Lord of the Night

Chapter 14: The General

An hour later, a third competitor rose up to challenge my rage and fear: nausea. The flying ship swayed with each flap of wings, and my stomach sloshed in time.

My mind slipped back to my first time in a terranean warper, during which I had vomited every bit of the dinner my father had prepared for my birthday. It was a story my mother told dinner guests for the next five years—much to my chagrin. 'We have everything a Guardian family needs,' my mother had joked. 'One child prepared to fight Demons and another who helps us understand humans.'

Then her face always crinkled in a smile, eyes full of fondness—but my father's gaze had made my stomach curdle with shame. He always just looked sad.

Whoops of delight snapped me back to the present. The palace towered on the horizon.

A sturdy foundation rocketed up from lush foliage, yet there was also something whimsical about its construction, as though someone had offered free reign to a child with building blocks. Corridors jutted off in different directions, black zigzags against the storm-lit sky. Even the balconies reached longingly for the clouds.

Although night had fallen, the whole palace buzzed with commotion. Lights flickered in hundreds of open windows as Demons flocked in and out of the palace like bees swarming a hive.

Around us, the flying Demons picked up speed, swerving to converge on their destination, and the Demons on the ship began to chatter excitedly. Only one Demon appeared nonplussed. The High Prince once again lounged against the railing at the side of the ship, one foot crossed in front of the other and head slightly downturned. Ambivalent—just as he had been when he killed my mother and brother.

A river of hatred raged in my veins, but I fought to suppress the emotion so I could focus on my surroundings. Around the palace, the air near the ground wavered and crackled, a thirty-foot fence of pure electricity: the forcefield that kept Guardians out. In the small chance that I ever escaped, the Guardians would want to know how I entered the palace.

At first, it appeared that the great secret was merely elevation—the flying Demons soared up above the electric force field before diving toward the palace. On the other side of the forcefield, they dispersed to various windows across the palace, dropping onto windowsills before disappearing from sight.

But the ship did not move above the forcefield. Instead, the High Prince straightened a little and shifted his attention to the palace, and the portion of the forcefield nearest us shimmered, dissolved, and flowed toward him.

Like a magnetic shadow, he absorbed the splintering light.

The ship sailed through the middle of this stream of energy, and the lights and static momentarily overcame my senses. Fighting an onslaught of sensations, I was barely aware of the ship's landing.

When my eyes adjusted, the front door of the palace arched fifty feet ahead of us, fresh polish gleaming in the rain. Beside the door, a hundred crows perched on a dead oak tree. On the front steps, several Demons and a few dozen human servants watched the hovering aircraft.

The two Demons who had flanked me before strode toward me. They snapped off the chains locking me to the ship but left the cuff that held my wrists together behind me. Then they pushed me toward the ladder. We stopped ten feet short of the ladder when the High Prince turned back to face us. Ignoring the other Demons, he spoke directly to me.

"When I reach the bottom of this ladder, the servants will bow," he said. "You should do the same."

I didn't give a response, and he didn't wait for one. He nodded at the Demons on either side of me, and they pulled me toward the ladder. My boots slipped on the wet ladder rungs and my shins smacked wood several times as they forced me, still cuffed, down the ladder.