Page 2 of Hidden Kingdoms

A fire blazed high under a stone mantel—kind of unnecessary when you lived in a place so favoured by Xol—and that was it. There was nothing else.

If she lives here, how is she so pale?

Nova’s black eyes blinked slowly, full lips pulling into a wide, eerie smile as we stopped close enough for our legs to brush the table, towering over her.

“You came.” Her voice broke the silence.

“Did we have a choice?” Bas’ low voice replied.

“No.” Her smile stretched bigger. “No, you didn’t.”

Quiet hung between us again as we stood, waiting. Nova’s head tipped slightly as she looked up at us, the power she was radiating as uncomfortable as the stifling heat. It tasted like charred bones on my tongue.

Now what? There had been no instructions with her blood-stained summons.

“Do you have your listening ears on, boys?” Her black eyes sparkled as her hands flew wider on the table, fingers spread wide. I had a mere second to track the movement before we were both thrown off balance as she threw herself forward, grabbing each of our hands and slamming them down on the table under her own with unnatural strength. Giving us little choice but to hunch over the worn surface.

Her filthy nails dug bloody crescents into our skin, and I found myself incapable of pulling away as a heavy pressure kept me in place.

The world around us descended into a forced silence, the rhythm of Nova’s breaths the only sound to reach my ears. Until she opened her mouth and out poured a voice most definitely not the one she had been taunting us with only a moment ago. Itwas a breathy whisper that filled every space within the decrepit stone room we were in. A thousand voices speaking as one as blood welled across our skin at the sharp slice of her nails.

“Darkness calls and the seven fall

if the one cannot be found, consumed.

The heir will join with wind and earth

while flames stand stoic, incinerate.

Hidden, hidden but bright as the stars

a rightful place, taken.

Power to part the obscure

when all are found, connected.”

Each word held a weight as they left her mouth and I felt as they branded themselves into my skull, rendering me unable to forget, my magik allowing hers to intrude for just a moment. Yet, whatever meaning they held was lost on me right now.

She lifted her hands from ours and we both lurched backwards as the sounds of the world rushed to us once again. The birds continued their song, and the fire roared once more. Wiping the crimson streaks and smudges of dirt from my skin across my trousers, this time grateful for the black fabric. The gouges looked back at me like a collection of tiny sinister grins and this once, I wasn’t a fan of the pain.

“And that’s supposed to mean?” A deep voice rang out and I refocused, feeling the words she had spoken settle within me. He could never indulge in a good mystery, needing the answer before the question had ever been asked but he was out of sorts here. The relaxed charm he liked to front to the world scraped away.

“I do not question the Goddess. I merely follow as her humble servant.” Nova’s hand twisted over her chest as she spoke and for a second, I was sure I saw symbols carved into her skin, red and raised. She finished the gesture and whatever I hadseen was gone, replaced by the smooth flesh that had enticed me all those moons ago when we had first met.

“What I do have, is a little something to help you on your way.”

Her hand—now stained red along with the dirt caked onto it—snaked down to her lap before she dropped something heavy onto the table; leaning closer I found myself looking at a large, muddy rock.

Talk about anticlimactic.

Without warning, she closed her fist around the stone and whipped it towards his head. It was only years of training that ensured Bas caught it before it smacked into him, which at any other time, would have been highly hilarious. It looked a lot smaller in his big hands and its pass through the air had dislodged a chunk of mud that must have been filling the hole now present in the centre.

Heat flared from his body, fierce and hot before he took control of his emotions.

“What is this?”

“I did not take you for an idiot, prince of fire. Can you not see it is a rock?”

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