“He did. Lucien was my husband.” Although talking to Seth, Stephanie’s green eyes never waivered from Sophia as she stopped in front of Marlthas.
Marlthas raked his black eyes over her. After a long pause he asked, “Why are you here, girl?”
Sophia looked at him warily, wondering if it was a trick question.
Marlthas slammed his fist onto the table, rattling his goblet and flagon. Terah leapt to her feet, growling. Unable to stop herself, Sophia took a defensive step back.
“Since you don’t appear to have an answer, I’ll tell you. You’re here for one reason only: to secure the Shenayan succession. Or in the language a low born Norin like you would understand – to deliver a son.”
Sophia’s face flushed and her fists clenched.
“Sophia, calm down,” Stephanie pleaded. “Don’t stoop to his level.”
A low born Norin! How dare he?
“Words, Sophia. Just words. Rise above them. Say nothing to antagonise him.”
So Sophia stood silent before Marlthas, looking him in the eyes, with her fists clenched at her sides.
“Still high and mighty, I see. Well, I’ll soon knock that out of you.” Marlthas lifted his goblet, heaved himself up from his cushions, and moved in close. “Now girl, listen carefully because I’m only going to say this once.” He paused for effect. “You have one month to announce a pregnancy–”
“One month! But that’s unreasonable,” Sophia gasped before Stephanie could stop her.
Marlthas’s flung the contents of his goblet at her. “I did not give you permission to speak.”
“Ignore the palm wine, Sophia,” Stephanie begged as Sophia’s hand jerked up to wipe her dress. “He won’t tolerate you wiping it away.”
Sophia’s hand flopped to her side as the wine seeped through the silk to her skin.
Marlthas circled her, making her shiver. “I watched you during dinner tonight, and I wasn’t happy with what I saw. It was clear to all with eyes that you have little interest in the Shadow Lord of Shenaya.”
“If I’m just a low born Norin then why do you even want me for your Shadow Lord?”
Erin and Seth saw Stephanie’s eyes roll. “She’s impossible.” She leaned into Sophia and whispered, “Do you really want him to torture you? Because trust me, Marlthas will think nothing of having your fingernails pulled out – or worse, if you don’t shut up now.”
Sophia bit her lip, and tried to calm down.
Marlthas stopped in front of her. “My, you are a wild one.” He touched her cheek, running his fingers down to her mouth. “I’m almost tempted to keep you myself.” She flinched, making him laugh. His grip on her face tightened, yanking her mouth out of shape. “But it’s not more sons I need. So I suggest you overcome your squeamishness and provide me with a grandson.” His smile turned ugly. “Because if you don’t make me a happy announcement of a pregnancy by the end of this month, I’ll send my Pledged to Norin to bring me your father’s head on a spike.”
“No, my lord!” Sophia cried before she could stop herself.
“And that’s how we welcome guests to Shenaya,” a low voice drawled out of the darkness.
In a single movement, Sophia, Erin and Seth spun around to identify the speaker. A frail, gaunt man with a waxy face stepped into the light, dragging a clubbed-foot.
“Rustus,” Marlthas grunted, clearly not pleased with the intrusion. Seeing Sophia’s revulsion at Rustus’s almost corpse-like features, he laughed. “Girl, meet my little brother. Rustus, Lord of the Household. Rest assured, he’ll take great delight in monitoring your every movement.”
Rustus hobbled over to join them, saying nothing.
Marlthas grabbed Sophia’s chin, forcing her to look at him. “Now, Sophia of Norin, unless you wish the view from your bedchamber to be forever marred by the sight of your parents’ rotting heads, go and do as I’ve commanded.”
Ashen faced, Sophia stumbled from the room.
“You know,” Erin said, glaring at the two Shenayan leaders. “I really don’t like these people.”
“No kidding. Let’s get out of here,” Seth replied.
“Do you want to touch the Stone or should I?”
“I thought you didn’t trust me with it,” Seth said with a crooked smile.
Erin’s heart fluttered, and she smiled back. “True. I don’t.” She stroked her finger across the diamond’s pulsing surface.
* * *
Time, they marvelled, was odd stuff. It was as if the Seer-Stone had hit the rewind button on the past few hours. They were back in the same dining room, except this time it glowed with candlelight. Desperately thin slave girls bustled about, clearing up dishes. Sophia’s and Kezeah’s welcome feast was just ending. It was clear that Marlthas and Sophia had not yet had their meeting. The beautiful black woman they’d seen earlier stood up from her place next to Marlthas and nodded to Sophia and Kezeah. Together they left the room. Caleb and Daniel, also anxious to escape, bowed to their father, and walked as purposefully into the passage. Away from the watching eyes in the dining room, they traded unhappy expressions. Two patrolling Pledged marched past them.
“Speak later,” Caleb mouthed to Daniel.
Daniel nodded, and the brothers separated. The Stone pulled Erin and Seth after Caleb.
“What’s he thinking?” Erin asked Seth. “I’m dying to know.”
“Aren’t you getting his thoughts?” She shook her head. “Weird. I think I missed some of Sophia’s too.”
Erin bounced up and down as they walked. “I’m missing out. Big Time. Tell me what he’s thinking. It must be about Sophia.” She stopped in midstride. “That sounds terrible. Like I’m some kind of bloodsucking paparazzi.”
“I know what you mean.”
Erin gnawed the inside of her mouth, torn between her compulsive need to know everything and her desire to give Caleb his privacy in a world where all of his conversations were strictly monitored.
Seth took pity on her. “As you can guess, he’s thinking about the evening. But you’d have to be a guy to really appreciate it.”
The need to know won out over Caleb’s right to privacy. Erin grabbed Seth’s arm. “Tell me!”
Seth looked embarrassed. “Well, Sophia’s hot. And Caleb’s a girl-starved Shenayan. What do you think he was thinking about?”
“Sex. No doubt.”
“Almost. Kind of.” He saw Erin’s questioning face and laughed. “Okay. You want it. Here it comes. He’s filling his mind with images of Sophia in her silk dress. The way it clung to her as she walked, sat, talked, ate, moved, breathed . . .”
“And ignored you.”
Jolted by the reminder of that unpleasant truth, Caleb’s steps faltered.
Seth looked around to find the dead person who had spoken into Caleb’s head. It was Caleb’s Gefallen. “That’s a low blow,” he told the wraith. “If I hadn’t said all that to Erin, you wouldn’t have known what Caleb was thinking. I thought we weren’t allowed to influence the past?”
The Gefallen hissed at Seth.
Caleb slowly started walking towards his room. As he entered, the Gefallen spoke again into his head. “By the way Caleb, I must warn you of something unpleasant.”
His words were driven out by the stench of rotting flesh. Erin and Seth gagged. Caleb rushed for the window. He never made it. Instead he fell into a slime of maggot-infested torsos and sightless heads.
Erin screamed as a bloated hand, skin flaking from its bones, clutched her ankle and pulled her down with Caleb.
“Erin, no!” Seth grabbed for her, catching her backpack instead. It slipped off her back, and he watched helplessly as she slid away from him and disappeared. Frantic to find her, he threw the backpack aside and stabbed his hands into the tidal swirl of dead. But he felt himself slipping away too.
He landed on a hillside, piled high with dead boys. Terrified that he’d lost Erin – that she could now be one of the corpses he was slithering over – he didn’t feel the f
lies settle on his face, crawling into his eyes and nose, or the vomit in his throat as he shrieked her name.
“Seth!” Her voice sounded far away.
“Where are you?” he yelled, his heart soaring with relief at the sound of her voice.
“Here! Help me!”
He saw her staggering towards him – the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.
He grabbed her, pulling her with all his strength against his chest. With his lips pressed against her hair, he murmured, “Don’t you ever do that again!”
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” she stammered back. This was the caring boy who had rescued her from the hyenas. Do I have to almost die before he melts? Is this what it takes?
Seth squeezed her tighter and they stood trembling, feeling their hearts pounding as they clung to each other.
A deep thrumming coming from the plain below reverberated around them.
“What’s that?” Erin asked, looking around in panic.
The layer of corpses beneath their feet moved. A rumbling noise made them look up. An avalanche of dead bodies was tumbling towards them. Seth locked his hand around Erin’s wrist. “Erin, whatever happens, don’t let go of my hand. We’ve just got to go with it.”
They heard a scream. It was Caleb. Caught in the undertow, he reeled, wide-eyed, as a dead warrior tumbled into him. He tried to dodge, but his hand caught the boy’s axe, ripping his fingers open. The wound pulsed blood. Seth’s heart missed a couple of beats. Raw instinct told him to rush over to help his friend, but a greater, more powerful desire kept him holding onto Erin. He pulled her closer to him, and together they rode the grisly wave. Finally, they and the last of the dead cartwheeled to a stop at the bottom of the hill.
Too shocked to speak, Erin pointed over Seth’s shoulder. Turning, he saw Caleb. He was staring at an army camped under an ocean of red banners emblazoned with black Lightning Birds.
“Reuel’s army that attacked Gideon. Exactly like my vision,” Seth managed to mutter.
But then the scene changed to one that Seth had never seen before. In one swift movement, the Lightning Birds lifted off their flags and soared into the air.
“This is déjà vu tornado and crows.” Seth shoved Erin behind him, trying to shield her with his body.
She didn’t argue. Instead she buried herself into his back, peering out from under his arm at the Lightning Birds. They began to merge into one monstrous double-headed raptor. It glided down in front of them, its shadow enveloping them. Flexing black wings, it leered down, transfixing them with its four red garnet eyes.
“The Stone, Seth!” Erin screamed. “Touch the Stone, get us out of here.”
“The Stone. Oh no! It’s in Caleb’s room. In the backpack.” Seth grabbed her hand and started running, dragging her with him.
“What about Caleb?” Erin shouted, stumbling over corpses.
“It’s you I have to protect,” Seth shouted back, running even faster.
“No, Seth, we can’t leave him.” Erin turned to see Caleb staring up at the Lightning Bird in fear-filled disbelief.
“Erin, I can’t lose you again!”
But Erin pulled away, anchoring her feet between the bodies of two dead boys. “We can’t leave him here!”
“Erin, as much as I care about Caleb, he’s dead. Stay here and we’ll be too,” Seth shouted. “You know I pissed Reuel off by attacking his wraith. And not a damn Guardian in sight when we need one.”
But Erin wasn’t listening. She was standing mouth agape, staring at the Lightning Bird. The horror contorting her face stopped Seth and he turned to look.
The Lightning Bird’s huge body was bulging as if it were about to burst. Its heads began writhing as if it were in agony. With a single shriek, it began tearing at its own feathers and flesh. Seth, Erin and Caleb watched spellbound as the bird’s inner enemy emerged with each bite.
It was a boy. Brushing sable-dark hair from his amber eyes, he stepped away from the tattered remains. He looked down at it briefly with a hero’s sneer of contempt.
“It’s Caleb,” Erin whispered.
Also seeing his likeness, Caleb stepped backward, stumbling over a corpse. He steadied himself just as his Gefallen spoke: “Caleb, Shadow Lord of Shenaya. Beware, evil forces now gather, threatening to destroy you. See what your enemies are seeking to inflict on you. A cursed son who will torment and plague you all the days of your life.”
Lighting zigzagged from the cloudless sky, striking Caleb’s doppelganger in the face. The boy’s image flickered and then re-ignited. Although still a mirror image of Caleb, he now looked at them through hypnotic blue eyes – Sophia’s eyes. With a derisive smile, he fixed those eyes on Mount Sidon. Following his gaze, Seth, Erin and Caleb saw great plumes of smoke billowing up through the roof of Reuel’s invincible Fortress. They watched as the inferno devoured Caleb’s home, the seat of his future government, the heart of his country.
“Caleb,” the Gefallen’s voice cut through the fiery roar. “Your son must never be born or the victory Reuel won against the traitor Gideon will all be in vain. And Shenaya – your birthright for which you wait so anxiously – will be snatched from your grasp.”
A second thunderbolt struck Caleb’s son. As he crumbled to ash, like a movie being played backwards, the smoke on the hill was sucked back into the roof. The flames guttered and died. The Fortress stood untouched in all its ominous implacability.
Now a new shadow darkened the sky.
Phoenix-like, the Lightning Bird had risen again, glowering down at them, its hooked beaks snapping. Then it flashed and vanished, taking the battlefield with it.
The door of Caleb’s apartment slammed shut. As though the horror they’d just witnessed had never happened, the mocking voice of the Gefallen continued: “As I said, something unpleasant is about to happen to you, Caleb.”
“Something unpleasant! What the bloody hell was that then?” Caleb yelled as Erin and Seth looked with stunned disorientation around the room, now clean, with everything in its place.
“A vision. It must have been a vision of some kind,” Erin said, her breath coming in rasps.
“Then why’s Caleb’s hand bleeding? And why do we stink?”
Erin looked down at her filthy blouse and jeans, then shrugged.
Caleb covered his head with his hands. A warm trickle ran down the side of his face. He jerked his lacerated hand away, noticing for the first time the rivulets of blood coursing down his wrist, seeping into his blood-soaked sleeve. “It was real,” he whispered. “The corpses, the Lightning Bird, everything.”
“Yes,” his Gefallen answered, this time speaking out loud. “You have been taken back into the past, and, at the same time, been shown a possible glimpse of the future.”
Caleb looked around for the invisible speaker, but seeing nothing, slumped down onto his bed. When he spoke his voice had the detached quality of someone coping with way, way too much. “But that boy, the one who destroyed the Fortress, he’s . . . terrifying.”
“He is the fulfilment of the Gideon Prophecy. That’s what Gideon wishes to inflict on you. A son who will destroy you.”
Caleb’s face blanched. “But . . . but the last time I had to deal with the Gideon Prophecy, Phineas died. I killed him.”
“A most unfortunate incident, a great loss to mankind,” his Gefallen mocked. “But don’t despair, Caleb. Killing that traitor earned you Reuel’s support. And he has the power to help you overcome Gideon’s cursed prophecy.”
The bemused expression on Caleb’s face vanished. “Reuel! This is all about Reuel?” He leapt to his feet. “I know exactly who my enemies are. Reuel and Gideon. And most of all, my father. And trust me, as much as my father wants to force Sophia onto me, if she’s in any way linked to Reuel or Gideon, I’ll never touch her. So you can all go to hell.” He pulled the door open and stormed out, leaving Erin and Seth alone with the Gefallen.
The door had not yet slammed shut when the Gefallen attacked. Viper fast,
it curled around Seth’s neck. He fell to his knees clutching his throat. But although he tried to rip the ever-tightening coils away, his hands passed straight through the wraith’s body. Tighter and tighter the Gefallen pulled until Seth’s face turned blue and his eyes bulged.
With futile shouts of protest, Erin watched, powerless to stop him. Then she remembered the sword. It was still in the backpack. But where was the backpack?
“Seth pulled it off your back when you vanished through the floor,” Stephanie said in her head.
Erin looked around, saw it, and dived for the sword. She had never held a sword before and it felt strange in her hands. And what do I do with it? Thrust? Cut? Slash? But there was no time to worry about technique. Seth was dying before her eyes. Still, terrified that she might slit his throat, she hesitated.
“Just slash the damned thing, Erin!” Stephanie shouted.
Erin obeyed, swiping at the Gefallen with all her strength, praying she wouldn’t decapitate Seth. With a scream of pain-filled fury, the wraith dissolved, leaving Seth slumped on the floor.
Erin fell down next to him and opened his mouth, wishing their first kiss didn’t have to be life-giving CPR.
* * *
Seth opened his eyes and saw Erin’s face floating above him. He reached up and touched her hair; it was matted and slimy. Then he remembered. “The Gefallen!” He pulled away from her in panic.
“Gone. I used the sword. It really works.”
Seth collapsed back and looked at her. “I’m sorry.” His voice was so hoarse and strained she had to lean in to hear him. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I was really stupid. If I’d had the sword on me we’d probably never have got caught up in Caleb’s stuff.” He swallowed hard, trying to lubricate his burning trachea. “It was all meant for him, poor bugger.”
“No. It was my fault.” She was still crouched next to him, knees pressing against his side. “Phineas told me to keep close to you with the sword. But with everything that happened with Sophia, I forgot.”
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