Page 86 of The Vampire King's War

“What’s happening?” Julian asked.

“The Ever Dark is coming apart!” Christian cried.

It wasn’t just the moons. It was this entire place. That wasn’t a scientific determination. It was simply a factual statement. He had no idea what was going on. But it was clear that it was something world ending.

“But how? Why? Did Daemon know? Did Seeyr? Is this happening everywhere?” Julian asked the questions that were on Christian’s mind. But then a sudden strange look crossed his best friend’s face. Julian’s eyes went from purple to red and it was as if he wasn’t seeing anything before him any longer. He winced and put his right hand to his temple. “Ah!”

“What is it?” Christian was immediately in front of him.

“Seeyr… her gift. It’s a son of a bitch. I don’t know how Sophia is so nice and perky all the time. Everytime I see the future it feels like my brains are leaking out of my ears,” Julian remarked with a dry laugh.

“Did you at least see something?” Christian wondered if he wanted to know what was coming.

Julian’s eyes narrowed and his forehead furrowed. “I could see…”

Christian couldn’t bear the silence as it stretched out for too long in his opinion. “What?”

Julian drew in deep breaths to steady himself and slowly lowered his hand. “The end.”

The end of what? Wait! I don’t want to know.

But he didn’t have a chance to say that out loud as Julian was suddenly turning and heading down the path that was left before them.

“C’mon. We have to get going. I don’t think there’s much time. Can you sense my parents?” Julian asked.

“I can.” Christian jogged to reach his best friend’s side. “Straight ahead. Into that mist we can’t see past.”

Julian let out a dry chuckle. “Of course. That would be where we need to go.”

The two of them loped down the path in silence. There were more ominous rumbles and the ground continued to tremble beneath their feet. Yet now that they were expecting the seismic activity, both of them kept upright easily. But Christian’s chest grew tight every time the ground shook.

The path could give out. A chunk of moon could fall on their heads. Julian could teleport them again, he supposed, hopefully onto more stable ground. But Christian still felt his heart lurch when the ground did. This was all wrong, wrong, wrong. The Ever Dark was as eternal as…

Daemon,Christian thought with unease. The connection Daemon has to the Ever Dark is profound. If this is happening all over it then… no, it must not be. It must only be happening here. A place where Daemon cannot go…But that makes no sense! Isn’t the Ever Dark one place?

But maybe it wasn’t. Balthazar had described each Ever Dark city as a pocket universe. No one had ever been able to go from one city in the Ever Dark to another. Maybe because the creatures that infested the place were simply too fearsome for even Vampires. But maybe the cities simply weren’t in the same Ever Dark at all, but in all different Ever Darks.

Then maybe this is the only place falling apart? That sounds way too hopeful.

The mist was now not below them, but all around them. It curled almost sensuously around their limbs. Christian had the impression that it might tighten its grip and yank them into a foul embrace of some monster. But though the mist dimmed their ability to see what was coming more than three feet ahead of them, their other senses became keener.

Christian could smell the stone of the mountain. Minerals and icy water. He let one free hand drift along the mountain wall. The mist left it clammy and slick, but he wasn’t sure how much of the path remained on the other side of them. Better to stick close to it. Every step they took caused a faint echo that told him that there was a considerable drop to the left of them.

“We don’t know how to get back, Julian,” Christian said suddenly. “Unlike with Nightvallen, we don’t have your parents’ journals to lead us to the way out.”

He could see his best friend’s jaw tighten. “I imagine if the way out is not obvious then Caemorn would have told me about it.”

“Assuming it has not crumbled away or been cut off by a rock slide. So it was Caemorn who urged you to do this? So he was the one to lead us here,” Christian murmured. “I thought perhaps it was Seeyr, Fiona or Sophia.”

“No, they said what they felt and knew out loud for everyone to hear, I think,” Julian answered. “Caemorn pointed out the fact that--”

“We couldn’t ask for permission to go? We just had to? Yes, that would be his way and his thinking on things,” Christian said with a nod.

“He was right. Daemon and Balthazar would never put us in danger like this, even to save themselves,” Julian said as he surged forward faster.

There was a far more threatening rumble and rock and dirt fell down upon them. Christian looked up and saw that the way into the gorge was through a narrow pass between two sides of the mountain. It appeared the mountain was hollow in the middle. Perhaps an old volcano? He wasn’t sure.

“Let’s get to a clearer space,” Christian urged as a chunk of stone the size of a baseball smacked into the ground right where his left foot had been seconds before. The whoosh of air had alerted him to its approach and he had gotten out of its way lightning quick.

---