The Shadow Prince

“What happened?” I ask, searching his jade green eyes.

“He tried to force me to make an unbreakable vow that I would bring you to him. He said the only reason he hadn’t done it before making me Champion was because the Oracle tried to tell him it would backfire.… So I thought of the way you tricked Simon, and I … made it backfire. Quite literally.”

“How?” I ask.

“I vowed I would never let him have you, and electrified the water—scrambling the connection in the talisman. Almost killed myself in the process, though.” He raises his singed hand like he wants to brush his fingers against my cheek—but doesn’t quite have the strength to do it.

“Harpies. Talk about burning bridges. I knew you had it in you!” Dax slaps Haden on the shoulder.

Haden cringes. “ ’Scuse me?” he asks, his speech starting to sound slurred.

“Sarah and I have met before, remember? She told me things.…”

“You didn’t care to share?” I ask.

“I wasn’t at liberty to discuss it. The decision needed to be Haden’s alone. I’ll tell you more later,” Dax says. “We’ve got another problem on our hands.”

“Seriously?” Haden says, dropping his hand. “We almost all died in the worst children’s game I have ever heard of; I almost had to kill my man-eating pet; I stood up to my lunatic father—who has a major god complex, by the way—and had my soul electrocuted three times; and now you’re telling me there’s another problem?”

“Ha!” I laugh.

“What?” he says.

“That is the most human I have ever heard you sound!”

A clap of thunder rolls outside the darkened windows.

“Save the flirting for later,” Dax says. He points up. “Skylords are coming. Simon made a call before he came in here. I have a feeling his buyers are just about to show up. They’ll be wanting to take delivery of the goods, if you know what I mean.”

“Harpies.” Haden looks around. “Where did everyone else go?”

“I sent them to pull up the car,” Dax says. “Daphne and I were getting ready to carry your body out. I just hope they didn’t take off without us.”

Rain starts pelting the windows. There’s a clash of white lightning that makes me jump, followed by a roll of thunder so loud, it shakes the building. “That’s some storm.”

“Not a storm,” Dax says, helping Haden to his feet. “We’ve got to run for it.”

He and I lead Haden out of the empty hospital. Brim follows at my heels. Haden leans so heavily against me, like he can barely put one foot in front of the other, that it makes me dread finding out what else had happened to him in the Underrealm.

“Where are the patients?” I ask.

Dax explains that Simon had requested that the staff take all the patients on a walk—which is why no one had come into the common room during the commotion. Thank goodness.

The rain is so thick, my clothes are soaked through almost immediately after we exit through the back doors of Sunny Ridge. Lightning rakes the sky above the hospital. To my relief, Tobin, Lexie, Garrick, and Joe are waiting inside the car at the curb. Joe holds his wadded-up jacket against the top of his head, as if staunching a wound that must have been caused by the falling debris that had knocked him out. I am glad he is relatively okay, but at the same time, I can’t bring myself to say anything to him. I don’t have the time or energy right now for the anger that might unleash.

Dax insists on driving. I imagine Haden lets him only because, at this point, he can barely keep his eyes open. I sit with him in the third row. We fly out of the parking lot as a strike of lightning explodes against a power pole. The downed lines flail out at us like electrified tentacles. Dax whips us out of their way and out onto the open road. If I’d thought Haden was a crazy driver, that was nothing compared to the way Dax maneuvers around lightning strikes and traffic to get us to the freeway.

“Who are these psychos?” Lexie shouts. “Are these more lightning freaks from your family?”

“Worse,” Dax says. “Skylords have lightning and thunder. But they are family, in a way. They’re kind of like our second cousins a few times removed.”

“What?”

“They’re the sons of Life,” Haden mumbles beside me.

“How?” I remember the story he told me about the twin sons Hades created and the Sky God stole. “I thought Life was torn apart by the Keres when he was just a kid.”

Haden nods.

“The Sky God pieced him back together,” Dax says, swerving around a slow-moving semi. The windshield wipers can barely keep up with the barrage of rain on the windows.

Tobin screeches as lightning strikes the tail end of the semi truck. He holds his hand to his face like he is merely stifling a sneeze. Brim jumps into my lap. I stroke her bristled back reassuringly.

“He can do that sort of thing, among others,” Dax says.

“So the sons of Life are the Skylords and the sons of Death are the Underlords?” I ask, remembering that Haden had said something about that earlier. “The descendants of two twins locked in epic battle.”

“Sounds about right. Except the Skylords have daughters, too.”

“They do?” Garrick asks, sounding surprised.

“Yes,” Dax says, like he knows this for sure. “Oh yeah, they can run through the clouds,” he says, pointing at the churning, gray sky above us. I can’t see any Skylords, but they must be up there in the clouds. “They’re like the new and improved model.”

“This was my worst trip to Vegas ever,” Lexie says as we sail past a billboard that says, NOT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS STAYS IN VEGAS. GET TESTED!

“Where are we going?” Haden asks. His head is leaning on my shoulder now.

“Ellis Fields,” I say. “Sarah made it sound like Ellis was some sort of safe haven. Like we could hide there without being found. I hope she’s right.”

“Good plan,” Haden says, sounding almost completely out of it. “You should stay there. Be safe. Forever.”

The idea of being trapped in Ellis is one that had haunted me my whole life. I’d kicked against it as hard as I could while still trying to respect my mother, but at this moment—and I can’t believe I’m admitting this—the idea of going back, of staying there forever, sounds more appealing than touring the world as a music star ever did.