Never.
Tall and deadly, the cloaked demon lord approached him with a quirky smile twisting his lips. Scars covered his weathered face. Dressed black on black, he wore a hood over his head. Peculiar tarnished silver vambraces covered both of his forearms. Each one was embellished with an elaborate snake-and-egg design that seemed oddly familiar, though Nick had no idea why. Tendrils of dark hair framed his angular face as he studied Nick with an unamused stare.
“You’re braver than I thought.” More sand appeared in the hourglass he held. “Good. You bought yourself additional time with your courage. For that, I applaud you.”
“Chronus, Chronus, Chronus,” a strangely familiar feminine voice said in a staccato rhythm reminiscent of a clock’s ticking. “You’re being vague and the poor boy has no idea what you’re talking about. And look at the poor thing. He’s about to wet to his pants.”
Tiamat appeared next to Nick’s side with an adorable smile on her face. She brushed a lock of dark brown hair back from his forehead before she propped her arm on his shoulder and leaned against him. “Poor Malachai,” she chided. “It’s been a weird day for you, hasn’t it?”
A chill went down his spine. “What’s going on? What do you want with me?”
She laughed eerily before she pushed herself away from him and went to stand next to Chronus. “Think of it as a pop quiz. And you were doing unbelievably well.”
“Were?” Nick felt his stomach starting to burn again.
Tiamat nodded. “We can’t have the war starting quite yet. Not until this matter is settled.”
Oh, he so didn’t like the sound of any part of this. His ulcer was now the size of Texas and was currently having kittens and ducks. Probably a few lizards, too.
Pressing his hand against the gastric pain, Nick grimaced and wished he had a few gallons of Tums. “And what matter is that?”
“The head of the u?umgallu.”
That took him by total surprise. What was she talking about? What head? He was the head, right?
“Excuse me?”
She stepped forward to pat his cheek in the most condescending way imaginable. The matrons at church would be so proud of how she did that. He was only surprised she didn’t pinch his dimples while she was at it.
“A vote was called. It seems the majority of your generals feel you’re unfit to lead them. And since there is another creature born of Adarian’s blood, they are asking for us to judge which of you should be named his heir.”
Nick forced himself not to gape or react in any way at something that had to be incredibly bad news for him. “I didn’t think it worked that way.”
She nodded. “The Malachai powers can be taken or assumed by another, especially a blood son, if one exists. It would be nothing for your older half brother to claim the birthright from you, should we deem him so worthy.”
Oh goody! How about a good eye-gouging, too? Or groin-clamping? That sounded like even more fun!
But that brought him back to one stunning point that he still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around.
“Wait… What? What older brother are we talking about? I didn’t think the Malachai could have more than one son at a time who could live past the age of ten. Isn’t that an impossibility?”
Chronos laughed. “Adarian was a crafty beast. Seems he found a way to bypass his curse, and hide his firstborn son from the gods. Something he confided to one of your ?arras before he died. Like you, that son is being tested for his abilities, to see who is better suited for the Malachai role.”
Tiamat patted his cheek. “This is where you should hope he fails and you pass.”
Great. Talk about test anxiety. And in this case, Nick had a bad feeling failure wasn’t an F.
It was a D… as in Death, and he didn’t mean a party with Grim. Death as in dead in the grave, never to be seen or heard from again.
“And can I have some of the criteria on which I’m being judged?”
“No.”
His jaw went slack at Tiamat’s cold and unexpected answer. “No? Seriously? You’re not going to give me a clue about how to pass this test or tell me anything about it?”
“No. That would take all the fun out of it. For us. But you’ve already completed a great deal of the test without even knowing, so breathe, child. We haven’t killed you… yet. Relax.”
Easy for her to say. No one was screwing with her life. “Yeah, but I like cheat codes.”
A slow, insidious smile curved her lips. “Life isn’t about cheat codes. It’s about experience points.”
Gah, they sounded like his mom. “So what’s this next part of the test? Will you tell me that much?”
“You want to heal your mother and Malphas?” Chronus asked.