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I feel suddenly guilty, like I’m consorting with the enemy. If I actually chose the Dark Prince, would any of these beautiful angels know I did it to stop them being injured? Or would they think evil was at my core too?

I look for Jordan and can tell that his condition is worse. Jez is kneeling by his side.

I’m about to hurry towards them when Prince Luca’s voice chimes in my head again.
I will soon walk out to the centre of this yard and wait twelve minutes as measured by the Earth’s clock. And for those twelve minutes, the fate of everyone on this mountain will be in your hands
.

If I agree to go with you, what happens then?

We leave immediately, and all who inhabit this mountain remain unscathed. It’s your choice
.

My choice? My
choice
! To walk away from my life?

And what if he’s lying about my parents?

But he’s not lying. I knew they didn’t die in the fire.

And then I think of Nathaneal. I love him, though I don’t know how it happened, or why.

Get out of my head!

A night in my arms, in the palace I built for you, my lady, and he will be nothing but a drifting memory
.

How is it that I can speak to you in my thoughts, and
…

And not him? Interesting, isn’t it? You’re intelligent enough to figure it out
.

No. No! I don’t belong to you
.

‘Ebony? Ebony, what’s wrong? Look at me, Ebony.’ Nathaneal pulls me into his arms.

It’s time I make my appearance. Your choice is a simple one. We can settle this peacefully, or we can take the carnage route. Your human friend will be the first. As a matter of fact, I believe my darling Aracals have already set his spirit on a path to my gates
.

Go to hell!

I like your humour. We will get along superbly
.

I hate you!

Jordan’s feeble voice calls out from seemingly far away, ‘Thane … Thane! What’s with Ebony? There’s something wrong. I feel it!’

Skade is your true home; your birthright is to be queen. Only I can give you that. Come to me. Come, my lady. Come
…

I can’t think clearly with that voice in my head. I need it to stop. I grab both sides of my head. ‘Make it go away!’

Nathaneal realises what’s happening. He pulls me up by my shoulders and shakes me. ‘Ebony!
Ebony!
Don’t listen to him. Block him out. Barricade your thoughts!’ He groans. ‘Ebony, look into my eyes.’

I look and he says, ‘Find a space in your mind, make it blank and visualise a door with a lock.’

I close my eyes and nod.

‘Go inside and lock the door behind you. Ebony, you can do this.’

I open my eyes and focus on his.

‘Order him from your head. Order him to leave. Do it, Ebony. Do it now!’

‘But he’s giving me a choice.’

Michael comes and stands beside me. He says softly, ‘He’s playing with you, tempting you. It’s how he operates. Don’t listen to his poison. You have Free Will that even
he
can’t take from you, but you must assert yourself. He knows you are a kind soul who cares for others, who will put the lives of others before your own. Whether you go to him or not, tonight there
will
be a confrontation. If you choose Luca, Nathaneal will never stop looking for you and there will be retribution of the kind this universe has never seen.’

‘I just don’t want any of you to get hurt because of
me
.’

‘Ebony, you aren’t forcing us to do anything we don’t want to do. Besides, this is our job. We’re the king’s soldiers and Prince Luca is his enemy and therefore ours. You are one of us, and that’s all that matters.’

Come with me and I promise a thousand years of peace on the Earth
.

I return my head to Nathaneal’s chest and, hearing only the beating of his heart, I visualise my secret room. I step inside it, turn around, lock the door and scream out in my thoughts,
Get out of my head, Prince Luca! This is my private space and you aren’t welcome in here!

I wait a moment, two, three, and there is nothing but silence. ‘I think it’s worked.’

‘I knew you could do it,’ Nathaneal whispers.

‘You belong to me,’ I murmur.

He kisses my hair. ‘Yes, I do, my love. I belong to you.’

A wave of grey mist, cold and fetid, swirls towards us through the trees. I walk out to the clearing with Thane holding my hand and the others follow. We watch the mist pour out of Prince Luca’s mouth. Everyone is silent. Something is about to happen.

And then he walks down the stairs and on to the lawn. The Dark Prince is taller than I recall from my dream, and thicker set around the shoulders. It could be the armour, or an illusion caused by the distortion of air around him. He looks regal in a soldier’s uniform beneath a black floor-length cloak with fur-lined hood. Six soldiers move to stand behind him.

‘Your time begins now,’ he announces, his voice carrying like wind to everyone’s ear.

Michael moves silently to stand a pace in front of me to the right. Nathaneal loosens his hand from mine, and moves to the opposite front wing position. Isaac, Shae and Gabriel take positions at my rear so that I’m now in the centre of a circle of angels.

Meanwhile, the putrid-smelling mist spreads into the forest.

I peer between my protectors for a glimpse of Jordan. I know he’s nearby; I can feel him through our bond. Trying something I never imagined I would, I reach out to him with my mind. To my surprise I find him almost instantly, and it jolts me how bad his condition is. His life force is streaming out of him like wine spilling into thirsty soil.

In my mind I see him shivering and moaning incoherently between the fig tree’s roots as Jezelle holds him in her arms while sitting on the moist earth. I’m shocked to see tears are cascading down her face. Sensing me, she looks up, shakes her head and murmurs,
He’s failing fast and I’m doing all I can
.

I struggle to take a deep breath, releasing it in a shuddering sigh, and the mind-link disappears.

Prince Luca calls out, ‘My lady, should you decide
not
to come with me, your decision will lead to many deaths in the next twenty-four hours. The mist I have released becomes active at sunrise. It will kill every child under the age of three on this mountain. These deaths, the agony their families will endure, rest on your shoulders.’

The monster! How can he do this? But the answer is simple: because he can. He can do whatever he wants.

And if I don’t choose him, if I don’t walk up to him, take his hand and say, ‘I choose you, my lord,’ I will have to live with the guilt of knowing I could have stopped it.

I’m dying. Again. What does this make it? Two, three times? There’s one thing I gotta know before the lights switch off for good. Why is this crazy angel crying over me? I mean, literally, crying, over the top of me. The tears are dripping straight into the Aracal’s bite and stinging like gnawing ants.

‘Jezelle, what … gives with the tears?’

‘Don’t talk to me, human boy. Can’t you see I’m busy working?’

So she’s not crushed by the thought of losing me.

‘Stop moving!’ She sniffs. ‘Can’t you feel any improvement yet?’

Now that she mentions it … well, no, I’m still immobile, lifeless and pretty darn sure I’m about to die. After a couple more sobs she sits up and wipes her dribbling nose on her sleeve. ‘How’s that?’

‘Well, the ants are gone.’

Keeping me on her lap, she lays her hand on my wound and rocks back and forth while humming.

A minute passes. Then another and she’s still meditating. At least she’s not giving up on me easily. Suddenly she gets
up without warning. I roll off her lap to the dewy forest floor. ‘Hey! What’s with you?’

‘Why don’t you look at your hand and see for yourself.’

But I don’t have to. There’s no pain and I have energy.
Yes!
I’m not going to die today! I have more lives than a cat!

‘Don’t be so sure. The night is far from over yet.’ Standing about a metre away, she fiddles with her hair, puffing up her curls and making a show of looking around at the trees. Is she waiting for something? I take a stab in the dark. ‘Um, hey, thanks. I owe you one.’

‘You owe me your life, but all I want is one promise.’

‘Since you put it that way, sure, what is it?’

‘Tell no one how I disinfected your wound.’ Confused, I nod and mutter, ‘You got it, but … how
did
you disinfect my wound?’

She mumbles a whole string of obscenities under her breath that I wouldn’t utter even alone in the shower. Finally she says, ‘Tears, you dumb human. Tears contain natural antibiotics.’

‘Wow, man, you cried for me.’ I find this suddenly amusing and a small laugh escapes.

‘I should have let you die,’ she murmurs acidly.

‘You made yourself cry to save my life. That’s awesome, Jez. No one’s ever gone to such effort over me before.’

‘Don’t get carried away, OK?’

‘Of course not, I’m just surprised at the nature of your unique healing skills.’ She shrugs and I add, ‘You’re a healer, sworn to save lives – that’s all there is to it. Right?’

She nods.

‘It’s not like we have anything going on between us.’ She doesn’t respond. ‘Right?’

‘Do we have an agreement, human boy?’ she snaps.

‘Your secret is safe with me, sister.’

She nods sharply, her wings smacking in my face as she takes off. I follow at a run, watching the direction the trees move as she flies between them. I soon find everyone at the house, the Brothers too, and other angels that must be the reinforcements.

Jezelle places herself in the circle around Ebony. ‘What’s going on?’ I ask, coming up beside her.

She points with her chin to the lawn area where Prince Luca and six Prodigies have come out.

‘Jordan, my young human friend.’ Prince Luca notices me right away. His voice carries across the night air as clearly as if I was standing next to him. ‘What a remarkable recovery.’

I’m not surprised. With my luck, why wouldn’t he be right on my case?

‘We meet face to face at last,’ he says.

Eyes turn in my direction. But so far nobody suspects he’s up to anything.

‘I do hope we can still be friends after this.’

Uh-oh. After what? Then he’s in my head,
Our meeting was so brief we didn’t get a chance to debate the finer points of our arrangement. You remember, don’t you, boy, where you take your mother’s place in my world, and I set her free?

He doesn’t give me time to figure out what he’s up to before a bolt of sheer heat spears into my chest and I can hardly breathe.

‘Jordan!’ I hear Thane call out.

Practically at the same time, Jezelle asks, ‘Jordan, what’s wrong?’

But it happens too fast. Prince Luca points his middle finger at me, curls and uncurls it. It flashes green, and before anyone moves, the Dark Prince drags me to him by whatever invisible force he speared into my chest. In a blink I’m passing everyone, half in the air, half dragging on the ground.

And the pain is excruciating.

Ebony screams, calls my name, demands someone help me, but it’s already too late because here I am the next second, standing in front of Prince Luca while two Prodigies hold me upright.

That’s better
, the Dark Prince says.

‘Release him!’ Thane yells, his voice echoing across the ridge like thunder. ‘Your business isn’t with the boy.’

‘You don’t know much, do you?’

‘What are you talking about, Luca?’

‘I’m just making Ebony’s decision easier for her.’

I can’t see Thane, but I know he’ll be frowning, suspicious, figuring it out. But Prince Luca is too fast tonight. He glances down at me.
Do your job, boy, and the pain will go away
.

I whisper hoarsely, ‘What … do you want me … to do?’

Nothing, actually
. His eyes are like the sun, so bright they hurt, but a glimpse is enough to show his hard evil core, and the pain twists as if he’s turning a knife in my chest. I scream like a baby, beyond caring who hears.

But then the Dark Prince says,
Not bad, but I’m sure you can do better. Oh, and don’t expect your friends to rescue you. They
won’t. They now have a dilemma, you or her, and, well, they don’t care about you enough. They only care about their own kind
.

His men have a quiet chuckle as the prince plays with my mind. And then it hits me: he wants me to cry out so Ebony will choose to go with
him
! ‘I … won’t do it,’ I hiss through my teeth.

He responds by stabbing me in the head with a spike of burning energy that arcs down the nerve line of my spine, forcing me to my knees. Gripping my head, I rock back and forth, biting down on my tongue, refusing to make a sound.

Glowering at me, he says, ‘Idiot.’ Then he hisses, ‘No matter, it seems you have had the desired effect already – impressive.’

Ebony
.

She’s taken the bait. I knew she couldn’t resist, bound as she is to you. Well done, Jordan
.

Around me, his men stand rock still, their eyes gleaming admiration. The way they adore him sickens me.

That’s right, my future bride
, he coaxes as Ebony takes a first step towards him.

I try yelling at Ebony to go back, except I have nothing left. That last stab in my head has fried my brain. But I soon realise the closer Ebony gets, the less intense is my pain. Flicking the prince a quick look, I notice how he’s riveted to Ebony’s every movement, from the gentle swing of her arms to the graceful sway of her hips in the silky white dress. When she’s halfway and walking among his precious Aracals, a predatory smile appears at the corners of his mouth that makes me want to slap him.

I glance at the angels and see Gabriel, Michael and Isaac holding Thane back.

Forcing my legs to move, I start walking, and by sheer willpower make my legs run. ‘Ebony, Ebony, stop! What are you doing?’

She doesn’t appear to see me. She’s in a trance of some kind. Helpless to break through it, I run to the angels. ‘Do something! Stop her, Thane!’