The Shadow Prince (2 page)

The Oracle is so close to me now that I can feel the icy chill that emanates off her body. Gooseflesh prickles up on the parts of my arms that are not bound by the leather and bronze of my armor. She is only two steps away from deciding my fate. I can’t bare to watch her. I glance at King Ren while he sits waiting at the edge of his ebony throne. He looks annoyed and expectant. Then I notice Moira, Ren’s latest queen, sitting beside him. She is draped in a gown made from shimmering fabric and jewels, but it does not hide how pale and withered she has become—like a bony shadow of her former self. She holds a silver scepter—the weight of it looks like it might rip her thin arms from her body.
She will die soon, just like every other Boon who has been brought to the Underrealm. Just like my mother …

No, no, no
, I scream silently at my mind’s betrayal.
I cannot think of this now. I
will
not
.

I suck in a deep breath and rack my brain, searching for my proudest moment. The Oracle steps abruptly away from the Lesser boy’s side and closes in on me. I shake as her glittering blue
hand reaches toward my face. I close my eyes and concentrate on the image of myself slaying a chimera in the arena in just thirty-one seconds, besting the other Underlords in my age group by half a minute. Surely that was my proudest moment. My greatest victory. The crowd had even cheered for me.…

All except for my father and the Court … They did not see my accomplishments because they did not care to look. No matter how hard I tried, they will not forget what I did to earn my disgrace.…

I feel the Oracle’s icy touch land lightly on my skin, just between my eyes. My vision flickers black for a moment and then I see myself at the age of seven—as if gazing into a mirror from the past—sitting in my bedchamber.
I hear my mother’s hollow voice as she cries out.…

I feel a sharp, stinging sensation in my forehead, like someone is pulling a string through my skull, and I am snapped back into reality. My vision focuses and I see the Oracle drawing her pinched fingers away from my forehead. And I know what memory of mine she holds.

“No! You can’t see that!” I try to grasp the Oracle’s blue hands, but as I reach for her, she disappears, and all I clutch at is the air. The ranks of Underlords gape at me for trying to touch the Oracle. Master Crue begins to stand. The Oracle reappears next to the altar in front of the throne, cupping my most shameful memory in her hands. I am too far away to stop her from watching the scene that she has stolen from my mind.

She holds her pinched fingers out in front of her veiled face. My heart feels as though it might break through my rib cage. Will she demand that I be cast from the ceremony after what she sees? I want nothing more than to stop her from seeing, but before I can even think of what to do, she drops her hand, and her body
goes as rigid as the marble statues that line the perimeter of the throne room. Her priest, a short, balding man in a red tunic, steps forward.

“One Champion only can complete this task,”
the priest says, but his voice echoes like wind whipping through a long chamber, and I realize the Oracle is speaking through him, using his voice as her own.
“The son of King Ren is he.”

Rowan stands tall and begins to take a step forward to the altar, but then the Oracle raises her blue hand and points one of her long, glittering fingers, not in the direction of Rowan, my twin brother, but toward me.

“Your Champion is Lord Haden,”
the priest says—my name echoing in the chamber, which has fallen as still as death.

Elation rises in my hammering chest.

That is, until a cry of outrage rushes through the Court of Heirs with a force akin to the wake of Charon’s mighty boat.

“This is absurd,” Lord Lex, the king’s chief advisor, says, rising from his seat among the Court. “The boy lacks proper training. He is not one of the Elite. He’s too emotional. We all know that.”

My hands tingle with heat. I ball them into fists but keep them tight against my sides. An outburst would only prove him right.

“It should be Rowan,” Lord Killian, my father’s second advisor, demands. “The Court agreed on Rowan. He should be …”

“The decision has been taken out of the Court’s hands,” the Oracle’s priest says, using his own raspy voice. “The Oracle was brought here to make it for you. She has made her decree; it is now your pleasure to listen and obey.”

“It is you who must obey!” another one of the Heirs demands, but his blasphemous comment is almost drowned out by the other members of the Court who add their protestations to the din.

I have heard rumors of strain between the members of the Court—I have even heard of whisperings against my father’s rule among the Heirs—but there seems to be one thing that still unites them: their disdain for me.

I don’t know why I didn’t realize that this is exactly how it would play out.

The elation I couldn’t help feeling when the Oracle said my name twists inside me until it becomes something darker. Perhaps this is more than the usual scorn of the Court against me? Perhaps this is all some kind of sick joke? Something orchestrated to humiliate me for hoping that I could rise above the lot I have been cast? Hope is a shameful emotion after all—another useless thing my mother must have taught me.

I keep my eyes trained on the Oracle. She is unmoving, swathed in her many veils. I wish I could see her face. I ache to know what she was thinking when she made her decision.

I need to know
why
.

“Silence!”

All voices cut off at once, and all eyes turn toward the towering throne.

King Ren Hades rises from his ebony seat. His long black hair is plaited in a ceremonial braid like mine and the other Underlords’. The firelight from the torches surrounding the altar reflects in the polished gold of his breastplate. He holds his open hand out in front of him. Threads of blue lightning hiss up from his palm and encircle his hand. It is meant to be a warning.

“Oracle,” he begins, “I brought you here to predict the best possible outcome, but you have obviously chosen wrong. The boy is unfit.…”

“You dare question an Oracle?” the priest asks.

“I am king here,” Ren says.

“And I am the infallible voice of the universe,”
the priest says, his voice that of the Oracle.
“I have chosen my Champion. The boy is the one who can save you.”
The Oracle’s bluish skin pulses purple and then deep red when she turns toward King Ren, her veils rustling about her as if blown by an invisible gale. The ground beneath my feet trembles, and I know I am not the only one who feels it.
“Only ruin lies in wait for those who disobey the words of fate.”

The ranks of Underlords behind me jostle for a better view. Even the Lessers have dared to fall out of position.

The lightning in Ren’s hand pulses brighter and coils its way up his arm. “Is that a threat?”

“I speak only the truth,”
responds the Oracle.
“You are the one who summoned me here. You and I both know why.”

King Ren’s face grows dark. He advances upon the Oracle, with the lightning crackling in his raised hand. The ground shifts again, and I almost lose my footing when I leave my place in the ranks. The Oracle’s words have emboldened me, and I don’t think about what I am doing before I throw myself down on my knees between her and King Ren.

“Stop!” I say. “I can do this. I have lived and breathed preparing for this. I am more than ready for wherever this quest shall take me. Let me prove myself to you.” I look up at King Ren and see his shock that I have dared to address him directly. His jaw is hard set and orange rings of fire pulsate around his pupils. “Allow me to do this. Please,
Father
 …”

King Ren looks down at me, meeting my eyes for the first time since the day he told me I was no longer his son.

Gasps of surprise ripple through the crowd of Underlords
behind us. My father breaks his gaze with me as someone else comes to stand before him. My brother Rowan lowers to only one knee beside me.

“Send me, Father. I am loyal, and I am no
nursling.”
He casts a pointed glare in my direction. “I will not fail you.” Rowan has left behind our ancient dialect and spoken each sentence in a different language used in the Overrealm—French, Arabic, Cantonese—probably thinking that because I am not an Elite, I will be unable to follow his words.

“I am not a nursling,” I say to Rowan in perfectly accented American English. “You have stolen honor from me before, but I will not allow you to take this from me as well.”

The Oracle moves to my father’s side. She has turned icy blue once again, and the cold wind that swirls her veils about her body makes me feel chilled to my soul. My father snuffs out the bolt of lightning that had been building in his hand. He squares his shoulders and stares at the Oracle like he’s trying to see past her shroud, into her mind.

“You are absolutely certain this boy is the right choice for Champion? We’ve been preparing for this particular quest for almost eighteen years. Surely Rowan, or one of the Elite, would be better suited.…”

“Sending him is the only way. He is the one.”

The one? The only way? His quest has been eighteen years in the making? What exactly is going on here?

Lord Lex steps forward. “What if we did away with him?” he asks. “Would the Fates choose another in his place? Rowan is ready and willing.”

My mouth goes dry.

The Oracle’s skin turns bright red.
“Your words are insulting to
the Fates. They will punish this Court for your hubris.”

“Be still,” Ren says. “Lord Lex does not speak for me.”

“Forgive me, Your Excellence.” Lex bows his head, but a cross look plays on his face. “I only speak in your best interest. Need I remind you what the consequences are for
you
personally, if the boy fails?”

“No, you do not,” King Ren says with a quiet forcefulness.

He turns and says something to his guards that I cannot hear, but I guess their meaning when two of them advance toward me. One guard grabs me by the arm, yanking me to my feet, while the other one pulls my ceremonial sword from my scabbard. He jabs the blunted point into my back, between my shoulder blades. I don’t try to resist, but as they propel me toward the torch-lit altar, I feel as though I am a prisoner headed toward execution.

I search the faces in the crowd of servants who flank the Court and find the one person who might care about what happens to me. My cousin Dax tries to give me a reassuring look, but his face has grown as pale as the marble floor beneath my feet. I look away from him and concentrate on the carvings that adorn the alabaster altar I’m being propelled toward. The stony personages of the first Hades and the original Boon, Persephone, stare forlornly back at me. When we reach the altar, one of the soldiers sends a swift kick to the back of my legs, forcing me to fall to my knees.

“I would have knelt on my own, harpy mouth,” I snarl at him.

He responds by slamming my head against the altar. My jaws smash together when my temple hits the hard stone. Strange bursts of light cloud my vision, and the black, oily smoke from the torches chokes my lungs, but I make it a point not to show any signs of pain. I stay perfectly still, with the side of my face pressed
to the cold altar, and watch my father advance on me.

I hear the ring of metal against metal as King Ren draws his sword from the scabbard at his hip. His is not a ceremonial blade—its sharp edges gleam in the torchlight. I try to look up and meet his eyes once more, but he does not return my gaze.

The fear that my father has chosen to listen to Lex’s suggestion strikes into my heart.
I am to be done away with so they can choose another
.

I grip the edge of the altar to stop my hands from shaking and wish desperately I had something more to offer to prove my worthiness of this assignment. My father glares down at me. And I see it. Behind the fresh anger that flashes in his eyes, it’s still there: that look he used to give my mother before she died—the look that transferred to me after what I did all those years ago—like what he saw before him was the embodiment of every failure, disappointment, and shame he had ever experienced.

As swiftly as fear had struck me a moment ago, a sudden calm replaces it. Resignation. I will not beg as he expects. I will not plead my case again. Instead, I look at him undaunted and ask a final question. “Is your hatred for me so great, Father, that you would risk bringing down the wrath of the Fates on the entire Underrealm in order to deny me my destiny?”

Ren’s jaw tightens. He lifts his sword, grabs me by the hair at the back of my neck, and yanks my head up from the altar’s cold surface. I say nothing more. If this is what he wants, then so be it. Let it come.

Ren swings his blade at my neck.

I will it to be quick and clean.

The sharp edge of the sword slices into my thick braid until it cuts all the way through. The blade nicks the back of my neck
just above my shoulders. My skin stings from the shallow cut but I do not flinch.

“Do not call me that again,” he says calmly and lets go of my head. My temple bashes into the altar once more. A cut breaks open above my eyebrow. My blood drips onto the alabaster, staining the cream-colored stone with beads of red.

I am slow to follow what happens next, but I try to focus as King Ren drops the braid he has cut from my head into a large silver bowl. He snaps his fingers and a young servant scurries forward from somewhere in the throne room and lifts the bowl. The boy follows Ren while he approaches the Oracle, the heavy vessel straining his small arms.

My mind is muddled and I almost miss the moment when the Oracle pours some type of shimmering liquid into the bowl with my hair, and then dips a dagger into the mixture. The priest whispers what sounds like an incantation, and then the Oracle hands the knife to King Ren, her blue skin darkening to a turquoise green as he takes the blade from her.

He hesitates. Or perhaps my brain is working too slowly.