Reign Fall (17 page)

“What are you?” I whispered.

“Use it well, Princess,”
the boy had told me.

“Use it?” I mumbled. How was I supposed to use it?

Finally, my curiosity got the better of me. I took a deep breath and gripped the stone. When it warmed in my hand and my bedroom began to dim again, I didn’t drop it this time. I held on tight.

It was as if the lights in my bedroom had turned off and it was night, even though it was only late afternoon and the sun hadn’t quite set yet. I still saw the shapes of my furniture, but they grew indistinct. Then the room began to spin, slowly at first, but it increased in speed. I wasn’t spinning, since I didn’t feel dizzy. But the room spun all around me.

And suddenly, I wasn’t in my bedroom anymore.

I was in my father’s castle. I loosened my hold on the rock and the scene before me started to spin slowly, in the opposite direction this time. I gripped the stone tighter and the spinning stopped.

The rock controlled what I saw and where I was. If I let go of it, I would go directly back to my room.

“Wow,” I said under my breath. “This is so cool.”

How did it work? And was I actually here for real, or was this just an illusion?

I held my other hand in front of my face. Looked real enough to me.

I wasn’t sure where in the castle I was, so I decided to explore. It was quiet and cool and dry here. A few minutes went by before I saw anyone. A old servant in human form with gray hair walked past me, in a hurry to get somewhere. She carried a metal tray with a jug and a goblet on it.

“Hello?” I ventured.

She didn’t acknowledge my presence. I hurried my pace to catch up with her.

“Hi,” I said again, louder. But her expression remained placid, focused on her task.

“Can you see me?” Since she didn’t answer, I assumed that she couldn’t.

She took the tray to my father’s main meeting room, the one with the fireplace in which I usually saw him. He stood to the far right, staring down into a gazer—a large, shallow basin of water. In the dark worlds, it was the preferred method of communication. Kind of like a really bizarre and magical version of Skype.

“Queen Sephina, I appreciate your patience in this matter, but there’s nothing I can do about it right now.”

“Nothing you can do?” a thin, reedy voice chimed up from the gazer. “Or nothing you’re
willing
to do?”

Queen Sephina. Queen of the Underworld. Mother of Prince Kieran. Ex-wife of the King of Hell.

I didn’t have too many nice things to say about her. In my brief experience with the queen, she was absolutely horrible. One of those fakely nice people who could stab you in your back the moment you turned around.

It was just too bad she was the head of the demon council responsible for all the laws that governed the dark worlds. And trust me, there were a lot of laws. Most of which were completely stupid. And most of which had a penalty of death.

Quite honestly, I hated her demon guts.

“The boy is trouble, Desmond. We can keep a better eye on him with round-the-clock guards.

I know you’re understaffed there. You have no idea what he might be capable of.”

“I take full responsibility for him as I have since he was first orphaned. And no, he won’t be going anywhere right now. It was a pleasure speaking with you today, Your Majesty. Farewell.”

“Desmond—”

But he’d waved his hand over the gazer and stepped back from it with a tense and angry expression. I assumed that was the equivalent of hanging up on her.

The servant who’d brought the tray had placed it on the table and already left. I was the only one rude enough to eavesdrop on my father’s private conversation.

The queen really believed that Michael was dangerous.

I’d show her dangerous if I ever came face to face with her again.

Yeah, real brave
, I thought. It was easy to think that way when I was in the middle of my father’s castle. It might be another thing altogether if I was in the Underworld standing before the council.

I watched as my father moved to the table and poured himself a glass of whatever the jug contained. Looked like iced tea to me. Then he sat on a large chair and began to go through a stack of paperwork.

I suddenly realized I was observing my father at work. The papers in front of him were written in some sort of language I couldn’t decipher. This, I assumed, was what he did all day long. He took meetings via gazer. And he dealt with stacks of paperwork, which, if I had to guess, were requests for gateway access between worlds. My father ran a very bizarre travel agency. I wondered if he was responsible for all travel—not just to the light worlds. That would make sense, actually. And it would take up a ton of time, too. There were likely a lot of demons bored with their current surroundings.

While it seemed mundane, having the ability to open up gateways was incredibly powerful and potentially dangerous, depending on who wanted to stroll through them.

My bracelet could open gateways. There had only been three dragons in recorded history who’d been slain for the powerfully magical tear they shed upon their death. My father had slain the one responsible for the dragon’s tear he’d given to me. I had to admit, it bothered me. I’d never asked him if that dragon had deserved it or not. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the truth.

After a few minutes, with the black rock still clutched in my right fist, I left my father’s

“office,” and began to wander the halls in search of Michael. It felt very strange being here with nobody able to see me. I didn’t want to invade his privacy, but I couldn’t help but be curious about what he did during his days.

After ten minutes, I found him in the courtyard.

A smile came to my face immediately. Of course he’d be out here. He’d already told me that he took care of the garden. It would be time consuming. It was a big area with lots of well-kept flowers and plants.

Michael stood in the direct center of the courtyard. I watched him—more like admired him—

from a distance. There was something about him that made my heart skip a beat whenever I saw him. The black rock bit into my hand as I squeezed it tighter.

His dark blue hoodie was off and laying next to him on the green grass. His face was lifted to the magically-enhanced bright blue sky, his eyes closed. His T-shirt fit snugly to his chest.

It took me a moment before I sensed there was something wrong.

What was he doing? Meditating?

His lips moved as if he was talking to himself, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

His arms were stretched out to either side and his chest moved in and out with his breathing.

I moved closer to him, watching him warily now.

“Michael, what are you doing?” I whispered.

His eyes opened and he glanced right at me. I froze in place. His eyes glowed green, brighter than I’d ever seen them before. His gaze searched the area where I stood as if he’d heard something but couldn’t see me. His brows drew together in a deep frown.

And then I noticed something that made me stop breathing completely.

His amulet. The object that kept him alive, gave him solid form and a hold on the physical world, that gave him power, gave him life...

He wasn’t wearing it.

Seeing him without his amulet took me by surprise, so much so I dropped the black rock.

Before I could bend over to pick it up, the world around me dimmed and swirled and the next moment I was back in my bedroom. The rock was on my floor and I snatched it up and clutched it tightly, but nothing happened this time. It was cool to my touch again, not warm.

Panic gripped me. Michael couldn’t be standing there with his amulet off. He was going to kill himself! Was he doing it on purpose?

I didn’t understand, but I knew I had to do something. And I knew I already had the power to get to the Shadowlands on my own without searching for a gateway—not that there’d be any gateways open in Erin Heights right now. They opened to let someone through and back. I’d come to realize that they weren’t just here all the time.

But I had my dragon’s tear.

“Okay,” I said to myself, shoving the rock in my jeans pocket and trying very hard to calm down. “Concentrate, Nikki. Michael’s in trouble and you have to help him.” There was something seriously wrong with him. He couldn’t take his amulet off. He knew this. It wouldn’t be long before his form began to fade away like a ghost. If he’d temporarily lost his mind, for whatever reason, and nobody found him in time...it would kill him.

I
had
to get there. So I desperately needed this to work.

I squeezed my eyes shut and focused every last bit of my attention on the teardrop crystal on my bracelet. I didn’t think about what happened at Melinda’s. I didn’t think about my father’s conversation with Queen Sephina. I didn’t think about wandering the hallways of the Shadowlands castle like an invisible ghost thanks to a small black rock someone who shouldn’t exist had given to me.

I focused on one thing: opening a gateway to take me to the Shadowlands. I visualized it in my head. A doorway with swirling light and darkness in the center of it. A passageway to another world—to the Shadowlands. I had the power to make that happen.

Sure, I’d never done this before, but that made no difference to me. This was important. I would do this because I had no other choice.

I felt a swirling inside of me, a warmth in my stomach that spread out to my fingers and toes.

Tingling. I felt the magic. This was magic. The dragon’s magic.

My
magic.

Half the secret was believing I could do it. If I didn’t believe it, I had absolutely no doubt that it wouldn’t work.

If I did believe...and I
did
...then, maybe...just maybe...

I opened an eye and looked.

It worked! There was a gateway right in the center of my bedroom, although it looked a little different from the ones I normally went through. This one wasn’t rectangular, it was circular.

About three feet in diameter. It reminded me of the opening to a water slide.

It flickered, which told me it wasn’t totally stable. I didn’t know how long it was going to last.

The dragon’s tear on my bracelet gleamed with bright light, showing that its magic was currently active. It also flickered.

Since I didn’t have the luxury or time to second-guess myself, I ran toward the gateway and dove head-first into it.

Vertigo...a sensation of swirling...and—
slam.

I landed on green grass. Hard.

I looked up at the blue sky above me. Then I pushed up to my elbows to double-check where I was before saying a silent thank you to my bracelet. It had worked! I was in the field, but closer to the border of the Shadowlands than where I usually arrived. My thick sweater was meant for Erin Heights in winter, not this warmer temperature, but I didn’t really care. Scrambling to my feet, I sprinted across the stony ground and the rocks until I reached the front doors of the castle, scared that I might be too late.

The doors creaked open before me and I slipped inside as fast as I could. I didn’t try to find my father first, I made a beeline for the courtyard, bursting out on the landing at the top of the short flight of stairs that led to the green grass and garden.

“Michael!” I yelled as I ran toward him. He still stood there, as if nothing had changed in the entire time it had taken me to get here. I reached for him and—zipped right through his body to the other side. I lost my balance and fell to the ground in a heap.

Just as I’d thought, he was in his true shadow form with his amulet laying on the ground nearby. He opened his eyes, a frown creasing his brow, and he looked directly at me with confusion.

“Princess?” he said, bewildered. “What are you doing here?”

“Why aren’t you wearing your amulet?” My voice was pitchy.

His eyes widened. “How did you—?” The surprise vanished from his face, replaced by a look that surprised me: guilt. He looked as if he’d just been caught red-handed doing something bad.

He moved a few feet to his left and bent over to retrieve his amulet. Something about the chain made it possible to grab hold of it, even in ghostly shadow form. He put the chain over his head and the green stone dropped to his chest.

I collapsed backward onto the grass, exhausted, my chest heaving. I was so relieved he was okay. A couple moments later, he appeared over me, looking down, his arms crossed.

I sat up so quickly that my stomach cramped and I jabbed my index finger at him. “You weren’t wearing your amulet.”

His lips thinned. “So?”

“So? You know what that means!”

He scrubbed a hand through his dark hair. “What are you doing here? How did you get here?

Did you—” He gave me a surprised look. “Did you use your bracelet?”

“Yes! Of course I did. How else would I get here? Demon shuttle bus?”

“How did you know the right way to use it?”

“I guessed. And I was right. And you’re very lucky, too. A couple more minutes and you would have been gone forever!”

My chest tightened at the thought of it. Our gazes locked and my breath caught at the intense look he gave me. Without further comment, he held out his hand to me. It only took a second before I took it—the heat of his skin against mine made my breath catch.

“So you saved me, is that what you’re trying to say?” There was a glint of amusement in his gaze, as if what I’d seen had been nothing to worry about.

I now knew what “flabbergasted” meant, because that’s exactly how I felt. “Don’t you dare look at me like this is no big deal. It’s a big deal. A huge deal!”

“How did you even know what was going on here?”

“Because...
this
.” I fished into my pocket and thrust the black rock at him. “It let me visit here in, like,
spirit
. I could see all over the castle.” He studied it with confusion. “
That
let you visit here in spirit?”

“Yes, but I couldn’t do anything, touch anything...or anything!” I knew I sounded just this side of hysterical. I still struggled to catch my breath.