The Shadow Prince (12 page)

I make it to the gate unnoticed. In the mortal world, the gate is cloaked to resemble two curving trees that create an archway at the north end of the grove. The green light has grown fainter. I wonder if it is even visible to human eyes, but as I hold my hand out, I can still feel it pulsing with energy. The gate is still active, which means it is still the same day in which I arrived.

I have overreacted for no reason.

I am about to return to Simon’s home, feeling reassured and slightly chagrined, when a sound catches my ear. It’s a high sound, but not like the screeching of an owl or the wailing of a nursling. It’s a flowing sound that evokes the image of a river or the wind streaming through the treetops—and yet still like no other sound I have ever heard.

I cannot stop myself from following the echoing noise. I track it through the thicket of trees until I come to the center of the grove.

There I see a young female, sitting against a strangely shaped tree. She cradles a large object on her knees, and strums the strings that stretch from its wide base up a long wooden neck. The object reminds me of the pictographs I often pass in the
murals that cover the walls of the palace. It vaguely resembles a lyre—the great weapon the Traitor had used to deceive Hades all those centuries ago. But the object the girl holds does not seem like a weapon. Her picking and strumming the strings are what create the reverberating sound. I remove my sunglasses to be able to see her better in the shady grove, and I watch, curious, as she opens her mouth and starts to speak.

No, not quite speaking. Her voice sounds different from that. Her words are drawn out, ebbing and flowing at times and flitting at others, blending with the sounds that come from her strumming. It grows in intensity, swirling around the grove and washing over me. It pulls at me, evoking something I have not felt since I was in the presence of the Oracle: the feeling of wonder.

When the girl stops speaking and the sound dies away, a gasp slips out of my lips.

She stands, her abruptness making it clear that I have given myself away.

“Who’s there?” she asks. Her voice sounds different from before. Lower, but still appealing.

I know I should leave, but I can’t. I need to know what it was that she did with her voice. I want to know how.

She steps closer. The way she moves is almost as appealing as her voice. I feel energy swirling in my chest, growing stronger the closer she gets. I move in nearer to her. She does not see me yet, but she shivers.

I ask her what she’d done with her voice. I speak English, but I realize too late that I haven’t concealed my Underrealm accent.

I step closer to her, still cloaked in shadow.

She places her hand on her throat. “You mean my singing?”

“Singing.” I know that word; I have just never heard the sound
that it applies to. It has always been an abstract concept to me until now. “Is that what you call that?”

She’s angry at me. She thinks I am toying with her for my own enjoyment. She will leave if I don’t do something. I step out from my hiding spot in the dark.

She takes a step back, as if nervous. I don’t want her to go.

I try to reassure her as I come closer.

“I just wanted to know what that was you did with your voice. And with that.” I point at the object she holds. “I’ve never heard anything like it before.”

She gives me a confused look, and I wonder if she does not understand my question. I want to explain further, but I am distracted by her nearness. Energy pulses through my body, stronger than my heartbeat. The sunlight streaming through the canopy of the grove glints off her golden hair, and the curves of her body make my hands prickle with heat that is unlike what I normally experience before a surge of lightning. Her blue eyes, brighter than the mortal world’s sky, meet mine.

I stand still, letting her look at me. I can feel the fire swirling in my eyes. Finally, I blink, unable to bear the intensity.

“Are you real?” I ask her. I have heard stories of mystical creatures that can enchant men with their voices. It is one of the reasons this singing—music—is forbidden in my world. And she is unlike any mortal female who has ever been brought to my realm.

I have also heard stories of sprites that can create mirages.

I raise my hand toward her face, wanting to touch her to see if she
is
real, but I hesitate, not quite wanting to know the answer. She lifts her hand toward mine, and I can feel electricity pulsing into my fingers. I look from her eyes to her mouth and
then lower. A golden pendant sits in the hollow of her neck.

It spells something in English. It takes me a second to translate it. “Daphne?” I ask, dropping my hand. Can I really be reading that correctly? Can it really be her? “
You’re
Daphne Raines?”

“Yes,” she says.

The energy coursing through my body intensifies with her positive response.

I cannot believe my good fortune. For once in my life, the Fates have smiled on me. I have followed my impulses—no, my instincts—to this place, and here
she
is.

I’ve found her. My Boon. My prize. My destiny. Just waiting here to be plucked, like an asphodel blossom. With the gate, pulsing with life, only a few yards away, at that. This couldn’t be more perfect.

An idea strikes me like an arrow hitting a bull’s-eye. Why wait six months to do what I can accomplish right now?

I could be the fastest-returning Champion in the history of the Underrealm. Surely that would warrant glory and honor like no one has received before me. Rowan could not call me a failure again. My father would not look at me as though I am a disgrace.

But at the back of my mind, a worry pulls at me, making me wonder if the situation is too good to be believed. Why would Dax implore me to be patient if my quest were this easy to accomplish? I hesitate for a moment.…

No, I must act.

I reach for the girl’s hand. “Will you come with me?”

She pulls away. “Um, no.”

“I need you to come with me,” I implore.

“I need to leave,” she says quickly, hitching up the long object she’d been strumming on a few moments before. It did not seem
dangerous then, but now she holds it as if it can be used as a weapon.

It doesn’t frighten me.

“Say you’ll come with me.” She has to say it. I know that from the Oracle’s instructions. She has to go willingly. I need to convince her. I advance toward her. I can be persuasive like Rowan. “You have to say you’ll come.”

“Get away from me, perv!” She backs away. “Creep!”

I reach out again, trying to clasp her wrist. Electricity surges into my arm, and before I can stop it, a spark of lightning escapes my fingers. She yelps with pain and twists out of my grasp. I reach for her again, and her fist—thankfully not the one holding the wooden object—goes flying at my face. I am so surprised by the action that I don’t have time to block the blow before she punches me. Hard. In the jaw. I stop, completely stunned, and clasp my hand to my face. I’m not injured. It would take more than her small hands to hurt me. But I am still shocked. I did not know Boons are capable of violence.

I don’t regain my composure quickly enough to stop the girl from getting away. She grabs an object, which I recall from Simon’s monologue is called a bicycle. She glances back at me as she flees, fear dancing in her blue eyes.

chapter twelve

My hand hurts from punching him, but it’s caused enough of a diversion for me to get away. I run for my bicycle, realizing that I don’t have time to stop for my tote bag or guitar case, but I won’t leave Gibby behind. I sling her over my back, with her strap resting against my chest, and jump onto my bike. I glance back at the stranger, and then pedal as fast as I can from the grove.

Gravel spits out from under my tires as I hit the narrow trail that leads from the grove to the bridge. I don’t know if he follows, and I don’t stop to check. I cross the bridge that connects the grove’s island to the paved jogging paths that surround the lake, and keep on going.

I careen down the trail, gaining speed, putting as much distance between me and the stranger as possible. I don’t see the girl until it’s too late. I try to stop, but the brakes on my vintage bike are old and I don’t normally ride this fast. I try to skid around her just as she looks up and counters in the wrong direction. I clip her elbow with one of my handlebars.

“Ouch!” she shouts and tries to push me.

“Sorry!” I swerve away from her, and it takes all my balance to stay upright as my bike keeps skidding along the path. I glance
back at her once I’ve regained control.

“You’re such a freak!” she yells when she sees me looking. She clasps at her scraped elbow and starts jogging up the trail despite the fact that she’s wearing a miniskirt with pink and silver wedge platform sandals. Hardly the right outfit for a run.

That strange boy is nowhere to be seen, but I still don’t stop for anything until I get to the school.

chapter thirteen

I could have caught her easily. But it is the fear that I saw in her eyes that stops me. Makes me realize my grave mistake.

I have done it again.

I’ve acted without thinking.

I have been here for fewer than twenty-four hours, and I have already erred in the most terrible of ways. If Rowan were here, he would delight in telling me that I have no idea of what I am doing. That I am failing before I even get started.

She fears me now, instead of trusting me.

Another pulse of energy swells in my chest. I grab the branch of the nearest tree. I squeeze the energy into it until the branch disintegrates. The ash slips through my fingers.

I am fighting the urge to fall to my knees and send up a prayer to plead for forgiveness from the Fates, when I hear the crackle of footfalls on the forest floor. A low hiss echoes through the grove. Someone else is coming. I can’t afford to be seen. I can’t afford to make another mistake. I pick up one of the items that the girl left behind, then slip behind the partially burned tree.

I disappear into the shadows.

chapter fourteen

My legs shake from riding so hard as I roll my cruiser into one of the slots of the bike rack. My voice warbles when I try to whisper to myself to calm down.

“I’m okay. Nothing bad happened. Not really.”

But the question I can’t get out of my mind: where did he want me to go with him?

As if
.

I might have been dumb for talking to him in the first place. But I’m not a complete idiot. I’d never follow some creep into the woods.

I try to tell myself to calm down, but my voice warbles and I can’t help thinking about all those “stranger danger” lectures my mom used to drill into me as a kid—like how if I ever encountered something weird or dangerous, or if someone I didn’t know tried to get me to go somewhere with him, I should run away and find someone trustworthy to tell.

But who would I even tell in this particular situation? Joe? He’s the last person I’d confide in. I’d feel stupid going to the police—nothing had
exactly
happened. Maybe this is a job for the security guards at the main entrance into Olympus Hills? They should be
responsible for whatever weirdos they let through the gates.