What could possibly be making that noise?
But then, we’re out of the narrow tunnel, and I stop dead in my tracks.
Light hits our faces as we stop in the massive cavern that puts all others to shame. It’s like the entire mountain has been hollowed out, eaten from the inside.
And I can see why.
In the very middle, stretching vertically as high as ten people standing one on top of the other, is a…slash in the air.
I don’t know how else to describe it, and my eyes are trying desperately to take everything in so that I can make sense of it. But I can’t.
This isn’t some crack in the cave floor or wall or ceiling. This isn’t some jagged fissure illuminated with the natural fluorescence that runs through the rest of the mountain. No, this is something else entirely.
This cleave in the air shouldn’t exist.
When I look at it too long, it hits me with a sense of vertigo, like when you’re standing on a precipice so high that your eyes can’t make sense of the ground’s distance.
It looks as if a giant has sliced open the air with a dulled ax. Its edges are ragged and peeled, opening up into some bottomless chasm and hanging suspended. And the humming noise comes from inside of it, some unknown force trilling with power.
Inside of this air’s split, there’s a strange, mottled light peeking out. Except, the light is disrupted, like lying beneath a tree at high noon, when the wind blows through the leaves and keeps shifting the shade.
The hairs on the back of my neck are standing upright. The pulse in my veins has been completely drowned out. And for some strange reason, I want to go closer.
I don’t even realize that I’m walking forward until Slade clasps my hand, tugging me back. I snap my eyes away from it.
“What…what is that?” I ask breathlessly.
There’s an exhale hewn from the depths of his lungs. “This is where I tore a rip into the world.”
CHAPTER 37
SLADE
Age 15
I’m startled awake in my bed, and I sit up, pointed ears cocked. I’m not sure if it was something I dreamt or if it was a real sound that woke me, until I hear someone shouting and footsteps running down the hall.
I fling the covers off and get out of bed, quickly tugging my shirt back on from where I left it in a heap on the floor. I shove my feet into the boots beside the door and hurry out, tightening the drawstring in my pants as I go down the hall and head for the stairs.
Shouts rise up, and when I hear something shatter, I start to run. My boots skid to a halt against the carpet when I see a group of our servants gathered at the bottom of the stairs, crowding the entry hall just ahead. They’re all standing there frozen, not moving or talking, and the backs of my arms start to prickle.
I push my way forward, though I’m not even noticing the faces I’m passing, because I’m focused ahead. There are more people that I have to get through to get into the entry hall, everyone dressed in either their nightclothes or rumpled ones from yesterday, as if everyone hastily dressed to see what the commotion is.
As soon as I push my way to the front, I freeze in place.
A gray, morbid light streaks in through the entry hall.
Since this room is in the center of the estate, there are several open doorways that lead to different parts of the house, and every single one is full of more servants. As if my father called them all here, like he does when he hosts public punishments.
The windows at the left are casting predawn streaks across the marble floor, making the red wallpaper look deeper, the same color as a bead of blood left on the tip of your finger.
Right there in front of those dreary streaks of light stands my father. He shouldn’t even be home yet, not for a couple more days at least, because he was called to the king for business, but here he is. Red shirt crisp, black boots laced straight, and fury in his eyes, even at this early hour.
He’s gripping my mother by the wrist, holding her arm up at an awkward angle. A group of servants stands just behind her. It’s like the entire room is balancing on shards of glass and no one dares move, or else we’ll get sliced open.
Because the look on my father’s face…
It’s not only anger spattered over his brow and darkening his eyes. It’s not only a slight downturn of his mouth. This is something more. His whole face has gone red, blotches of it bursting against his neck that I can see from across the room in this poor light. The muscles in his arm are strained where he’s holding my mother, his grip so tight that his fingers are leached of blood. And his eyes…they aren’t just angry or irritated or disappointed.