenion’s palace and tell Tejus what was going on.
The rest of us got moving. Now we had no guide to take us to the base of the mountain, we relied heavily on Sky, Fly and Ridan to guide us. As we got closer and could see the structure of the mountain range more clearly, the jinn seemed hopeful that we would find some of their kind hiding out in the small caves that dotted the multiple rock faces. We sent the Hawk boys and the dragon on ahead, hoping their keen eyesight would locate anything that looked out of place. They hovered over the face of the mountain – slowly tracking across its surface so they didn’t miss anything.
As we began to climb, finding pathways as best we could, Julian slipped on a loose stone and swore.
“Look,” he said once he’d regained his balance, “this is so stupid. Let’s just wait here, there’s no point killing ourselves. If Ridan and the Hawks find anything, they can come and get us.”
“I agree with Julian,” Yelena called out behind me, before I could say anything. “I don’t see why we need to walk the whole way. Their eyesight is much better than ours, I don’t see how we can be of that much help.”
“Aisha, Horatio, what do you think?” I asked, remembering my grandfather’s advice about a good leader always listening to the rest of his team.
Aisha looked up at the mountain, hands on her hips as she studied it. “It’s easier for Horatio and me – we can travel much faster than you can. If the Hawks and Ridan could point out areas of interest to us, it might make this faster.”
“Don’t worry, Benedict,” Horatio added, seeing my downcast expression, “we’ll cover the mountain—we’ll make sure we find them. We won’t come back to GASP empty-handed.”
“All right,” I agreed. “We’ll wait for you, Ridan and the Hawks then.”
I sat down on the nearest rock, annoyed to be out of action but realizing it was probably for the best.
“I hope we find them quickly.” Yelena broke the silence, chewing on her bottom lip and looking worriedly out across the forest. I didn’t reply. I had started thinking about what might be happening back at the castle and the cove – how much danger my family and the other members of GASP were in. I really hoped that the discovery of Zerus and Jenus’s communication would help them.