Alive (The Veiled World Book 1) (12 page)

Chapter 12

Axel

The bread basket slipped from my fingers, causing bread rolls to spill across the polished marble floor of the ballroom.

My plan must have worked. I couldn’t quite believe it. But by the sound of things, I was going to join the sacred nine challengers on the journey to the Land of Resting Souls.

Finally.

“Bring her down this instance!” the king demanded, tossing his napkin to his plate.

“I will do no such thing, Father,” said Ollie. “The girl is a mess. She wouldn’t stop crying until I told her that she didn’t have to do this, that she could remain here with me and await the return of the other challengers.” Ollie raised his shoulders and sucked in a deep breath in attempts to puff out his concave chest. He failed miserably. But I wasn’t going to laugh at him. The guy was actually helping me on my way for once.

“Poppycock!” the king shouted at his son before he glared at me and raised a crooked finger my way. “You! Bring that girl down here this instance. And don’t get any silly ideas, my boy. Don’t think I can’t see the hungry glint in your eyes. You are not going anywhere.”

I left to do his bidding, kicking the empty upturned basket along the way, but I did not lose my smile. The girl would be a wreck and the king, no matter how high his hopes, would never force her into the Veiled World if she didn’t wish to go. So he would
have
to send me. There was nobody else left here in the kingdom who was as young and as strong as me. No one who had memorised the recounts of the only two documented survivors perhaps hundreds of times over.

I practically flew up the stairs and must have made a racket doing so because when I reached for the girl’s door, she opened it before I could knock. Bella was dressed in what she wore last night, the same emerald dress, only severely wrinkled. She also wore a smile. A beaming smile. All signs of the tears Ollie had mentioned were long gone. She looked fresh and alive, as though she’d slept for twenty-four hours.

“I’m coming down to breakfast now, so you don’t have to force me to.”

She pushed past me and made her way to the top of the staircase and proceeded to float down the steps. When I followed her I could see Prince Ollie waiting at the foot of the stairs with a dreamy smile on his lips.

“My princess,” he said before kissing her hand and leading her to the ballroom. He turned and glared at me over his shoulder, like he’d just spotted a rat. “Father wants you. He’s already out in the arena, preparing for the ceremony. Tell him that I’m taking Bella to breakfast and that we shall join him as soon as this precious petal has had enough to eat.”

“Wait!”

Ollie paused but did not turn around to look at me.

“Did the king say anything about me being a challenger? Has it been confirmed?”

Ollie sighed.

“I talked him around to it. He’s upset, but I made him listen, made him change his mind.”

“With a tantrum,” I muttered, and I could see Ollie’s ears turn an instant pink.

“Hold your tongue, boy, or else I’ll nominate old Anya in your place. That old hag is as tough as leather and my father is so obsessed with you he’d likely agree to let her go in your place.”

I stood there, unsure whether to thank him or not.

Could this actually be happening? Or was this some kind of cruel trick on Ollie’s behalf?

“Now go,” he said, dismissing me with a wave of girly fingers over his shoulders.

In a daze I left the castle and crossed the sweet smelling rose garden, past the trickling fountain until I found myself at the animal enclosures. The animals seemed to be as on edge as I felt, snorting and stamping their hooves and tails as I passed them by and called out to each of them. Perhaps they sensed the choosing and were as anxious as I. Ready to escape their enclosures and join with their other half.

“Choose me, dragon, please chose me,” I whispered, dragging my fingers across the coarse stone of her enclosure as I passed. She must have heard me because I was rewarded with a violent strike of her tail against the wall and a blast of flames that flickered through the gaps in the tiled roof.

The arena, a large area of dusty, solid ground surrounded by raised tiers of stone seats, was attached to the back of the animal enclosures, allowing them access to the central stage during the Choosing Ceremony. It was the only time the creatures were allowed to leave their enclosures—still shackled to a chain, of course. But what the king didn’t know was that at least once a week, late at night, I allowed each creature an hour of freedom within the arena, beneath the velvet black sky. All except for the poor dragon of course. But hopefully my careful attention to her needs demonstrated how much I cared for her.

It was time consuming, taking the animals for a stretch, and dangerous on my part, and they still remained chained the entire time, but I could not simply leave them to suffer between four walls day in, day out. They deserved much better. And I liked to think that when my time came to venture beyond the castle gates to the Veiled World, the creatures, or at least my dodaem animal, would look out for me and ensure my safe return.

So far, only the dragon dodaem had done this for the two only survivors.

“Boy, come here,” the king called from a narrow path between the dragon’s enclosure and that of the unicorn.

“Ollie told me to meet you,” I said, my voice unsteady.

Sucking in a deep breath, I raised my head and met his powerful gaze. Though the man had aged, he still had the ability to intimidate me. All those years of watching him growing more and more obsessed with seeking the revival of his dead wife. The insanity that sometimes made his dark eyes glow, and granted him the ability to convince nearly the entire population of the kingdom to risk their lives on a perilous journey they knew they’d never return from.

But today…today, I could see no insanity in his gaze, only a touch of pride, or perhaps sadness, by the shine in his eyes.

“Apparently I am to be a challenger today.”

The king wrapped a wrinkled hand around one of the cold steel bars of the nearby window. The dragon rattled its shackles and blew flames in our direction, making the king jump. He removed his hand and smiled.

“It is with a heavy heart,” he paused to sigh deeply, “that I send you,
my son,
on the journey to the Land of Resting Souls.”

I swallowed thickly when the king met my eyes with tears in them. A lump came to my throat but I swallowed it down and did my best to force my emotions into submission. My entire body felt as stiff as a rock. If I moved, I was sure to snap into a million pieces.

“You are like my son, my true son, and I cannot help but feel…that this…that this could be our last and only goodbye.” He put a hand on my shoulder and my insides shattered. Yes. He was my king, an arrogant and selfish king, but whenever nobody was around, King Cyril had always been like this, like the father I’d missed out on. A lump materialised in my throat and for a while I couldn’t speak until the dragon breathed fire again and we both jumped and then laughed with a little too much force.

“It doesn’t have to be goodbye, my king.”

His smile died and he nodded sadly, a tear escaping his right eye.

“It doesn’t.” My hands were shaking and everything around me began to blur. And it was then that I realised I was afraid. Truly afraid. Afraid to let the king and my mother down. Afraid to be just another dead soul to lay down to rest in the Land of Resting Souls. This might well be the last time I ever saw the castle, my mother, the king, Anya, Hattie, the rest of the kingdom, and even Ollie, the little arsehole, ever again.

I roughly rubbed my eyes with the backs of my hands and cleared my throat.

“I have studied every book in the library, I’ve read the only two survivors’ accounts, memorised them, in fact, and I have read and learnt about the dangers of the worlds out there. I’m more prepared than anyone who has ever ventured out these gates.”

The king’s eyes continued to tear.

“But the lands change. Because people are dying by the millisecond all over the world that is known as Earth, the heavenly lands shift to accommodate new afterlives, new versions of heaven and hell.” He placed both hands on my shoulders. “I’m afraid for you, my son. I want my wife back, so desperately—always have.” He swallowed thickly and pressed my shoulders so hard I wanted to cry out. But my throat was so tight I couldn’t. “But I also want you to live.”

He cleared his throat and released my shoulders, his long, bony arms falling to his sides. He seemed very old and very small all of a sudden.

“I’m starting to wonder if it’s better for me to simply die and join her than to bring her back here, to a ghost kingdom that has all but died. Fewer vessels with people from Earth are entering our world. I miss laughter. I miss the sound of a crowd, joyous or otherwise.” His eyes glistened with more tears as he stared up to the pale blue sky.

“There is no more cheer, no more celebrations.” He laughed. “These past twenty-four hours I’ve never felt more alive, everyone talking, the footsteps, the noise. It has been beautiful music to my ears. I wondered, late last night as I drifted in and out of a restless sleep, if I should send anyone at all.”

I shook my head, but couldn’t speak.
No. Not now. I need to get my brother back.

“Am I being foolish, son? To send you all to your deaths for something that might not be? Have I sent my entire kingdom to their deaths for nothing? Am I guilty of murder, son? Because of my own selfish wish to hold my beautiful wife in my arms again?”

I shook my head.

“No. I will go and I will bring your wife back. And I will bring my brother back. I want this. It’s everything I have lived for. It’s
all
I’ve lived for since the day my brother died. And if you are selfish, then I am selfish.”

Two tiny blue birds stopped and twittered on the roof of the unicorn enclosure. The unicorn snorted. A gentle breeze brought the scent of fresh hay. It was a scent I was going to miss once I left this place.

The king was quiet for a while, observing the birds until he smiled and said, “What do you miss most about him?”

My brother’s cheeky smile flashed before my eyes, but then the vision of Mother’s smile when she used to watch my brother play after she’d finished work in the kitchens for the day replaced it.

“I want to see my mother smile again.”

The king nodded. His tears now gone, but his eyes raw.

“You are a good son.” He patted my shoulders. “My son. Not by blood, but by choice. By heart.” He shrugged. “I often wonder if Ollie would have turned out like you if his mother hadn’t died. If I hadn’t gazed upon his tiny face with such burning hatred in those first days.”

I said nothing. It felt strange to sympathise with someone who had treated me like a servant for most of my life.

The king drew his shoulders back, again becoming the regal man men feared. Footsteps approached.

“Here they come.” He smiled and patted my shoulder before nodding at the group assembled behind the dragon’s enclosure. Everyone was dressed head to toe in black, everyone except me. But it didn’t matter.

Because I was one of them. One of the nine.

The king smiled at the challengers and then at the small group of cheering onlookers, including the teary face of my mother and the wrinkled face of the king’s sister.

“Let the Choosing Ceremony begin!”

Chapter 13

Amber

“Guards, lead the challengers to their stations.”

In the centre of what appeared to be a large, dirt floored arena, were nine round stone circles with chains and shackles bolted to them. Nerves fluttered against the walls of my stomach. The snorts, growls, and hisses coming from the nearby animal enclosures were loud. And they sounded vicious.

While Reece was being shackled to the spot, he cleared his throat and pointed at the metal bars keeping the animals at bay. Because of the position of the sun it was difficult to see into each enclosure. One animal seemed to be pacing, and I caught a glimpse of something golden, a quick flash, as it passed the bars briefly. I couldn’t be certain, but it seemed the size and colour of a lion.

Axel stood near the king but I raised my brows at him and he moved to my side.

“Has anyone ever been killed at a Choosing Ceremony?”

He swallowed thickly and stared for what felt like ages at the very last enclosure. “Not in the last fifteen years,” he offered.

A loud roar erupted from the first enclosure and my knees buckled. Axel grabbed me by the arm and for one embarrassing moment I fell against him, chest to chest, and then it got worse. I banged my
mouth
against his.

“Woah!” He released my arm and put his hands to my waist. They were warm. We were so close I could feel his breath against my face.

Our eyes met. His blue eyes were red. He’d been crying. My heart twisted beneath my ribs.

“Sorry,” we muttered at the same time, and we sprang apart.

“The Choosing Ceremony is over for Firestarter,” said Reece, who high-fived Reuben with his free hand. I rolled my eyes and watched the guards lead Reuben to the shackles.

“What animals are in there anyway?” I asked Axel after a minute or so of awkward silence between us.

He grinned. “I already told you.”

“Unicorns and dragons are mythical creatures.”

“In your world, yes, but not in the afterlife. Remember, these animals are creatures from the human soul’s wildest fantasies. Whatever they want in heaven, they get.”

“Or hell.”

He grinned wickedly, in a way that made his eyes sparkle, and I was glad that the sadness was gone. For now anyway.

My stomach did a little somersault and I turned away. Surely I wasn’t crushing on the guy. Who did that? Who fell for someone while facing certain death at the hands of nine heavens or hells?

A laugh erupted from my throat.

This must be a dream.

“Well, it’s not.” Axel was staring at me intently, his teeth gnawing at his bottom lip.

Great. I must have said it out loud.

“Are the animals dangerous?”

He said nothing for a while before he shook his head slightly and spoke from out the corner of his mouth because Prince Ollie, who had only just joined us, with Bella glued to his side, was glaring at him.

“Just pray you get the unicorn.”

“Unicorn?”

“Yeah. Trust me.”

I didn’t know what to believe. I could hear a neigh and lots of snorts, horse-like sounds, and there was something smoking up the last enclosure, which may or may not have been a dragon.

A dragon
.

Noah would die happy if he got the dragon. Wait. Erase that thought. I didn’t want to think of anybody dying. Not yet.

My stomach stirred. If these animals were mythical creatures, and I hoped they were, it would double confirm to me that the possibility to get my brother back was very real and that there was more than just a slim chance to do so.

There was a loud snort, followed by what sounded like a fart. Everybody laughed.

“That one’s for you, Noah,” Reuben said, and Reece and everyone but Jacob, Axel, and I laughed.

Noah blushed but Axel shook his head and leaned in to me again.

“You don’t want that creature, trust me. No one does. Remember when you asked if anybody had ever been killed here in the Choosing Ceremony? Well, that’s one of the animals that did it.”

My entire body began to shake.

The guards led me to my station and shackled my arms and legs. They placed me between Jacob and Axel, but I didn’t look at either of them. My eyes were fixed on the nine sets of black bars in front of us, my mind conjuring up the many terrifying possibilities as to what was behind the gates.

The creatures rattled their own shackles and started to stir up a fuss. Dust stirred and drifted from out several of the enclosure gates.

My stomach churned. My ankles and wrists strained against the shackles.

The king led his sister, Ollie, Bella, and the remaining maids, cooks, and old guards over to the tiered seating at the fringe of the arena. He chose seating that was partially shaded from the harsh glare of the morning sun with the lush branches of a large tree.

Once the king was seated, everyone followed suit.

With a wave of his hand, he motioned for the guard stationed in front of the enclosures to open the first gate.

My heart stopped and I braced myself, pressing my back against the wooden station I was shackled to.

“It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay,” Jacob kept shouting.

The guard took several hesitant steps toward the opened gate, some kind of metal tool in his hand—maybe a key of some sort—until he disappeared inside the enclosure for about two seconds before he ran out and flung himself over the fence, to where the king and the other spectators were seated.

An almighty roar thundered out of the opening.

Claire screamed.

Everyone, including myself, strained against their shackles, trying in vain to escape.

A flash of sandy-orange leapt out into the arena, sending dust up my nostrils.

It paused to study each and every one of us, and it was then, when its head turned slightly, that I saw its other head.
Two heads
attached to the giant lion’s body. The head of a lion and the head of a goat.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” shouted Kyle as the creature, its tail slashing like a snake, crouched slightly and prowled over to where he and Claire were shackled. It paused once again, its giant yellow lion eyes on Claire, while its red, goat eyes fixed on Kyle, saliva dripping from the lion’s fangs.

The creature lunged towards Claire, who screamed so loud I started to scream as well. We all did.

I couldn’t look. I just couldn’t look.

Just when I expected to hear Claire shriek with horror, the creature’s growl was cut short and replaced with a yelp.

Peeking out the corner of my eye I watched as the animal clawed at the ground, only inches in front of Claire, his two sets of eyes glued to her as it desperately fought against who or what was dragging him away from her.

Dust stirred, but it wasn’t so thick that I couldn’t see the guard re-appear, and another, each with a pitchfork in hand which they used to guide the two-headed creature back into its enclosure.

The spectators cheered, including the king. One of the women, the one who I’d seen crying earlier, her eyes on Axel, seemed to sway a little in the crowd. A large woman caught her from behind and sat her down.

“You okay, Claire?” asked Reece, who, when I strained my shackles and leaned forward to take a peek, looked pale.

Jacob swore beneath his breath.

“I know, right,” I said in response.

Noah strained against his shackles. “I don’t know that I want to do this now. I might stay with…”

The second gates were drawn and out bolted a wild boar, unlike anything I’d ever seen before. It was huge, double the width of the lion, and had sharp tusks that grew into twin spirals that looked deathly sharp. I tried not to imagine what had happened to the guy or girl who’d been killed by it years ago and winced as the boar ran directly for Reuben, stopping an inch away, its tusk scraping against Reuben’s leg, revealing chocolate coloured skin beneath the black tights.

“Holy shit!” Reuben shouted, breathing heavily as the animal snorted in his face. “That was fucking awesome!” He whooped and the spectators clapped. Jacob and I shared a laugh, a very nervous one. Axel sucked in a deep breath and kept his eyes on the third gate.

The king and the others continued clapping as the chain was drawn and the animal dragged back into its enclosure.

The third gate revealed a six metre crocodile, which scuttled straight to Reece, who shut his eyes tight as the huge creature snapped its jaws at his toes.

The fourth was a snake.

“Serpent,” corrected Axel, his wrists straining. Sweat beaded down his temples as he watched the thing slither across the sand, its green eyes like gemstones twinkling my way as it moved closer.

“No, no, no…” whispered Axel. “You don’t want this one.”

“Of course I don’t.”

Oh God, go away. Please go away.

I’d seen plenty of snakes, mostly dugites and brown snakes but this…this was something else. Its body was huge. It could have opened its jaw and easily swallowed us all down the line, one by one.

It paused to regard me first, then Axel. Well, its head paused, its body, however, continued to slither into a coil. The jewel-green eyes of the serpent gleamed in the sunlight, then, to my surprise, it slithered away from us, darting towards someone at the other end. Bruce, by the sound of his cursing.

“Did it get him?” I asked Jacob, whose head was in the way.

“No. Just scared the crap out of him.”

Axel breathed a sigh of relief but shook his head. “Poor guy.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“No. I mean poor guy. The two who survived documented each death, in order. Whoever the serpent chose died first on both occasions.”

I closed my eyes, my heart pounding too fast and my head light and dizzy. I was almost grateful for the shackles because at least they were holding me up.

Somehow I managed to keep it together through four more choosings. Kyle got a gryphon, Jacob a phoenix—at which Axel sighed and whispered that he’d wanted the phoenix for me because it was the next best thing to the dragon or unicorn. Noah got a Minotaur—a half bull, half man, though he seemed more beast than man—something Axel nodded his approval at.

Axel breathed in deep as the second to last gate was opened.

“This one’s you or me.”

My stomach turned and a wave of dizziness overtook me. “What’s left?”

Axel was about to answer when the most beautiful, pearly coated white horse trotted out into the area. It snorted at the spectators and when it tossed its mane and turned back to face the challengers, the sunlight caught against its glittering horn. An actual horn.

“A unicorn,” I whispered, and Axel laughed.

“I’ve ridden her.”

I smiled at the beautiful creature as it edged its way, trotting lightly towards us. “Come on, beautiful girl, you can choose me,” I whispered. “Come on.”

My hopes rose as it neared me and I stuck out the flat of my palm, even though it was shackled to the post, so that it could sniff me.

Axel was smiling, happy that he was to get the dragon. Well, he could have it for all I cared. I wanted nothing to do with a creature that could breathe fire. I wanted nothing to do with fire, full stop.

I was about to say it out loud when the unicorn snorted at my offered hand and turned to nuzzle its nose into Axel’s side.

The spectators all cheered, all except for the king, who shook his head as though a disaster had occurred. The woman I’d seen crying earlier clutched at her chest, and the others immediately swarmed around her.

“Congratulations,” said Axel, his voice tight as he stared at the unicorn’s lush, purple-tinted mane.

“Why congratulations? Dragons are scary.”

Axel didn’t answer me.

“What if it breaths fire at me?”

Worse still, what if it didn’t choose me? Just because I was the only one left didn’t mean that the creature would want me. Would I then be disqualified as a challenger? Would Bella be forced to go in my place?

Prince Ollie stood up and clapped, his beady eyes fixed on me. I shivered. There was no way I’d stay here, at the castle, without the others. Even if I was forced to, I’d sneak away and set off into the Veiled World myself and face the nine heavens and hells alone.

My heart thundered in my chest and my blood pounded in my ears as the last gate was drawn open.

“Has anyone died at the hands of the dragon?” I asked. “You said before that the wild boar was
one
of the animals that had killed at a Choosing Ceremony. Which one is the other?”

The guards ran from the enclosure, leaping over the walls as a roar erupted from the darkness of the enclosure, trembling the ground beneath our feet as flames spewed out of the entrance.