The Shadows

Instantly, he had felt the poison in his veins, and, rather like the venom of a snake’s bite, it wasted no time in spreading, multiplying, taking over.

Weakened as he was from grief and exertion, he realized there was a good chance he wouldn’t survive this.

And that made him focus on the ceiling above him. Funny, whenever he’d pictured this ritual, it had always been with him tied down.

Strange where you ended up. Now, he welcomed the coming pain—because it might just be his ticket back to Selena. Gossip held that you didn’t get into the Fade if you committed suicide, but if you were killed?

Not your fault.

There was, of course, an existential issue to be reconciled: namely how the pair of them, coming from different traditions, could in fact find each other on the other side of life. If there was another side.

But if faith had any power, he was going to believe they would.

He might as well go out on that note.

Gradually, he became aware of two other presences in the room with him and AnsLai. And one of them sparkled from head to foot in a rainbow of colors.

The Queen.

She began speaking to AnsLai after the high priest bowed down to her. And then AnsLai was straightening, talking, looking alarmed … then panicked.

The Queen approached Trez—and after a lifetime of hating the female, he thought idly of reaching up and trying to strangle her.

He didn’t have the strength, however. Especially not as the pain intensified even further.

He hadn’t intended to move, but he began to writhe, his body trying to escape the poison.

And then suddenly his entire suit of flesh was on fire on the inside.

The last thing he remembered was more people racing into the room, and they did not drop to the floor. They stared at the Queen in confusion.

And then the Chief Astrologer in his red robes addressed them all.

A moment later, they did hit the floor before the female.

Oh, what did it matter, Trez thought.

What did any of this, even the monumental pain, matter …

EIGHTY-THREE

That fallen angel got them to the Territory.

And as iAm re-formed, he realized it was a good thing that Lassiter had taken control of the flight. With his brother in the clutches of the Queen, he doubted he would have been able to concentrate enough to dematerialize.

“I’ll take it from here,” iAm said.

“Got your back.”

With a nod of gratitude, iAm strode over to the front entrance of the s’Hisbe. Among the things the Brotherhood had given him as parting gifts were a couple of pounds of C4 plastic explosive. All he had to do was set a serving or two of it up at the huge gates and—

As if the entrance to the s’Hisbe wanted to avoid bodily harm, the giant halves split and opened before the pair of them.

But it wasn’t a fortuitous departure of someone on the far side.

s’Ex stood tall and proud, the perfect guard to the Queen’s lands.

Except … something was all wrong. The male was wearing the kind of farshi servant dress he’d given to iAm before, and it was dripping with blood.

There was also a red-stained, serrated dagger in his hand that was as long as a male’s forearm.

“We don’t have a lot of time, come on,” the male said urgently.

Ordinarily, iAm would have thought twice about going anywhere with a Grim Reaper like that. But he’d already trusted the male once—and it was clear there was a coup in play.

Falling into a jog, he and Lassiter followed the executioner to the palace complex and entered the compound through a hidden door. Once inside, s’Ex led them through corridors that were utterly empty.

No servants. No courtiers.

And s’Ex had no apparent concern that they would be detained, questioned … threatened.

The male had either lost his mind or …

“What the hell is going on here?” iAm demanded.

“You’re the Anointed One, not your brother.”

iAm stopped so fast that Lassiter had jump to the side or mow him down. “What.”

“No time. Your brother’s being cleansed—he’s on death’s door. If you want to say good-bye to him, you’d better hurry up.”

As iAm just stood there, like someone had unplugged him, Lassiter and s’Ex grabbed him under the arms, jacked his feet off the ground, and carried him off.

A second later, he came to and forced his way out of their holds, taking control of his own feet. “It’s not possible,” he shouted over the pounding of their footfalls.

“The Queen forged the charts. You were the one all along—but you weren’t supposed to live for long after the birth. Trez was the better bet—for the Queen and for your parents.”

All at once, they burst into the main audience hall, and iAm found his feet faltering again.

Up on the dais … his maichen—the Princess—Christ, whoever the hell she was—was having the crown of the Territory placed upon her dark hair.

As about two thousand Shadows fell to their knees on woven silk mats, their heads bowing in supplication.

“She figured it out,” s’Ex said. “She figured it all out—even though it nearly cost her her life.”

“Where is the former Queen?”

“At the feet of the daughter.”

That was when he saw the severed head off to the side, black eyes staring out at the crowd, but seeing nothing.

“I believe in fate,” the executioner said. “I believe in the stars. This is the way it was meant to be.”

iAm shook himself. This was all really too much, and nothing that really concerned him. Trez, on the other hand. “My brother…”

“This way.”

When iAm finally burst into the room where Trez was, he lost his breath. His brother, his blood, was on a marble table, that big body twisted up in pain.

His first thought was that it reminded him of Selena, the way she had contorted.

iAm rushed over without acknowledging the other people who were standing around. Clasping Trez’s hand, he fell to his knees. “Trez … Trez…?”

But there was no reaching his brother. He was gone, alive but transported somewhere else, as if his body had issued a temporary vacate order.

“No,” he heard himself say. “Not after all this … Trez, you’re free … you can stay with me, we’re free…”

Well, sort of free if he himself was the Anointed One. But he couldn’t worry about that right now.

Fuck.

“Don’t leave me, my brother.”

“…antidote. We shall have to see.”

iAm looked up and saw AnsLai, the high priest, standing on the other side of the table. “What?”

“I gave him the antidote … as soon as I knew.” The male glanced at s’Ex. “But it may be too late. He was in a weakened state when he came here.”

iAm started talking, blathering about … shit, he didn’t know what.

It was all he could do.

As his brother twisted and turned, arms and legs sawing against a pain that iAm couldn’t even imagine, iAm was helpless. So helpless.

“…see you?” AnsLai asked him sometime later.

“What?” he said in a voice that was hoarse. Guess he hadn’t stopped talking.

“Your blooded parents. They have heard that you are both within the Territory—that you are rightfully the Anointed One, and they would like to—”

iAm bared his fangs and glared into the high priest’s worried eyes. “You tell those two that if they want to live they will never, ever approach me or my brother again. Do you understand? Tell them that the only thing that could distract me from Trez right now is murdering them both where they stand.”

The high priest blanched. “Yes. But of course.”

iAm refocused on his brother.

And resumed talking nonsense. Just as Trez had done to Selena as she was in the grips of passing.

Sometime later, he was dimly aware that a female came into the room. And he knew who it was by the echo of his own blood, but he did not acknowledge her.

He was too consumed by trying to keep Trez on the planet when, undoubtedly, the male was busy working to make his way to the far side.

EIGHTY-FOUR

Trez got his wish.

In the course of his dying from the cleansing, he learned that, in fact, there was a Fade. And yes, people of different traditions and faiths all went to the same place.

At some point, the pain became too much and his body gave out—and the abrupt lack of any sensation was a shock. Yet he welcomed the numbness.

And the sense of flight.

Soaring, he was soaring … until he found himself in a vast white landscape, a foggy landscape that, as he walked along, made him feel both weightless and grounded.

Soon enough, a door was presented to him. A door with a knob that he instinctively knew if he turned, would allow him to step into what was beyond and thereby never, ever go back to Earth.

And that was when he saw Selena.

Her face and form appeared to him not on the door, but in it, as if even closed, the panel contained three-dimensional space.

Instant. Joy. And it was the same for her, her smile radiating through the distance between them, their eye contact translating to a caress he felt throughout his body.