I struggle, again. As Queen, I have to be in total control—I cannot just let go! Especially not with the danger present above me, the danger facing all the vampires of The Haven!
“Let go,” Riyu repeats. He floats into my reach of vision, a translucent spectrum of himself. “It’s not hard, Eleira. The difficulty is only in attaining this state. I only got here because of you.”
I’m stuck. I cannot speak, cannot respond, cannot communicate with him! I struggle against the invisible force holding me in place, knowing that it’s useless because there is no force, that it’s just the freezing of time around me that keeps me still, knowing that I’m stuck here for however long, knowing that—
“Here,” Riyu says gently. “Let me help you.”
He reaches out, reaches forward, reaches into me, and gently pulls my spirit free.
For a moment, I just float there, feeling a strange disconnect from my body. I look down and see my ethereal force—I didn’t last time this happened—then I look back and see my totally frozen physical form.
“You’re welcome,” Riyu says.
I frown. I push myself forward, floating through the air, causing the web to ripple around me as I move.
“You’re very strong,” Riyu notes, with a tone of reverence. “Very few who have accessed this realm can affect it directly…”
To demonstrate, he floats in front of me, and the intricate web remains untouched.
“How did we get here?” I ask.
“You brought us,” he says. He laughs. “I was just the conduit through which you did it. You do not know how incredibly difficult it was to stay absolutely still as you entered. The hierarchy and all that.” He motions in a roundabout way with his hand. “But if I told you what I intended to try, your unconscious mind would have blocked off the possibility. I am sorry, but the only way to do this was to take you by surprise.”
“What exactly did you do?” I wonder.
“I made it possible for you to expand your mind and access a different dimension.”
“But we are still on earth,” I say.
“We are,” he admits. “And we are not. Time does not flow right now. Yet here you and I are, interacting as if it does. If that is not another dimension, I don’t know what is.”
“Interesting,” I consider. “So, what exactly did you do? When I touched you, something cold seared into me—” I give a start. “—I do not feel it now.”
“No, of course not,” he says. “As for what I did, it is too cumbersome to explain in full. The most I can say for it to make sense to you is that long ago, when I was trained by my teacher, in the Red Keep, she taught me an incantation that she said would give access to another realm. It is a secret belonging to her ancestors. She was too weak to use it, and obviously, so was I, but I uttered the words and cleared my mind, and then waited for the presence of one much stronger for it to take effect. When you touched me, the link was made, a physical one, and the incantation was given life through you.”
“It’s not magic, is it?” I ask softly.
“No,” he confirms. “But it requires the presence of a powerful being with an immense capacity of the mind. That is needed to trigger the necessary mechanisms that brought us here.”
“You will teach me this incantation,” I say. “I have to know it.”
Riyu hesitates. “Unfortunately… I cannot. Each incantation is adapted to its user. My teacher made mine specific to me. The knowledge of how to adjust that was lost with her.”
“Perhaps the Forsaken Sisters would know,” I mumble.
“Yes,” Riyu says. “They might.”
“I’ve accessed it before,” I say. “Once, when the Narwhark crashed a meeting of the Royal Court. And again, when Morgan trapped me and was about to feed me the demon’s blood. No incantation. No spell.”
“It is because you are so strong,” Riyu explains. “Your body is attuned not just to the Elemental Forces—but to all the other forces making up reality. Gravity, nuclear, all that. Couple that with your formidable vampiric strength, and it’s no wonder you’ve been able to accomplish extraordinary things.”
“How far can we go from our bodies?” I ask. “If you and I can reach this place at any time, if we can use your incantation and my innate power to freeze time whenever we need… the implications are enormous.”
I think of the army of Tentoria surrounding us outside, and what a strategic advantage it would be for me to be able to scout out their entire army from this realm.
“Not far,” Riyu answers. “You’ll find the farther you drift from your physical body the more resistance you’ll face. You’ll discover that moving past a certain point becomes impossible.” He gestures at the exit. “I’d say that’s about as far as either of us can get. Strength, in this instance, does not make any difference.”
I glance the way he pointed. I turn and start to drift toward it, testing his word.
The first few meters are unremarkable. But then I find a sort of pressure pushing against me from the front. The farther I go, the stronger it gets—a little like diving underwater and striving to swim down.
I concentrate all my energy on resisting the force. But that does nothing. I cannot dispel it, nor can I lessen it in any way.
I manage to get a few feet from the exit before further movement becomes impossible.
I turn back to Riyu and find the way to him pulling me along, almost like I’m being yanked back by a rubber band.
“You’re right,” I say. “Riyu, we need to both go outside. You don’t know what’s happened out there—”
“I do,” he interrupts. “Geordam sent guards down to tell me while you were meeting with the Royal Court.”
“Then you know the precise danger we face,” I say quickly. “I need you to come out with me. We need to go to the very perimeter of the dome. I’ll slice out a small gap in it, and the moment I do, I need you to bring us to this realm. It has to happen immediately. I cannot risk any of the Tentoria getting in.
“That’ll allow us to get a sense of their numbers. Perhaps we’ll find something else. I cannot destroy them all at once. This will help us figure out where to mount the attack.”
Riyu looks more and more uncomfortable as I go on. I cut off and say, “Well? What is it?”
“I’m afraid we won’t be able to return here any time soon,” he says. “The passage takes a toll on the physical body—on our mind’s capacity to draw magic and to access this place. The recovery would take months for a regular human witch. Since we are vampires, our healing is hastened, but it will still take four or five days before we can do it again.” He looks down at his feet. “It may take up to a week for me.”
“Huh.” I grunt. Another dead end.
“Why did you decide to do this here, now, when you knew what was happening outside?”
“Because,” he says solemnly. “I wanted you to see the former Queen.”
He drifts over to the slab where she lies covered. He places his hands above Morgan’s body, closes his eyes, and starts to concentrate.
I gasp when a minute later the sheet covering her becomes translucent.
Riyu sags back, visibly exhausted by the exertion.
“How did you do that?” I ask. I look directly at him, not able to make myself look at Morgan’s body.
“With tremendous effort,” he says coyly. Then he looks at me. “The rules of reality are somewhat different here. If you know which strings to tug—” he gestures at the web surrounding us, “—then it’s possible to dispense with certain properties of the physical. At least while we’re here.”
I float closer to him. “What did you want to show me?” I ask.
“Look down, and you will see.”
It takes a moment to compose myself before I force my gaze down to the former monarch.
The moment I see her, I gasp.
Her shape is as decrepit as ever. All the damage she’s done to herself is plainly visible on her body.
But at her bosom, right where her heart should be, I see a slowly rotating, pure black orb. About the size of my first, maybe smaller. The intricate web around us is repulsed by it, twisting in ghastly shapes to avoid coming in contact with the black.
“What is that?” I ask.
“You know what it is,” he answers. “Look closer.”