Lea

  “Any word on Joost and Erick?” I asked, checking in with Mordecai as soon as I left the dungeons.

  I had about a million things on my mind, and I wanted to get to the library to see if any of the scholars there knew more about that mysterious fae symbol, but I had to make sure my friends were okay first.

  “They still aren’t responding to our calls, and we’ve done a full sweep of the area with no luck,” Mordecai said. “I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but there’s no way they would have abandoned the mission or failed to check in for this long without a reason.”

  My chest tightened at the thought. Where could they have gone?

  “There’s more,” Mordecai said.

  I groaned. What more could possibly be going wrong today? I’d had about all I could take for one day.

  “There have been a series of attacks,” he said. “Franki said she’s been trying to get in touch with you, but you didn’t answer.”

  I sucked in a breath. Crap. Someone had been trying to reach me when we were in my room earlier, but I’d been dealing with the news about my friends and the interruption from my father, which of course had turned into an entire afternoon of stressful discoveries.

  “What kind of attacks?” I asked. “Is everyone okay?’

  “Blackwood,” he said. “Just after you left, apparently.”

  He quickly explained what Harper had been through at Blackwood shortly after I’d headed back here.

  “The Hall of Doorways, too?” I asked. “So, it’s like last time. They’re trying to hit us all at once on multiple levels.”

  Were Joost and Erick part of the assault? Did the Order of Shadows know how important they were to me and our efforts to free the gates?

  They’d been a part of my original crew from the moment we broke through to the human world together, one autumn night in a small town in North Dakota. An emerald portal was initiating a young teen girl that night, but the five of us had come through, instead.

  We hadn’t left any witches alive, including the Prima herself.

  I wasn’t exactly proud of my actions that night, but at the time, it was our only pathway into the human world, and we all had vengeance in our hearts. We’d been searching for the truth about Aerden and the Order of Shadows for years on the other side, and I’d just recently lost Jackson to the witches at Peachville.

  Our actions in that town had put a target on our backs right from the start, and I was certain the Order was well aware of who we all were, but my friends had never specifically been singled out like this.

  Which meant it was personal.

  Whoever was behind this wanted to hurt me.

  “You need to get out of there,” I said, the weight of over a hundred years of sorrow and loss falling on my shoulders. “I can’t lose you, too. Where’s Cristo? Is he with you?”

  “Yeah, he’s with me, hold on,” Mordecai said. “Angela’s calling me now. I’m going to patch her in.”

  Another expansion of our abilities now that Magda had offered some of her power to the cause. Ruby bar party lines. Wonders never ceased.

  “Angela? I’ve got Lea on with me, too,” Mordecai said.

  My heart raced as people in the background screamed and sobbed.

  “What the hell happened there?” I asked, racing toward my quarters as we spoke. If Harper needed me in the domed city, I could be on my way in less than twenty minutes. “Is Harper safe?”

  “I don’t know where she is,” Angela said, more stressed and out of control than I’d ever heard her before. “She just destroyed the rose portal. She’s lost her damn mind.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked, stopping mid-stride. “Harper did what?”

  “We were being attacked by these creatures at Brighton Lake. I don’t know if they followed Harper and Magda there or if they were there waiting for their chance,” Angela said. “It was hard to tell everything that was happening on the cameras, but there were so many of them. Hundreds. Lea, Willow’s dead.”

  Angela’s voice was filled with sorrow and rage, both tinged with complete terror. And I couldn’t blame her. She’d lost Harper to horrible circumstances before, and I knew from my earlier conversation with Harper at Blackwood that Angela had begged her not to go this morning.

  And now Willow was gone. That was a huge blow to our efforts, since she’d been the most knowledgeable person when it came to the dome itself. In fact, as soon as she got the rose portal dome working, she was supposed to have come to our city to help us create a barrier to hold the Stone Guardians inside the room downstairs.

  I leaned against the black stone wall, the weight of what happened today making my knees weak.

  “We should have stuck to protocol,” Angela said. “But Harper told all the guards to retreat back to the domed city and set up a perimeter. We had a contingency plan for this, but she was supposed to come through with us, not destroy the whole portal. What was she thinking?”

  “She was thinking of you and all the innocent people inside that dome,” I said.

  “Was she?” Angela shouted. “Because she’s supposed to be here with us, helping us protect them here as their queen, not out there running around trying to play the hero with Magda.”

  “Magda’s out there with her?”

  “Yes, which just puts even more of a target on Harper’s back.”

  The tears in Angela’s voice were slowly taking over the rage, and I couldn’t judge her for that. We’d all lost so much.

  I understood where Angela was coming from. Harper’s people needed her. A city without its leader was vulnerable, but it wasn’t like she’d left them without anyone there to lead in her absence.

  “Those roses meant more to Harper than just about anything in the world,” I said softly. “She never would have destroyed them if she didn’t feel it was the only way to keep you safe.”

  Angela didn’t say a word for a moment, but I could hear the hitching of her breath.

  “What am I supposed to do now?” she asked after a long silence. “Whatever that storm is that took over Blackwood has now also taken over the original portal stones at Winterhaven, the Evers Mansion, and Magda’s home at Thornhill. We don’t have cameras at Priestess Love’s citrine mansion, but it’s possible that’s been blocked, as well. None of us have any clue what all this means or what the Order’s planning next. It’s all spiraling out of control.”

  This was bad. Too many attacks on multiple levels. We needed to find a way to get ahead of this before we lost more than we could afford to lose.

  “All you need to focus on right now is keeping the people inside the dome safe,” I said, pushing off the wall and heading in the opposite direction now. I needed to talk to my father. The domed city might need help, and we needed to be on full alert here, as well.

  The next big attack could be at our door already.

  Or worse.

  It could happen here inside the city, and there was no way we were going to be ready to face it fast enough. There wasn’t a moment to lose when it came to getting our new army trained and ready to fight.

  “What about Harper’s ruby bar?” I asked. “Can’t we just reach out to her and ask where she’s going? We need to get her and Magda to a safe place for the night, and we need to try to find a free portal to get them both back here.”

  “No, it’s no good,” Angela said. “The power of that storm drained her com stones completely. She has one that links to Franki, but she hasn’t used it yet. I’m hoping Magda can recharge their stones, but right now, we’re just waiting to see where the hell they went.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to wrap my head around all the possibilities. We needed to all work together and stay in communication as much as possible.

  I didn’t even know how to decide what was most important.

  “Okay, we need to let Jackson and Aerden know what’s happened today,” I said. “After all of this, it might be better for them to head home, rather than try to keep moving that way. I’ll reach out—”

  “Lea,” Angela interrupted, and just the tone of her voice nearly ripped a hole in my heart.

  Some part of me already knew, I think, but hearing it in her voice just made it all too real.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head and putting a hand to my heart. “They can still turn around and head home. It’s not too late. We have to stick together here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Angela said. “I wish I had better news, but we’ve been trying to reach them all day. Jackson and Aerden’s stones have gone completely dark. Drained, we think, just like Harper’s.”

  I struggled to pull in a deep breath as I leaned against the smooth black stone of the pillar at the entrance to the throne room.

  Why had I just let him go like that? Without telling him the way I was feeling?

  The thought of losing Aerden now hit me so hard, I nearly dropped to my knees.

  There was a kind of elegant symmetry to all of the day’s events, and I wasn’t dumb enough to believe there was any piece of it that was coincidental. Someone intelligent had orchestrated this entire day.

  Only, it was more than that.

  This was done by someone who knew every move we made, from my friends looking for refugees to our meeting at Blackwood to the twins approaching the wall of darkness halfway across the world from us.

  Someone who could possibly see a lot more than any of us had ever dreamed. But how was she doing it?

  It felt like being trapped in a spider’s web with no idea exactly where the spider was or how long it might be before she came in for the kill.

  “Lea? Are you still there?” Mordecai asked. “What do you want me to do up here?”

  “I’m here,” I said, straightening as one of my father’s guards passed, nodding his head to me but concern flashing in his eyes. I waved him off before he asked how I was doing. “Call everyone back to the city. Tell them to bring whatever survivors they were able to find so far but to abandon the rest of the day’s plans. Come back to the castle, immediately. Come find me when you get back. I’ll either be in my chambers or in the royal library.”

  “Library?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “We need to get ahead of this before we lose anyone else. Get moving.”

  Mordecai’s stone dimmed as he broke the connection, but Angela was still on the line with me.

  “Increase security on the city’s main entrance,” I said. “You know how to do this, Angela. You’re every bit as much a leader in that city as Harper. Your father would be proud of you and the work you’ve done there. You know what you need to do. Just reach out if you need my support in any way or if you hear from Harper.”

  “Thank you, Lea,” she said. “I will be in touch, but I have one more question. Mary Anne and Essex went looking for the citrine ring again right after they got back here this afternoon. They don’t want to come back until they find it, but I think they should come back. It’s too risky for them to be out there with just a small group of guards, but I know Harper would want them to keep looking. What do you think? From one princess to another.”

  “Let them keep looking,” I said without hesitation. “That ring is the last one we need to shut the Order’s initiations down for good. It’s worth the risk, and they know how to handle themselves. Just tell them to check in with you every hour. If they don’t check in at any point, let me know.”

  “Okay. I trust you,” she said. “We’re going to get through this, right?”

  “Of course,” I said, remembering something Aerden had once said to me that left a mark on me forever. “Where there is life, there is always hope.”

  “Thank you,” she said, softly. “I just don’t know what I would do if I ever lost her.”

  “I’ll check in with you soon,” I said, not even letting that thought into my head.

  We hung up, and I raced toward my father’s study, realizing that even though we’d faced hard times and scary situations before, this was different.

  Somewhere between coming home and learning the truth, I’d opened my heart to the possibility of happiness and love again.

  Which meant that now, more than ever, I didn’t just have something to lose.

  I had everything to lose.

  In The Darkness

  Aerden

  I followed Jackson through the growing darkness, off the beach and onto a rockier terrain devoid of all grass or life of any kind. I wished like hell I could see in the dark the way he could.

  I’d been reading journals and various accounts of life on this continent for weeks now, and never once had I imagined it to be like this.

  Desolate was the only word that came to mind, and I had no doubt the Order of Shadows and the High Priestess had been a part of this. Magda had claimed not to know anything about a wall of storms in the sea or a separate continent full of shadow demons, though, so maybe whatever happened here happened long before the Order of Shadows had come to be.

  The hunter on the beach had said no demon had held such power in centuries.

  I wanted to know how long ago this place had been overcome by these storms.

  I did my best to note any memorable landmarks we passed, so that Jackson and I could find our way back to the beach tomorrow during the day to look for the rest of our cargo and weapons, but there wasn’t much left standing.

  We passed a village that reminded me all too much of the abandoned or decimated villages in the Northern Kingdom, only fast-forward about five hundred years. These structures hadn’t been lived in for a very long time, and there was no sign of life to be found anywhere, save for the screams of hunters who might have very well been searching for us.

  Light quickly slipped away until I could hardly see Jackson’s outline as he moved in front of me, but when I looked toward the sky, there was one area in the distance that seemed to light up like a beacon in the storm and rain.

  The moment I looked toward it, I felt the spark of desire deep within. The light beckoned me, and from the way Jackson stared at it, he must have been feeling the same strange pull.

  It was no coincidence he’d been leading us in that direction this whole time, either.

  As we moved further inland, shadows moved everywhere over the desolate terrain. Hunters. No doubt about it. Every once in a while, one came dangerously close, and we were forced to hide in the ruins of an abandoned house or behind a large boulder or hill.

  But where were the demons who had once lived here? Had they all been captured or killed?

  The hunter had said something about a conclave earlier. Maybe that was the source of the strange light in the distance.

  We travelled in silence for another half hour, sneaking through the shadows. There were no trees and no grass. No animals that I could see. Not even the smallest insect buzzed around my head.

  The only sounds were the increasing intensity of the wind, the rumble of distant thunder, and the far-off screams of hunters.

  Occasionally, Jackson paused to listen, staring at something behind us. I didn’t dare ask him where he was leading us or what he saw out there in the darkness. I didn’t want to speak at all until he said it was safe, so I followed for what felt like hours as the storm intensified overhead.

  Finally, Jackson paused and pointed to a larger structure ahead. He tapped a finger beneath his eye, and I nodded, understanding that he wanted me to keep a close eye on him. It had been a while since we’d seen any hunters, but the way Jackson kept glancing behind us, I worried that a group of them might be following us.

  I stayed close to him as he crouched low and crossed a stone road, then disappeared behind the wall of what might have once been a warehouse of some kind. Only part of the roof still stood, but it was enough to keep us sheltered from the wind and light rain for the first time in over an hour.

  I expected we’d be settling in for a rest after such a long walk, but Jackson didn’t take off his backpack or relax at all. Instead, he nodded toward my axe and held a finger to his lips.

  I hardly dared to breathe, even though the sound of the wind in my ears was too loud to hear something as quiet as breathing or even a light sigh out here.

  We had no idea how attuned the hunters were to the sounds of movement or the feel of power in this place, so I figured it was better safe than sorry.

  We’d made quick work of the hunter on the beach, but if all fifteen had decided to come for us, it could have been a bloodbath. I’m not sure we could have survived it. Especially if they all had diamond amulets that would take a piece of our power each time we made a direct attack.

  Jackson stood and peered through a small hole in the stone wall, looking back the way we’d come.

  So, we were being followed. I gripped my axe and readied my stance, just in case. I also kept the flow of my power running just beneath the surface. Hopefully not strong enough that a hunter would be able to sense it, but close enough that if I need it quickly, I could shift or conjure without hesitation.

  My heart raced, ready to face whatever came around that corner.

  But Jackson’s shoulders relaxed, and he motioned for me to lower my weapon as he stepped around the side of the wall.

  “I know you’re following us,” he said. “I can see you there by the broken well. Enough with these games.”

  I stood and peered around his shoulder, seeing no one in the darkness.

  By now, the suns beyond the cloak of storms must have long since set, and whatever moons might have appeared were not strong enough to shine through the clouds and rain that covered this continent in shadows.

  “There are five hunters just there,” Jackson said, pointing off to the right without even glancing that way. He kept his eyes straight ahead. “Maybe fifty yards away and getting closer. This is your last chance to cross to us before we’re separated. Show yourself or lose your chance to ask your questions.”

  At first, I thought maybe he’d lost his mind or was taking a wild chance on there being anyone back there. I certainly couldn’t see any movement in that direction.