‘Step back from me, Prince,’ I say evenly.
No one speaks, though the Prodigies’ expectations fuel the air like a dozen rockets lined up for take-off. They’re waiting for something.
Prince Luca tilts my chin up with the long nail of his thumb. Our eyes connect and a bridge forms from his mind to mine. I’m not expecting this and the suddenness and openness of it shocks me.
I see that he wants me in a way that he’s never wanted any other being before – to possess me completely, from my physical body to the innermost thoughts of my mind. And though he knows he should wait until I’m eighteen, he’s acknowledging that to do so would be virtually impossible. He wants me now.
The invasion is too personal. Intimidating and violating. I try to push him out of my head, but he doesn’t move so I’m either not doing it right or he’s too strong for me. I remind myself how I’m still learning. Inside, my blood throbs through my veins. I notice the red haze at the edge of my vision and I reach for the energy that always seems to accompany it. ‘Get out of my head, Prince Luca.’
His eyebrows rise. I will leave when I’m ready, Princess.
I focus on his words, holding on to them even though they feel heavy like bricks. I draw on my anger, then shove his words back at him, imagining I’m hurling hot rocks off a bridge.
He cries out, stepping backwards and shaking his head. A chorus of gasps erupts from the Prodigies.
I’ve hurt the Dark Prince and now I don’t know what to expect. Will he strangle me in retaliation? Beat me to a pulp?
He stares at me, his eyes flashing the colour of autumn leaves. You have hidden talents, Princess. I look forward to exploring them in a more intimate environment, he links.
Sniffing my hair, he runs his fingertips down the length of it again.
‘When Nathaneal learns you’ve kidnapped me, he’ll bring war down on you. Is that what you want? Another war? You’ve shown me your cities through my dreams; I’ve seen your people. Do they deserve to have their homes and lifestyles destroyed?’
‘You care about my people?’
I shrug. ‘I don’t know them, but it seems to me they’re innocent bystanders. Do you want them to end up as collateral damage?’
‘Are you suggesting I release you?’
‘Well . . . yes.’
He chuckles as if I’ve cracked a funny joke. He glances at his Prodigies, still laughing, and they laugh with him.
‘Don’t laugh at me!’ I spit.
‘Ebony, I will not release you, so you should dismiss that thought from your head. If war is waged because of my actions –’ he lifts his hands – ‘then so be it.’
He strokes my hair again. The watching soldiers seem to all breathe in at once. ‘Your hair and the setting sun are the same colour,’ he says, with a degree of gentleness that surprises me. ‘Once you are queen, no one but your maidservant and I will touch your hair again.’
Oh, Nathaneal, where are you? When you touch my hair, the strands curl around your fingers of their own volition. But now, here, with Prince Luca, they lie flat and pretend they are dead, just like my heart is without you.
My hair draws away from Luca’s touch, strand by strand. His left eyebrow lifts and he makes a growling sound deep in his throat. His green eyes blaze with those gold flecks again, but this time they turn glossy black almost instantly, and a sudden pounding ache throbs inside my head. You will not always yearn for him!
I dig my heels in, determined not to break eye contact first.
Then Luca amps up the power, making my head feel heavy, compressed.
Damn it! I won’t be able to take much more. He’ll turn my brain to mush. ‘OK, stop. Stop! You’ve made your point – you’re stronger than me!’
Amazingly he does stop, but I can’t let him walk all over me. ‘You might be physically stronger, at least today, but you will never own what’s on the inside.’
It’s the wrong thing to say. A Prodigy, the young one with black shaggy curls, called Sarakiel, gasps and moves as if he wants to intervene. Lieutenant Saul slaps an open palm on his chest, stopping him.
I brace myself for Prince Luca’s retaliation. But all he does is lean down so that his mouth is equal with my cheek, his heat scalding my ice-cold face. ‘On the day you turn eighteen you will become my queen. Skade is where you belong. It is written in stone with the blood of dead warrior angels,’ he says. ‘One day you will understand, and that is when I will own your body, your soul, and your mind.’
He lifts his head and motions to Zavier with a sharp nod. ‘We take off soon. Make sure she’s wearing the lamorak.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ Zavier says, and, lifting me into his arms, flies us to an unoccupied peak where he sets me down and begins lecturing me. ‘Are you insane?’
My head still hurts and I mumble, ‘I’m sorry, what?’
‘Now is neither the time nor place to prove your strength, Ebony, or reveal the force of your inner will.’
I give myself a mental shake. I can’t let Prince Luca’s creepy words affect me.
‘Ebony?’
‘What?’
He peers down at me. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yeah, I’m brilliant. Fantastic! Never felt better!’ I look him straight in the eyes. ‘I know I sound like a child right now, but for what you have done to me I could kill you. The fact that you deceived your own family disgusts me, and I feel stronger hatred than I think an angel is supposed to feel.’
He stares down at me, his brown eyes wide and unblinking, his big chest expanding as he draws in a deep breath. Then he nods in a kind of weird slow motion and says in an exquisitely gentle voice I’ve not heard him use before, ‘As you should, my lady. Precisely, as you should.’
39
Ebony
We take to the air again with Zavier carrying me in his arms and the black lamorak confining me to darkness and oblivion. The storm is too wide for us to skirt around it, so we fly directly into its path.
Hours later prevailing winds continue to pound us, bringing pelting rains with them. And with lightning tearing the sky in vertical and horizontal patterns, we gain ground with painful slowness.
‘How long will this last?’ I ask in a rare moment of calm.
‘It stops when it stops,’ Zavier snaps. I don’t ask again because, even though I can’t see his face, I can tell by his brutal hold that he’s maintaining fierce concentration to keep the gales from snatching me from his arms.
Then, abruptly, everything stops. Even the winds are silent. The sudden stillness makes my skin itch. This strange calm in the midst of a violent storm would never happen on Earth unless we were in the eye.
‘Zavier, are we in the –’
He cuts me off. ‘Don’t say it, Ebony.’
I can hear his heart beating. ‘Zavier, are you afraid?’
‘Yes, my lady.’
His admission surprises me and makes my own heart beat faster. ‘Of what?’
He takes too long to answer and I have to prompt him, ‘Zavier?’
‘Dropping you.’
‘Oh. Really?’
‘You don’t have to sound so surprised. You are my niece.’
‘Who you sold to the King of Skade.’
‘Point made.’
‘Is there a soldier who can give you a break?’
His answer is decisive. ‘No.’
The moment we fly back into the storm, Zavier takes a deep breath, tightens his arms round me more intensely than before, and hisses near my ear, ‘Hold tight, niece. With luck, we shall be through the worst quickly.’
It’s as if the sky opens up and throws everything it has at us. Every lightning strike generates an explosion of energy that scatters the Prodigies in different directions. More than once, a lightning bolt strikes so close, the hairs on my head stand on end and I scream from the depths of my lungs.
Hot chocolate always soothed me when storms struck at night. I close my eyes and force myself to visualise my mother bringin
g me a cup to drink. But this is a bad idea. My heart wrenches at the knowledge that I’m never going to see Mum and Dad again, never feel their loving arms around me, or hear their voices, or watch their proud faces when I graduate from high school.
My tears flow and, at least for now, I let them.
I don’t know how long we ride this storm, but eventually the winds die down, the rain stops pelting us from different directions, thunder ceases to deafen us, and I’m still safe in Zavier’s arms. That’s when I think I doze off for a few minutes, so weary I can’t force my eyes to remain open.
I wake when we come to a sudden stop and the only sounds are fourteen pairs of beating wings hovering beside us.
A lump forms in my throat. ‘Have we, um . . . arrived?’
‘Not yet,’ he says. ‘But at least the storm has passed and the way ahead is clear. We’ll make better time now, my lady.’
‘There you go again. Zavier, don’t call me, “my lady”. It’s medieval and just plain weird coming from someone who used to be my science teacher.’
He laughs. ‘As you wish. But now I don’t quite know what to call you. Perhaps, “your highness”?’
‘I certainly won’t answer to that.’
‘How about “Princess”, like Lord Luca prefers?’
‘Not that either.’
He sighs. ‘If only it were that simple, my lady.’
‘Stop it right now! My name is Ebony.’
‘All right, all right, simmer down, niece. Is that better?’
‘I suppose.’
‘Once we’re in Skade, I could have my tongue cut out for disrespecting you.’
His words send a sickening zing down my spine. Zavier already thinks of me as the Queen of Skade.
A Prodigy suddenly calls out an order and Zavier banks left. They all do, and I get the sense we’re making way for something to pass.
I listen carefully, and before long I hear voices, a few at first, and then hundreds, chattering away in languages I recognise as belonging to various nations of Earth.
‘What’s going on?’
‘What you’re hearing are human souls on their way to a special dimension where they will live in tranquillity for eternity.’
‘Do you mean heaven? Are you telling me there’s an entrance to heaven nearby?’
There is a long pause before he answers. ‘It’s called Peridis.’
‘Can I see these souls? Just in case, you know, my p-parents are amongst them.’
He snaps, ‘I told you where your parents are!’
‘Yeah, in a prison that will explode if anyone tries to rescue them. The explosion will kill them too, right? And when they die their souls will go to . . . to . . .’ I choke on the word. Thinking about Mum and Dad in a place that’s only for souls, a world I will never see, is too much to handle right now.
‘Ebony, even in death, no one escapes Mount Mi’Ocra. Souls live in the tunnels and caves there, hiding from the three-headed dog packs and . . . other wild things.’
‘But the souls you freed as part of your payment for me came from that mountain. You said that.’
‘Yes, but I had to bargain for those. There’s no other way out for the souls who are sent to Mi’Ocra.’
‘That’s hardly fair.’
‘Brace yourself, niece, because where you’re going you will see unfairness every day. It’s the way of life for the souls who end up in Skade and the angels born there, through no choice of their own, generation after generation.’
He groans. ‘So for the last time, Ebony, heed my warning and forget your old life. Forget everything about the human world. Forget you ever had human parents. Forget Nathaneal, and Jordan and Amber, and your horses, and your farm. They are all dead to you now. Remember, your entire life on Earth was a lie. But the truth is you were destined to be a queen long before you were born. Soon you will become one. Embrace the position and all that it brings.’
‘Does it ease your conscience that I hate you?’
‘Nothing will ease my conscience, dear.’
‘You left Avena because your love for my mother went unrequited. You tried to live in Skade but hated it. Now you get to live on Earth where I want to be. Why do you get a choice when I don’t?’
‘You’re too smart for your own good. That’s going to be a problem for you in Skade. Damn! Your talents will be squandered in that miserable forsaken world,’ he mutters angrily.
Suddenly, a soldier wrenches me from Zavier’s arms.
Whack!
Someone – I’m guessing Prince Luca – just hit Zavier. I hear the whooshing sound of him flying through the air. His scream goes on and on, receding slowly as I assume his body hurtles further away.
‘Why did you do that?’ I yell, trapped inside the lamorak.
The human voices are gone, but I still need to see what’s happening, so I try yanking the fabric down over my head. By now I’ve figured the release mechanism is somewhere between my shoulder blades.
The Prodigy holding me mutters a string of words in his foreign language as I move around trying to release the lamorak. He sounds anxious and suddenly shouts out what sounds like a plea for help.
‘Hold still!’ Luca commands, which I ignore, wisely or unwisely. My guess is that land is not far below. And since I’m immortal, even if I were to break both my legs, they’ll heal themselves – eventually.
I try again to yank the lamorak down from my head. I pull and tug and try poking it with my nail to get a grip, yanking it over my face with my teeth. It’s such a tight fit it sticks in all the wrong places. But I haven’t tried everything yet. So when these attempts fail, I try rotating it the opposite way, rolling the fabric down my back with curled toes.
Suddenly Prince Luca bellows in a thundering voice, ‘Zavier, I command you to return immediately!’ He ejects a burst of energy that blows us sideways. I assume this is supposed to break Zavier’s momentum, not send the Prodigy holding me into a backwards spiral.
Prince Luca yells, ‘Thorian, do not drop her!’
He doesn’t – yet.
‘Gamorn, Sarakiel, hurry,’ Prince Luca yells.
Gamorn and Sarakiel beat their wings hard.
Suddenly I slip from Thorian’s hold and begin to fall. One pair of arms almost catches me, but fails, while the other one’s beating wings sound too far away.
Strangely, I thought free-falling would feel better than this, but with no room to spread my arms or legs, it’s a nightmare. And now I’m not so sure land is close below me.
I drop for the longest time, what must be thousands of metres. The wind whistling past changes and becomes sharper, ear-piercing. Soon I’ll be hitting the ground. Even an immortal will have a hard time recovering from a drop this high.
It’s then that I hear the familiar sound of Zavier’s wings. He seems to take too long to reach me, but finally his strong arms wrap round me, and I feel safe again.
He squeezes me until I’m breathless, murmuring words that I don’t understand, but which are thick with emotion. I clear my throat, ‘Uh, Zavier, you do realise we’re still dropping?’
He lifts his head off my shoulder. ‘On purpose. Don’t fret. You were moving very fast.’
‘So were you.’
He slows the beat of his wings, gradually coming to a complete stop, and we simply hover for a few moments. ‘Thank you, Zavier,’ I murmur, and press my face into his shoulder.
‘I’m sorry this happened, Ebony. I should have been more careful. I know better than to speak against the kingdom. It’s the one sure way to antagonise the king.’
‘Do you have to take me back? Prince Luca just attacked you. And you know what he wants to do with me. Can you turn round and fly us back to Earth? The Prodigies are still weak. You would out-fly them all.’
‘Ebony, there is no place to hide on the Earth if Prince Luca is looking for you.’
‘If you took me back, Nathaneal would protect you.’
‘Nathaneal would destroy me!’
/>
‘Like Prince Luca just tried to do? Come on, Zavier. This is my only chance, and I need you to help me.’
‘Ebony, I have a contract with the King of Skade.’
‘I know – me, in exchange for a thousand souls and ten million dollars.’
‘It’s not that simple. Contracts are covenants between angels. The only way out is by mutual agreement or a battle to the death.’
‘That’s barbaric.’
I feel him shrug. ‘It’s the way these things have been done for thousands of years.’
‘Well, it’s stupid.’
‘Perhaps as queen, you could have that ruling changed.’
‘Sure. And Prince Luca will simply let me.’
‘It won’t be his decision to make. That would be a matter for the high court to decide, and only a royal ranked as high as king or queen can submit a law for review. You wouldn’t need the king’s permission to submit.’
We reach the others, and Prince Luca starts yelling at Zavier, his voice still magnified with a strange echo. ‘Should one more traitorous word pass your lips, I will throw you into outer space where you will be crushed to dust for the cosmic winds to spread throughout the universe.’
He barks out a command in his own language and I hear the Prodigies moving around, falling into their standard formation around us. We start flying again, but this time Prince Luca remains right alongside us.
And now I’m not sure who I hate most – Luca for wanting me to be his queen, or Zavier for making it possible.
40
Nathaneal
Searching for light between descending boulders, while carrying John, is becoming a losing battle. John’s injuries are critical. Oxygen deprivation could end his fragile hold on life.
Ebony, my sweet love, if I should fail you in this, please find it in your heart to forgive me.
Swimming against the explosion’s powerful downward drag starts taking its toll on my strength. I need to break the surface, quickly. A glimpse of white light high above looks hopeful, but a massive boulder plummets towards us.
Too large to deflect, I swim with the drag until I clear it. And now I have taken John into deeper, darker depths.
Broken Page 22