The Shadow Prince (53 page)

I can feel my soul wavering. It can’t survive that kind of blast.

“You realize that if the Heirs get their way,” Ren says, “she’ll die, along with all your precious friends. You give her to me, and maybe I’ll let you have whatever is left of her after I get the Key.”

Haden!
I hear my name again. This time, it sounds like Daphne and Dax together.

Thoughts of Daphne fill my mind. The sound of her voice when she sings. The touch of her skin as I held her hand as she slept. The way she didn’t mock me when I cried. The way she makes me feel human. That mean right hook of hers …

“I’ll make the vow,” I say.

“Wise decision.” Ren snuffs out the bolt in his hand and walks closer to me, his feet making tracks in the puddle of water from the River of Unbreakable Vows. He stands over me, towering so high that it reminds me of what it felt like to be a child trapped under his shadow. “Do it now.”

I place my hand that has the talisman branded to it in the puddle. The water edges over my fingertips. It feels cool and calming compared to the pain that I have endured today. I look up at Ren as he glowers down at me, and can’t help wondering how that expression will change when I make the vow. How will he look at me then? “I vow, on the water of the river Styx, the River of Unbreakable Vows, that I will … 
never
bring Daphne to you.”

Before Ren can react, I send a surge of lightning into my hand.
It hits the water and explodes, electrifying the wet ground all around us. The blast sends Ren flying through the air toward his throne, and me sailing backward.

I hit the altar with a soul-shattering crack, and darkness surrounds me.

chapter fifty-eight

Haden’s body convulses in my arms, like he’s having a seizure. He twists and writhes in silent agony. And then he goes limp and still. So still and breathless that I think the worst.

No. No, he can’t be dead.

“Haden, come back!” I say, smacking his face.

Nothing.

I try a softer approach and press my lips to his forehead. “Please, Haden,” I say, brushing my hands through his hair and then pressing my fingers against his neck. No pulse. No nothing.

“Daphne,” Dax says. “I think he’s gone.…”

Haden lets out a great, gasping groan and sits bolt upright, like he’s waking from a horrific nightmare.

“Haden!” I throw my arms around him, holding him to me. “I thought you were dead.”

Haden’s vision seems to focus and he takes in the surroundings of the Sunny Ridge common room. The carnage of the events with Brim and Simon surrounds us. I can hear his heart pounding out a frantic melody.

“For a moment, I thought I was, too,” he says, his voice sounding more like a croak.

He flexes his fingers and a charred object that vaguely resembles the talisman falls from his hand, leaving a raised, blistering welt of its size and shape in his palm. “That actually worked,” he says, like he’d caused that kind of damage on purpose. “Scrambled the connection to the Underrealm … Sent me back here.” He pinches his leg like he’s making sure he’s truly back inside his body. “Half expected to wake up a shade in the Wastelands instead.”

“What happened?” I ask, searching his jade green eyes.

“He tried to force me to make an unbreakable vow that I would bring you to him. He said the only reason he hadn’t done it before making me Champion was because the Oracle tried to tell him it would backfire.… So I thought of the way you tricked Simon, and I … made it backfire. Quite literally.”

“How?” I ask.

“I vowed I would never let him have you, and electrified the water—scrambling the connection in the talisman. Almost killed myself in the process, though.” He raises his singed hand like he wants to brush his fingers against my cheek—but doesn’t quite have the strength to do it.

“Harpies. Talk about burning bridges. I knew you had it in you!” Dax slaps Haden on the shoulder.

Haden cringes. “ ’Scuse me?” he asks, his speech starting to sound slurred.

“Sarah and I have met before, remember? She told me
things
.…”

“You didn’t care to share?” I ask.

“I wasn’t at liberty to discuss it. The decision needed to be Haden’s alone. I’ll tell you more later,” Dax says. “We’ve got another problem on our hands.”

“Seriously?” Haden says, dropping his hand. “We almost all
died in the worst children’s game I have ever heard of; I almost had to kill my man-eating pet; I stood up to my lunatic father—who has a major god complex, by the way—and had my soul electrocuted
three times
; and now you’re telling me there’s another problem?”

“Ha!” I laugh.

“What?” he says.

“That is the most human I have ever heard you sound!”

A clap of thunder rolls outside the darkened windows.

“Save the flirting for later,” Dax says. He points up. “Skylords are coming. Simon made a call before he came in here. I have a feeling his
buyers
are just about to show up. They’ll be wanting to take delivery of the goods, if you know what I mean.”

“Harpies.” Haden looks around. “Where did everyone else go?”

“I sent them to pull up the car,” Dax says. “Daphne and I were getting ready to carry your body out. I just hope they didn’t take off without us.”

Rain starts pelting the windows. There’s a clash of white lightning that makes me jump, followed by a roll of thunder so loud, it shakes the building. “That’s some storm.”

“Not a storm,” Dax says, helping Haden to his feet. “We’ve got to run for it.”

He and I lead Haden out of the empty hospital. Brim follows at my heels. Haden leans so heavily against me, like he can barely put one foot in front of the other, that it makes me dread finding out what else had happened to him in the Underrealm.

“Where are the patients?” I ask.

Dax explains that Simon had requested that the staff take all the patients on a walk—which is why no one had come into the
common room during the commotion. Thank goodness.

The rain is so thick, my clothes are soaked through almost immediately after we exit through the back doors of Sunny Ridge. Lightning rakes the sky above the hospital. To my relief, Tobin, Lexie, Garrick, and Joe are waiting inside the car at the curb. Joe holds his wadded-up jacket against the top of his head, as if staunching a wound that must have been caused by the falling debris that had knocked him out. I am glad he is relatively okay, but at the same time, I can’t bring myself to say anything to him. I don’t have the time or energy right now for the anger that might unleash.

Dax insists on driving. I imagine Haden lets him only because, at this point, he can barely keep his eyes open. I sit with him in the third row. We fly out of the parking lot as a strike of lightning explodes against a power pole. The downed lines flail out at us like electrified tentacles. Dax whips us out of their way and out onto the open road. If I’d thought Haden was a crazy driver, that was nothing compared to the way Dax maneuvers around lightning strikes and traffic to get us to the freeway.

“Who are these psychos?” Lexie shouts. “Are these more lightning freaks from your family?”

“Worse,” Dax says. “Skylords have lightning
and
thunder. But they are family, in a way. They’re kind of like our second cousins a few times removed.”

“What?”

“They’re the sons of Life,” Haden mumbles beside me.

“How?” I remember the story he told me about the twin sons Hades created and the Sky God stole. “I thought Life was torn apart by the Keres when he was just a kid.”

Haden nods.

“The Sky God pieced him back together,” Dax says, swerving around a slow-moving semi. The windshield wipers can barely keep up with the barrage of rain on the windows.

Tobin screeches as lightning strikes the tail end of the semi truck. He holds his hand to his face like he is merely stifling a sneeze. Brim jumps into my lap. I stroke her bristled back reassuringly.

“He can do that sort of thing, among others,” Dax says.

“So the sons of Life are the Skylords and the sons of Death are the Underlords?” I ask, remembering that Haden had said something about that earlier. “The descendants of two twins locked in epic battle.”

“Sounds about right. Except the Skylords have daughters, too.”

“They do?” Garrick asks, sounding surprised.

“Yes,” Dax says, like he knows this for sure. “Oh yeah, they can run through the clouds,” he says, pointing at the churning, gray sky above us. I can’t see any Skylords, but they must be up there in the clouds. “They’re like the new and improved model.”

“This was my worst trip to Vegas ever,” Lexie says as we sail past a billboard that says,
NOT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS STAYS IN VEGAS. GET TESTED!

“Where are we going?” Haden asks. His head is leaning on my shoulder now.

“Ellis Fields,” I say. “Sarah made it sound like Ellis was some sort of safe haven. Like we could hide there without being found. I hope she’s right.”

“Good plan,” Haden says, sounding almost completely out of it. “You should stay there. Be safe. Forever.”

The idea of being trapped in Ellis is one that had haunted me my whole life. I’d kicked against it as hard as I could while still
trying to respect my mother, but at this moment—and I can’t believe I’m admitting this—the idea of going back, of
staying there forever
, sounds more appealing than touring the world as a music star ever did.

The tempest chases us as we head for my hometown. The traffic is thin; probably most people are staying off the roads in this storm. Normally, it’s supposed to be a two-and-a-half-hour drive between Ellis and Vegas, but the way Dax is driving, we’ll be there in half the time.

Haden’s head lolls on my shoulder, and I worry he may be in worse shape than I’d thought. And what is to come of him and Dax and Garrick? Would they stay in Ellis with me? Or would they make a new plan and move on? Now that Haden had quite literally—from the sounds of it—burned the connection between him and his father, he has to be in more trouble than I can ever imagine. I can’t help thinking about the Oracle’s predicting that he may cease to exist. Would the path he chose today lead to his eventual death? Had he traded his life to spare mine?

And
why
would he do that?

I am lost in thought for so long that I almost forget that we are running for our lives—until a blast of lightning takes out the speed limit sign we’ve just careened past.

“Take the next exit,” I call to Dax from the backseat.

“What exit?”

“The one coming right up.”

“I don’t see it.”

Is the rain blocking his view that badly?

“Quarter of a mile,” Tobin says. “Right up there.”

“There’s nothing.”

“Trust me, there is.” Tobin leans forward and grabs the
steering wheel. He yanks it to the right and we swerve onto the exit ramp just before missing it.

“Where did that come from?” Dax asks.

“Turn left … right now,” I shout.

He follows my instructions even though they seem to bewilder him. “Oh, there’s the road,” he says, as if he can see it only now that we’re on it. “What now?”

“Keep following this road. It will take us through the canyon for a few miles before we get to town.”

We fly up Apollo Canton Road, dodging lightning. At one point, a strike hits the canyon wall beside us, and a tumble of red rocks starts to fall. We barely make it through before it crashes into the road. Lexie isn’t the only one of us who screams.

“Daphne, I don’t know about this!” Dax says. “Where do I go now?”

“Straight ahead,” I say as Ellis starts to come into view. “We’re almost to town.”

“What town?” Garrick says.

Joe groans like all of this is too much for his head.

“The one right in front of us,” I say. I can see buildings and homes through the rain, nestled in the heart of the canyon. Lit up like little lighthouse beacons beyond the storm. My mom’s shop is there. Home is there. The walls of red rock surrounding the town that had once made it feel like a prison, now make it look like a fortress of safety. “You can’t see that?”

“Daphne, we’re heading straight for a giant mountain!” Dax says.

From what I can tell, it isn’t raining over the town. That and the fact that Dax and Garrick can’t see it reassure me that Sarah was right. Safety is only half a mile away.

Lightning crashes right in front of us. Dax yanks on the wheel hard, and we swerve in a circle, spinning donuts in the red mud that covers the road to Ellis Fields.

“Just keep going!” I shout. “We’re almost there.”

The car speeds up. Thunder shakes the car, and a lightning bolt rips a hole in the road right where we would have been if we hadn’t surged forward. Dax clutches the wheel hard and clamps his eyes shut. He’s bracing himself for impact as we pass the
WELCOME TO ELLIS FIELDS
city limits sign. A second later, he relaxes and looks around, stunned.

“Well, I’ll be harpied.” He whistles under his breath.

“Where the Tartarus did this all come from?” Garrick asks, staring out the windows as we roll into Main Street, Ellis Fields.

I direct Dax to stop the car in front of Paradise Plants. The road here is dusty and dry as always. I get out of the car, followed by Dax and Tobin, and stare in disbelief at the storm we’ve left behind. It’s like a great fence of rain and clouds circles the whole town, but above us the near-evening sky is dusky but clear. Out on the sidewalk, a couple walking their dog stops and stares, pointing at the strange phenomenon. The door to Paradise Plants starts to open. I brace myself, expecting to see my mom or Jonathan for the first time since I left. I don’t know what I am going to tell them.