by Megg Jensen
“It says here that we can use our gifts to detect the portal. It’s a matter of focusing again. We can’t focus on where it leads, because we don’t always know, but focusing instead on discovering the portal itself. If we close our eyes and see with our minds, we should be able to see the portal shimmering. Then we step up to it, flick our fingers outward, and it should appear.”
“Give it a try,” I said.
“Don’t you want to?” Mark asked, his hand on my shoulder.
I shook my head. We didn’t have time for experimenting. Mark could do it, that much we knew.
We crawled in front of the fireplace, still afraid of being discovered by the guards. Mark closed his eyes and scooted closer. He flicked his fingers and again, a portal appeared. He grasped my hand and we crawled through together, not knowing what waited on the other side.
Chapter Sixteen
My knees stung as we crawled through the portal. My rough dress didn’t protect them when we switched from a worn wooden floor to pebble-littered ground, but I was so grateful I hadn’t chosen silk.
Mark quickly crawled through behind me, popped his fingertips back together and the portal closed. I looked around at the room before me. Not a room, I quickly realized, a cave, shimmering with stalactites and stalagmites, baring their teeth at us.
“Where are we?” Mark asked, his voice cracking with wonder.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But wherever we are, someone went to great trouble to hide it.”
Mark stood, stretching his legs out. He held out a hand to help me up. I gratefully took it and joined him in standing. But as I stood, my wig caught on a rock next to me and ripped it off my head.
“I still can’t believe you shaved your head again,” Mark said, rubbing his hand lightly on my scalp. I shivered from the cool, dry air passing over it ahead of his hand.
“I had to. I wanted to blend in. I didn’t want anyone to see me.” I shrugged. “Without that we probably wouldn’t have ended up here.”
“Where do we go now?” he asked, looking around. Water lazily dripped from the ceiling and flecks of light bounced off the smooth surfaces of the cave. If I hadn’t been so concerned about what we might find, I probably would have found it beautiful. Unfortunately there didn’t seem to be a clear path for us to follow.
“I say we move forward. If the portal pointed us in this direction, then perhaps that’s where we should go.”
I lifted up the bottom of my dress so it wouldn’t catch on any more rocks and left my wig behind. I didn’t need it, or want it. Mark could port us directly back to my chambers when we were done, where I could pick out another equally uncomfortable, itchy wig to wear. Krissin had supplied me with quite a few.
Stepping gingerly over the rocky ground we made our way deeper into the cave. To my surprise it didn’t get darker. The light continued to reflect off the stalactites, illuminating the way.
We walked for about a minute until we entered a glittering cavern. There were no stalactites for the light to bounce off of. In this room we were greeted by seven portals, all shimmering in full view.
“What in the name of Eloh?” Mark asked.
“I have no idea,” I whispered, feeling somehow that this wasn’t a place I should talk at the top of my voice. In between the stillness of the shimmering portals stood a platform, holding a book on it.
I moved forward, my hand out, as if I were in a trance, only focused on the book. Mark grabbed my hand, jerking me back to his arms.
“Don’t touch it,” he said.
“Why not?”
“We don’t know what’s going on here.”
“And I don’t think we will unless we take a look at this book,” I insisted. I broke away from him and jogged to the book.
The yellowed pages curled at the corner and the smell of leather barely touched the tips of my senses. Its soft, supple texture felt like heaven under my fingertips. The pages crinkled under my hand. I drew back, unsure what would happen if I turned the page. I didn’t want it to crumble.
I wrapped the sleeve of my dress around my hand to protect the book from the oils on my skin. Gently I turned the book to its first page.
This is my book, my gift and my warning. I leave it here in front of these seven portals. Six lead to death, one leads to the truth. The right portal leads to the truth of what I have wrought. The truth of the next Prophet. Beware which portal you enter because you can only return from one. But what lies inside is the greatest prize of all. Should you seek The Book of Secrets, be aware you are taking your life into your own hands.
I trembled. The Book of Secrets. Exactly what I’d been looking for was hiding through one of those portals. But which one? They all looked the same in size and color.
Mark leaned over my shoulder, afraid to touch the volume in front of us. I kept my covered finger on the bottom of the page, holding it down so he could see the words.
“What else does the book say?” he asked.
I carefully turned the page but the next page was blank. As well as the page after that and the page after that. I looked at Mark, confused.
“Maybe I should take it back to the palace with me and study it for clues. Maybe something in his previous volumes makes reference to this. There must be a clue somewhere.” I grasped the edge of the book and was taken aback when it wouldn’t lift off the stand. Forgetting my careful handling from before, I tugged and pulled but the book wouldn’t lift up.
“He must have bound it with his gift,” Mark said. “Not just as a cruel way to taunt anyone who found this room but perhaps also to warn anyone innocent who might stumble upon it.”
“But how will I figure out which portal to enter?” I paced back and forth. I walked the edge of the circle of portals, running my fingers just outside the edge.
“Reychel!” Mark yelled. “Don’t touch. You don’t know how much power they have.”
But I did. I could feel the pull from every portal. Part of me wanted to just choose one and jump in. But the odds were bad. Chances were that I’d have to face whatever horror lay beyond. I didn’t want that, but I so desperately wanted to know the truth. It was tempting.
I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Reychel,” Mark said gently. “We should go back. Now we know what the portal was all about. We can go back to your room and check the books. See if we can find something. We need to be prepared.”
I sighed, knowing he was right. What else could I do? I’d discovered one secret only to have it lead to another. Time was running short. If I was going to help anyone, I needed to find the answers.
I remembered a passage in one of his books. It was in a later book. A series of rantings that made no sense about gateways and death. I’d thought he was worried about his own death, but now, maybe he was worried about the deaths that would be caused by his portal conundrum.
Chapter Seventeen
Mark flicked his fingers, opening a portal to my chamber in front of us. We held hands and slipped through, away from the dark, cold cave to my warm bedroom.
“Which book is it?” Mark asked as he stepped through the portal behind me.
“It’s on the bookshelf, over there.” I pointed beyond the portal. He flicked his fingers, and closed it. I didn’t dare reach out for the string I’d pulled before heading into the portal. I had to trust it would still be there.
“I don’t care what book you’re looking for or that you left the palace again.” I jumped and spun around. Krissin stood in my doorway. “I don’t even care that your boyfriend is gifted,” she said, sweeping into the room, her voluminous skirts flowing behind her.
“He’s not,” I said, protecting Mark. Until he was ready to reveal himself to everyone, I wouldn’t let on that I knew anything.
“I don’t care,” Krissin said. “There’s more important things going on here than whatever you two were sneaking off to do. Or why you lost your wig. I don’t even want to know.” Krissin rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out. I could
only image what she must be thinking.
Mark was focused on Krissin. I hoped he was looking for walls in her mind, to finally prove that she couldn’t be trusted. He broke away, looked at me and nodded his head. Krissin was clean. She wouldn’t have been my first choice of trusted confidants.
“We have a problem here,” Krissin said. “Someone leaked information about your men being camped nearby.” She nodded at Mark. “I don’t know who it was, but I’m sure it wasn’t either of you. My father told me to trust you and share this information with you as soon as you arrived, but I didn’t. I should have and now everything is ruined.”
“Ruined?” I asked. I was tiring of Krissin’s melodramas.
“The plan to save our people. It’s been compromised. Father thought it already was which is why he stayed behind when he sent you through the portal.
“You knew he wasn’t coming with me?” I couldn’t believe her! She’d blamed me in front of everyone. I felt terrible, as if I’d doomed Nemison to some terrible fate and all along it was part of her plan. I’d never met anyone so cruel.
“I knew you were in the closet. I was waiting for you to come out, but you never did so I finally opened the door. I had no idea what was going on in there,” Krissin said. “You got lucky that those guards came after you. It gave him a good excuse to stay behind.”
Before I could answer her, the air shimmered and Nemison appeared in my room. I could barely see him, but there was no mistaking who it was. I resisted the urge to race to him when I saw Krissin gently place a hand in the air. For a moment she seemed tender, though it was hard for me to reconcile an emotion like that with Krissin.
Nemison reached out, as if to take his daughter’s hand. Two people, so commanding and irascible, showing each other such deep affection. I felt terrible for ever having questioned either of them.
Nemison looked up and pulled his hand back while Krissin stood next to the vision. The brave girl was now behaving like a young, doting child.
“Reychel,” Nemison said, “nice to see you looking so well. Mark,” he said with a nod of his head.
“I can’t stay long,” Nemison said. He looked in the distance, as if he was reassuring himself no one was around. “I’m in prison right now, but I don’t want to raise suspicions.”
“Why don’t you just port back here to us? We need you,” Krissin whined.
“Oh, they think one of their gifted slaves has my gift shielded. He’s not nearly as powerful as I am, but it’s enough to keep me here. It took me this long to save up enough of my gift to project this vision. I’m just sorry I didn’t reach out sooner. I assumed you kids had everything under control, but Krissin told me differently tonight.”
“Daddy appeared to me and asked how preparations were going here. When I told him that people knew the Sons were hiding out at the base of the mountain, he was so angry. Particularly when I told him I hadn’t confided in you yet.”
“My daughter is too headstrong sometimes, but she means well,” Nemison said.
I wondered if he knew she admitted killing the last leader within moments of meeting me. She was more than headstrong, she was downright enamored with herself.
“I don’t have much time,” Nemison said. “My guard is asleep and I don’t want him to wake up and hear me talking to you. I need the two of you to work closely with Krissin to discover who is sabotaging our plan and why. I was afraid you wouldn’t trust her if she tried telling you herself.”
I shrugged and looked at Krissin. Not my first choice of ally, but if she was our only ally then I’d take her.
“What do we need to do?” I asked.
“Find out who is doing this and stop them.”
“How?” I asked, my eye on Krissin. I didn’t know if she’d be willing to whip out a bottle of poison to stop them.
“If our enemy is gifted, then shield them and never leave them alone,” Nemison chuckled. “Krissin knows how to contact me if I’m needed. But don’t kill anyone.” Nemison looked pointedly at his daughter. Krissin sighed.
“I won’t kill anyone,” she promised.
“I don’t want your boyfriend killing anyone, either,” he said, looking at Krissin.
“How did you know about him?” She gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. I wanted to laugh, but didn’t. For the first time, she seemed natural, normal.
I exchanged a look with Mark, wondering what he knew. He smiled and shrugged. Maybe he knew a lot more than I thought.
“Ace won’t be killing anyone. At least not tonight,” Mark said. “He’s taking care of something else.”
Nemison’s eyebrow rose as he turned his head to look at me.
“Do I want to know what you’ve been up to?” he asked.
“I’ve been searching for the answers to my gift, like everyone has asked me to do,” I added.
“Find anything?” Nemison asked.
“Just a room inside a cave filled with seven portals — six leading to certain death, one to the answers I need.”
Nemison and Krissin both stared at us.
“How did you get in there?” he asked.
“We tricked the guards to leaving their post for a moment while Reychel, Alia and I snuck in. Ace was our annoying drunk they hauled off to lock up. We didn’t see the portal while we were in there, we only discovered it after coming back here.”
“You found it?” Nemison asked. “I have to assume you didn’t enter any of the portals.” He eyed us up and down, and found us healthy and alive.
“We didn’t,” I said. “But we need to. And I think I know where to find the answers.”
“Good job, Reychel,” Nemison said. “Johna had a lot of faith in you from the start. I know you won’t let any of us down. But I’d better stop before the guard hears me.”
Krissin reached out to her father once more. He blew her a kiss.
“Trust each other,” he said as his vision faded away.
I sighed, leaning into Mark. He put his arm around me.
“Stop it, you two,” Krissin commanded. “I don’t want to see it.”
“And if Ace was here?” Mark asked, a lazy smile spreading across his face.
Krissin stamped her foot and then a blush spread across her cheeks.
“Leave her alone,” I said, aware how I’d felt when people teased me about Mark. It was the first time I’d ever come to Krissin’s defense. But now we were allies, fighting together against the same enemy. If only we knew who that was.
Chapter Eighteen
I slipped under the covers, anxious to get some sleep. The day had been too long, full of too many bad surprises. I snuggled with my blanket, hoping to escape the world, and my responsibilities, for one night.
My door burst open and Ace ran in, followed by Mark and Krissin.
“Get up, now!” Ace barked at me. “Alia just entered that door you told us about. I can’t be certain she’s meeting someone, but this is the first time she’s gone in there since yesterday.”
I jumped out of bed and threw a robe over my bedclothes.
Krissin grabbed Ace’s outstretched hand and we raced into the hall. I couldn’t help but notice how different he looked in the linen and cotton clothes of a nobleman. His long hair was pulled back into a ponytail at the base of his head and braided. Hadn’t he been to bed yet?
“Nice hair, Ace,” Mark quipped as we walked down the hall, slowing our pace. None of us wanted to bring attention to ourselves, particularly since Krissin was with us. As the princess, she didn’t run anywhere, people ran to her.
Ace stopped abruptly and whipped his head to the side. His braid flew in the air and hit Mark in the face. He smiled, took Krissin’s arm again and continued down the hallway.
I tried not to laugh as Mark rubbed the spot on his cheek where Ace’s braid had slapped him. We continued down the hall until we found the door Alia had taken me through a couple days ago.
“It needs a key,” I said. “It was locked last time.”
Krissin
rolled her eyes. “This is my palace. There isn’t a lock I can’t open.”
She waved her hand over the door. I heard the light click of a tumbler rolling as she unlocked the door with her gift. A scowl covered her face as she waved her hand again. Nothing happened.
“That’s strange,” she said. “The lock is shielded by someone gifted. I almost recognized it…”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Recognized what?”
“Their signature,” Krissin said. “Each person’s gift leaves behind a slight residue. I can recognize Nemison’s handwork anywhere, for instance. But this one seems strange and familiar at the same time. I thought I knew everyone here…”
“Stop thinking about your gift,” Ace said. He rammed into the door with his shoulder and the lock broke. “Let’s get in there and find out who it is. We have eyes, you know. You don’t need your gift for everything.”
I expected Krissin to fight back, the way she does with everyone, but she didn’t. She nodded and followed Ace through the door. Mark held it open and I walked behind Krissin.
She opened her hand, palm up, and a small glowing light appeared, illuminating the dark hallway.
“What can’t you do?” I asked Krissin. I hadn’t learned to do much of anything with my gift.
“That’s nothing, Reychel. If you’d take time to do something other than look for answers in musty old journals…”
“Shh!” Ace held his arm up in the air, stopping us from walking any farther.
My ears strained, but I couldn’t hear anything. I looked at Ace with my eyebrow raised. He pointed ahead, held up two fingers, and then put his fingers to his lips. I nodded, trusting his judgment.
Krissin whispered in Ace’s ear, then nodded. She motioned for Mark and I to come closer to her and Ace. We huddled up against each other. Krissin extinguished the light she’d made with her gift and held out her palm in the middle of our little circle.