A Rip of Realms (A Shade of Vampire #39)(39)

I nodded, only half reassured. She wasn’t to be trusted, and until the task was completed, I wouldn’t know for sure whether or not her promise was a genuine one. She knew I didn’t trust her either—the smirk she gave me as she rose from the side of the pool made me grit my teeth.

She was a malicious, calculating monster.

I watched her retreating figure as she sauntered out the door, shutting it behind her.

I settled back into the black tar, waiting to hear the soft, soothing whispers of the voices once again. I didn’t have to wait long.

Lord…King…Master…

We are waiting for you…

The world, and all other worlds are waiting for you…





Ash





We clambered down to join Julian, Ruby and Hazel back on the ground. When they reached us, their faces were downcast.

“There’s nothing in it,” Julian panted as he stumbled toward us, the book held out for me to take.

“It’s for the emperor’s eyes only,” corrected one of the ministers, “of course you wouldn’t be able to see it.”

I took the book from Julian’s hands. As soon as my fingers touched the cold, gold metal of the cover, the book started to hum with energy. A white light burnt brilliantly across it. I turned my face to shield my eyes from the glare for a moment, and when I turned back, the book had changed.

The blank cover was now filled with elaborate carvings: runes, flowers and patterns all etched into the gold. The book had no title, no name, but I had no doubt that this was the book I was meant to see: the book that would save us from the entity and the Acolytes and restore Nevertide.

“Open it!” Julian exclaimed, his face marked with relief.

I turned to the first page in the book, my hands trembling slightly—partly because of the extreme weight of it, and partly with the adrenaline that was pumping through every single nerve in my body.

The pages were devoid of text, but as soon as I placed my finger on the page, words started to appear—written by hand in navy ink, the handwriting a careful calligraphy that I hadn’t seen used since I was a small child, and only then on official documents of the ministers.

I started to read.

The book started with a written account of Nevertide’s history, how humans had sailed to the land, only to find it was overrun by creatures that they’d never come across before—evil, malevolent and bent on destroying the human race. The visitors were taken as slaves by the creatures, but after generations of servitude the humans led an uprising with the help of a magical creature who saved them, locking the creatures into stones.

“Ash,” Tejus barked at me, “what does it say?”

“Nothing yet. It’s just an account of the history we already know.”

I sat down on the nearest rock, irritated that everyone was hovering over me—I’d never been the world’s quickest reader as I’d never had much use for it in the kitchens.

“Just give me some time,” I snapped at Tejus and the ministers. They took a few steps back, and started murmuring amongst themselves. Tejus grunted with irritation, and then proceeded to pet and pamper his moody lynx – both he and Hazel murmuring over it like proud parents.

The more I read, the more disheartened I became. A lot of this stuff was already known to us, most of it pieced together by Tejus and Hazel when they’d read the old ministerial accounts.

The author, whoever it was, wrote about a creature – a ‘jinni’ relinquishing the stones and the entity’s lock to the emperor, and that henceforth, over time, whoever was emperor would be responsible for keeping the land safe from the scourge of the entity and its followers—the ‘forbidden’. Beginning to skim-read in haste, I tried to look for a contingency plan…what happened if the lock was opened?

Finally, I found something.

“Listen to this.” I called the group back. “It says that if the entity is released, the forbidden will rise again—the entity will open the portal, and the forbidden will seep into all the dimensions, and once again reclaim Nevertide as their home…” I trailed off. That wasn’t as helpful as I’d thought it would be.

“The portal is closed?” Tejus asked.

“Apparently…” I re-read some of the pages I’d just gone past – finding the part about the jinni’s warnings; the ice-fires, pestilence of silence and red rains.

“So, it also says that once the entity breaks free of the stones, the portal to Nevertide will close – ‘keeping in the evil, lest it spread about the lands and populate itself across dimensions.’ So yes – the portal must have closed, and the entity is going to try and open it again.”

“Huh,” Julian replied, looking thoughtful. “We would never have gotten home anyway, even if the borders hadn’t been up.”

“But what about stopping the entity?” Ruby interrupted. “What does it say about that?”

I flicked through the pages again—the words started to blur and shift on the page, and I began to feel panicked.

“It… It doesn’t say anything…It just talks about guarding the locks as the primary duty of the emperor—about not succumbing to their power, or using the stones for one’s own selfish needs.”

“That has already come to pass,” Tejus hissed.