A Rip of Realms (A Shade of Vampire #39)(55)

“You underestimated me,” I whispered softly in her ear.

I gazed at Queen Trina’s impossibly beautiful face. A small trickle of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth and ran down to her chin. Her eyes, still boring into mine, became glassy. The contorted expressions I had seen her exhibit, from rage to fear, jealousy, lust and vengeance, left her. Her face softened, and I thought perhaps, for just a moment, I was seeing a glimpse of the Queen Trina from long ago—maybe the girl she had been before all of this.

I took a shuddering breath, and my trembling hand reached out again, closing around the hilt as I yanked out the blade. The queen’s eyes widened for a second, and then she fell – tumbling to the ground, black tar spilling from the wound where blood should have been.

“Hazel!” Tejus cried, staggering toward me.

Before I had time to react, I was wrapped in his fierce embrace, his mother’s dagger falling from my hand. I couldn’t continue to touch it in that moment. I closed my eyes against Tejus’s chest. My hunger fled, to be replaced with a painful tightening of my chest as I held back sobs of shock and relief.

She was dead. She couldn’t harm me or anyone I loved again.

From the comfort of Tejus’s arms I heard the ministers dragging the children from the sea, followed by the reassuring sounds of coughing and crying—they were alive!

I broke away from him, turning toward the ocean.

Presumably, with Queen Trina and the Acolytes stopped, the barrier would now be destroyed…and the portal open.

I looked up at Tejus.

Do we leave?





Ruby





Benedict and I ran toward the ocean. We helped the ministers drag the children out, my heart leaping in my chest as I saw they were all alive. The second wave of the army had just arrived, and I glanced over – back to the passage to see Julian hurrying toward us. He grinned broadly, and I returned the smile. It probably wasn’t the time for celebration yet, but this one victory over the Acolytes and Queen Trina made me want to yell and whoop with joy. The children had survived against all odds.

Leaning over one of the young boys, who was moaning incoherently, I looked up, distracted by a huge burst of light that was coming from the water.

The portal.

It was open.

Julian and Benedict saw it at the same time. They both turned to me, their expressions half-hopeful, half-afraid.

Can we just leave?

I turned back to look at the far end of the cove. Ash was bloodied, with his cloak torn, chaining up a few of the Acolytes that they had kept alive. I wasn’t ready to make a choice. I knew that Ash wouldn’t come with me—not now, not when he had the entirety of Nevertide to piece back together again.

My gaze shifted to Hazel, staring at the light, standing next to Tejus.

“What do we do?” Benedict called to me over the noise of the waves.

“I don’t know!” I replied, my voice sounding desperate.

Suddenly, my body lurched forward. The ground had started to tremble. The Viking remains that littered the cove began to vibrate, cracks appearing in the cliff face and the cries of the army rising up behind me.

“Everybody LEAVE!” Ash bellowed.

I wanted to move, but I felt like my feet had frozen to the shaking ground. The portal was only a yard or two ahead. We could leave Nevertide. Wasn’t that what we’d always wanted?

How can I leave Ash?

I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. Even if we were to return with GASP, I would have abandoned him when he needed me the most.

“The sea!” Benedict yelled, staggering backward.

I watched, open-mouthed, as a humongous wave built, dragging the water backward from the shore. It grew higher and higher, far over the cliffs of the cove, so high it would have reached the tower peaks of Hellswan castle.

“RUN!” Julian cried.

He picked up the human boy at my feet, flinging him over his shoulder. He grabbed my arm, dragging me backward.

“Wait!” I cried, suddenly aware that the wave had stopped moving. In fact, everything had stopped moving. I could no longer hear the sounds of the ocean, or the rumbling of the earth. The sentries behind us were silent too—their run toward the path had stopped as they turned to face the frozen wave.

I looked down at the exposed sea bed. Beyond the cracked shells, tangled seaweed and the spiny bones of dead fish, I saw stones. Millions of them.

“Th-th-the stones,” I stuttered at Julian, “look at the stones…”

“Are they—?” he breathed.

“I think so,” I replied, mystified.

As we watched, the stones started to glow. They changed from dull grayness to the radiant, multicolored creations that had danced in the locks of the entity. Their colors entwined with the bright blaze of the open portal till the entire ocean seemed lit with a luminous, shining light.

“What does this mean?” Benedict asked quietly.

“I don’t—”

I stopped speaking as a sharp crack came from the stones. A second later came another.

“They’re opening!”

Something is coming.

“Hazel, what do we do?” I screamed in her direction. Do we try to make it to the portal, for Benedict and Julian’s sake? There were thousands upon thousands of stones to cross before we reached it. Could we risk it?