The Nowhere Gate Read online

  Message delivered, she tip-tapped up the stone steps without waiting for him. She was a thoughtful girl and seemed to have settled into her role nicely. With Malthael and Elisabeth constantly gone, Nanette had taken to managing the household—which was helpful since Grog had quit suddenly. Malthael liked her for no other reason than that she was a constant friend to Elisabeth. It warmed him to think of Elisabeth with friends. He had always wanted that for her but been too afraid of the possible consequences. The fear wasn’t there, though, with a Netherworld-touched girl and a disembodied girl stuck in an old man’s body. “Did Duke or Nathan return?” Malthael asked.

  “No,” Nanette replied without glancing back. “Not Weavers this time it seems.”

  He could see the tension in her shoulders and heard the way her voice hitched at their name. Though she might seem at times undisturbed by her experience in the Netherworld, it had left a scar. She had survived with her life and had experienced a world with which few were familiar. Her scars were both a blessing and a curse.

  There didn’t appear to be a pattern to how the creatures of the Netherworld were getting through to the planets. So far they had not encountered a demon who had done so, but it was just a matter of time. Luck could not stay on their side forever.

  “That is good,” Malthael muttered as he pushed the door open and stepped into his study.

  Nanette ducked under his arm and into the room before he let the slab-sized door fall back into place. The tapestry shuddered as Malthael entered his study. Glancing down at her, he realized he stood a full two heads taller. She really was petite. Then again, so were most of the women from Oran.

  “I have breakfast ready for you,” Nanette told him as she glanced over her shoulder. “I wasn’t sure when you’d arrive, so Tiss kept it warm.”

  “Thank you,” Malthael muttered, distracted.

  They moved through the rest of the house in silence, aside from the clip clop of his hooves across the floor. He fell easily into the quiet of the house. It reminded him of when Elisabeth had been away at school, when the house had seemed oddly empty for the first time in Malthael’s life.

  “Master!” Tiss rushed down the hall.

  Malthael blinked. She rarely came out of the kitchen. Immediately he was worried. Nanette seemed to come to the same conclusion, but instead of rushing forward as he did, she came to a dead halt. “What is it?” he asked Tiss.

  Tiss held up a piece of paper, which trembled from her agitation. “A letter from Zod,” she exclaimed as she slithered up the hall.

  “A letter?” Malthael asked.

  Now that was suspicious. Zod never left a note, and he arrived unannounced whenever he wished. This could only mean one thing: he was acting in an official capacity as Ashlad’s advisor to King Nauberon. He snatched it from Tiss’s fingers and both Nanette and Tiss pressed in around him. He nearly tore the fine parchment and read through it hastily. His eyes widened by the end.

  “Why does he need to see Elisabeth?” Nanette looked up at him.

  “I don’t know,” Malthael muttered, but he couldn’t hide the worry in his voice. The uncertainty was disconcerting. If Nauberon, the King of Morhaven and the guardian of the Netherworld, was involved, nothing good would come of it. The man was a shark, cold-blooded and slippery, but worse, because he was a crafty one.

  “Next week!” Tiss shrieked and immediately turned and rushed off. Her serpentine tail hit a side table, and a metal vase on it wobbled. “I can’t have Elisabeth’s gowns presentable in less than a week,” she cried out from down the hall.

  Malthael normally would have chuckled at the scene, but the bad feeling in the pit of his stomach kept his humor in check. He watched her go, feeling a grimness he had not experienced since he’d heard that the Black King was free. At least Aryan the Black had been predictably crazy. The King of Morhaven, however, was decidedly sane.

  “Malthael?” Nanette asked cautiously, putting a hand on his arm.

  He blinked and realized he had crushed the paper in his fist. Relaxing his hold, he looked at a very worried Nanette. Apparently he had done nothing to conceal his hatred. Demons served, but there was no love for members of the Divine Court they didn’t.

  “When Elisabeth returns, tell her nothing of this,” Malthael said, tucking the paper away. “There are things I need to see to first.”

  He strode purposefully down the hall. His head was bent low and his mind was elsewhere. Worrisome as it was, there were things more terrifying than the Black King.

  Chapter 4: Oran

  “It will be difficult for them, but they will forget,” Nanette whispered, “and live their lives.”

  “Not forget,” Elisabeth corrected. “Just move on.”

  Nanette stared straight ahead as she held tight to Elisabeth’s hand. She pressed her other hand up against her chest in a fist. They watched from under a tree with white blossoms, far from the people in black robes who stood around a priest reciting prayers. Next to him, her father held a decorative ceramic pot in his arms. Within it was supposed to be her ashes.

  Even though she wasn’t actually dead, in a way she was saying goodbye to one life in order to start another. She was no longer a Butterfly Princess or even an ordinary girl. Instead she was now the servant and friend of the most powerful person in all the planets. Because of a few pomegranate seeds and a hasty decision, she was also bound to Elisabeth for all her days.

  She stood watching her father and friends, many of whom she hadn’t seen in years, at her wake. Her eyes inadvertently shifted to Yuna, her sister. She dabbed a handkerchief to her eyes and Titus put an arm around her. Despite the cold and rainy day, his hair still looked like spun gold.

  After the wake, they would hold her actual funeral, which involved her getting a new name after death. It was supposed to be the way her spirit would find the afterlife. In normal circumstances, she would have been placed in a coffin with flowers around her head, but because they didn’t have a body, they had decided to incinerate mementos of her life that would guide her way to the Gods. The flowers would instead be placed at her elaborate grave.

  Tomorrow members of the public would be allowed to pay their respects, but Nanette didn’t care about that. She just wanted to see her family one last time. Though it was harder than she’d imagined it would be, it warmed her to see her sister one last time. It helped to know that Titus would take care of her. Only her father knew that she was still alive. Looking at her sister’s drawn face and tear-streaked cheeks, she wished it could be otherwise. Yet rules were rules. The only reason her father knew the truth was because he was a Gate Guardian.

  “Yuna looks ill,” Nanette fretted as she tightened her hold on Elisabeth’s hand.

  “She’s pregnant,” Elisabeth whispered, startling Nanette out of her thoughts.

  “What?”

  “Your sister. She is pregnant.”

  Nanette’s face crumpled as she fought back tears. “I hope it’s a girl,” she barely choked out. “Yuna always wanted a little girl.”

  Elisabeth inspected her face, worried. “I shouldn’t have told you,” she whispered.

  “I am glad you did,” Nanette managed as she wiped her tears away. She sniffled. “It will comfort me to know that she will be happy here.”

  Elisabeth nodded, and Nanette remembered how uncomfortable tears made her friend. Elisabeth was a woman of action, and tears could not be fought or vanquished. They simply were, and the emotions that accompanied them were difficult for her. Weavers didn’t scare Elisabeth like the tears in her friend’s eyes did. One she could face head on, while the other she was unprepared to handle.

  Nanette patted Elisabeth’s arm to reassure her. “I just didn’t expect this to be so difficult.”

  A handsome man on horseback approached the wake, his white stallion a stark contrast to the dreary day. Dressed in his finest black robes, he rode side-saddle. Nanette took in a startled breath, though she’d known that Prince Jason he would be there. He dismount
ed and carried a great wreath of flowers to the gathering. They were pale flowers that seemed fit for a girl, not a woman.

  Even now, the man can’t get anything about me right, she thought.

  Though he believed she was dead, he looked indifferent. Her eyes darted back to her father, who barely acknowledged the prince before turning back to the priest. There had never been more than an accord between them. Perhaps if she had loved him, there could have been something more, but she had not.

  As she watched her selfish prince feign grief, her mind wandered to Ethan’s face. They had shared very few words, yet she had felt a deep and unmovable bond with him. Could she, a common woman, ever hope to gain the attention of a prince of Morhaven? She still couldn’t believe he was King Nauberon’s brother.

  “What is that on his face?” Elisabeth whispered curiously.

  Nanette almost laughed at her choice of words. She cleared her throat to keep from snickering and answered as solemnly as she could. “To show wisdom and discipline, men grow out their beards.”

  Elisabeth grimaced. “It looks like a rat tail.”

  That made her smile. “He will have to cut it when he takes a new wife,” Nanette explained. “He started it when we were married, and only married men can have them.”

  “What about that old man?” she asked, gesturing with her chin toward an old man with a similar beard.

  Nanette glanced at him. “A widower past his prime.”

  It was common for widowers to wear beards to indicate that they would not remarry. Only single men or men looking to get married again were clean-shaven. Symbolic facial hair had been an essential part of her life and culture, but now it felt out of place.

  “What a wonderfully confusing culture you have,” Elisabeth commented.

  “Had,” she reminded her. “This is the culture I had.”

  “It is still yours,” Elisabeth countered. She looked deeply troubled for a moment. “You will just be experiencing it on a different planet.”

  “Most people don’t know anything about the world around them. They do everything blissfully unaware of other planets. The only constant is the Netherworld,” Nanette said brightly. “I know what I am giving up, but I also understand that this is worth it. Having seen some of the other worlds and their wonders makes me feel blessed. Particularly the scientific wonders of Ashlad.”

  “Sometimes I think I would prefer ignorance,” Elisabeth commented with a shrug. “Except when it comes to indoor sanitation, of course.”

  “Yes, but if you’d been ignorant of the hugeness of the universe, where would the rest of us be? I know I for one won’t miss communal toilets.” Nanette nudged her friend with her shoulder, making her smile.

  Nanette could still remember the horror on her friend’s face when she’d described the bathrooms commoners used and how the waste was collected for farming. Her smile faded as she turned her attention back to the bleak scene before her, “I, for one, would actually be in that burial jar. Never forget the impact you have had and all the lives you saved.”

  “Ki saved us,” Elisabeth whispered, and Nanette realized she was mourning him in her own way. She’d hoped there would be a way to find him, but so far she’d discovered nothing to point her in the right direction.

  Nanette squeezed her hand. They all knew that Ki would never have sacrificed himself to trap the Black King were it not for Elisabeth. She had both influenced him to become a better person and had helped shape him into a hero. Nanette might not have trusted him, but she’d liked him. No words Nanette spoke could comfort her friend, and she knew better than to try.

  “Let’s go home,” Nanette insisted as people raised umbrellas against rain that beat ever harder.

  Chapter 5: Morhaven

  The coils of iron burned into his flesh as the Exalter tightened the device. Ethandirill’s teeth gritted to the point that he feared they would shatter. Though he wanted to cry out in agony, Ethandirill intended to rob his brother of the satisfaction.

  He lay prone on a thick slab of wood and metal. Thin metal, like that used in a garrote, had been coiled around his arms, torso, and legs. It bit into his skin when the wheel pulled it taut under the table. With a nod of his brother’s head, the Exalter tightened it again. Sweat coated his brow as he opened his mouth in a silent scream of pain.

  Yet no sound left his lips, for which he was thankful. His brother, on the other hand, did not look pleased. His noble brow was furrowed with disappointment. Nauberon was used to having his way, and Ethandirill had always been one to defy him. The wire would have cut a planet dweller in half, but he was of a different stock. His skin was thicker, and his muscles were stronger. Still, however, the extra pressure caused sections of the thin metal to cut into his skin. Golden blood cried from his wounds as he tried not to move or breathe deeply.

  Light poured into the perfectly white room, making his blood shimmer as it dripped over the side and splashed against the otherwise pristine stone floor. The tattoos on his skin strained with his muscles as he fought against the pain and refused to succumb to his brother’s wishes. At least one person had to stand against his brother.

  “You will comply,” Nauberon finally said, breaking the silence, his expression one of thinly veiled disdain.

  Ethandirill gritted his teeth but shook his head. The coil around this throat tightened with every turn of his head. It half compressed his windpipe, but none of this was enough to kill him. Both he and Nauberon knew Ethandirill wouldn’t die on this day. His brother was punishing him for returning after having been exiled, but he would never actually kill him.

  Closing his eyes, he pictured Nanette’s face and fought with all his might to remain calm. He envisioned her hopeful gaze when he had helped her escape the Nightmare that had been hunting her. Because he hadn’t feared the Nightmare, it hadn’t been able to sense him. Every creature in the Netherworld had weaknesses and Ethandirill had been taught them since birth. None of the creatures of the Netherworld, though, not even the Weavers, scared him as much as what his brother would do if he got his hands on Nanette.

  “Tighten it,” Nauberon commanded, looking agitated.

  “My King,” the Exalter said humbly without looking at him, “any more may cause lasting damage.”

  “Tell me, Ethandirill, what is it about this girl that elicits such determination?” Nauberon asked in his normal calm and chilling tone.

  “I swore a blood oath,” he said, finally breaking his silence. Nanette was his to protect during her time in the Netherworld, when he became her master. He did not like that word but is what he was as designated by the laws of Morhaven and the Netherworld.

  “Which means you can pass her to me,” he stated plainly as he pointed at the pale mark on Ethandirill’s palm.

  Ethandirill’s gut twisted at the thought of betraying her. “I will not betray her.”

  Nauberon’s eyebrows rose, and a slow smug smile appeared on his face. “Which her?”

  Ethandirill closed his mouth and kept it shut. He had been foolish to speak at all. His brother knew exactly what to say to get people to give themselves away, a talent learned after living for many centuries—a few hundred years more than Ethandirill.

  “Don’t be a fool,” Nauberon murmured. “Your pain will only be prolonged. Abide by our rules, and this ends”

  “Why do you want her for a month?” Ethandirill asked, utterly baffled by the request.

  “I want leverage,” he said. “I want to force Elsariel to come here.”

  “Ask her,” he said through gritted teeth as the metal continued to cut into his skin.

  Nauberon laughed and then turned back with a serious expression. “She won’t just agree. I have to force her.”

  “Information,” Ethandirill whispered. He blinked as he realized he was losing consciousness.

  “Loosen it!” King Nauberon demanded and came around the table.

  Ethandirill let out a sigh of relief as the bonds around him slackened enough that the
y no longer bit into his flesh but not enough that they could be shrugged off. His brother leaned over him, clearly perplexed. “You know what will entice Elsariel here?” he whispered.

  “Elisabeth wants information about the Netherworld,” Ethandirill said, without explaining why.

  Ethandirill’s eyes narrowed on his brother as Nauberon considered his words. He searched his normally stony features and was surprised to find them troubled. A thought crossed his mind, but it was one far too absurd to put any stock in. Impossible though it was to consider, he seemed to really care about whether Elisabeth came. Nauberon cared for nothing but balance and his own power. Nauberon was obsessed with maintaining order. It is why he had ruled successfully for more than fifty years. It was part of the mantle he bore.

  Ethandirill tried not to think of the boy he had been. The man he was now believed planet dwellers were lesser beings. The man he was now had only ever feared one person besides the Black King, their father—right up until the moment when he’d overthrown him and banished him beyond the safety of their paradise. It was said that a Nightmare had taken their father. Ethandirill, as he’d been hardly twenty-five at time, an infant of their world.

  Yet Nauberon had gone through such trouble for Elisabeth, even having Ethandirill brought in and tortured so that Nauberon could take over the month-long contract on Nanette. He would have taken death before he betrayed Nanette, or Elisabeth for that matter. The most powerful half-breed that ever lived, Elisabeth was the last of her kind and the person to defeat the Black King. Even if she hadn’t had this hold over Nanette, Ethandirill would have remained loyal to Elisabeth for who she was.