Into Eternity E-Book

Richard M. Ankers

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Queen Serena and her allies have fled the massacre, taking Princess Linka with them.

For Jean, it's heartbreak; for his friends, far worse. Leaving the Arctic ice behind, Jean and the others must come to terms with their losses, as they close in on the Baltic home of the hated Duke Gorgon.

As the lies around him unravel, Jean marches from one infuriating revelation to another. Finally, he must do what he's never done before: place his trust in others.

For only at the end of all things, as the sun dies and Shangri-La falls, will Jean know what it means to step Into Eternity.

Leseprobe

Into Eternity

The Eternals - Book III

Richard M. Ankers

Copyright (C) 2017 Richard M. Ankers

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2019 by Next Chapter

Published 2019 by Next Chapter

Cover Design by Cover Mint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Chapter One - Gone

“So this is what eternity looks like.”Prince Grella * * *

“Why do your hands tremble so?”

I heard the words, plucked them from an intangible distance.

“Jean.”

It could have been me, the name sounded familiar.

“Jean.”

Like an island lost in a sea fog, I remained remote.

“Jean, you are shaking. You're scaring me.”

That felt wrong. The girl who owned that ice-cool voice feared nothing, or so I recalled.

“Take my hand,” she said.

Sweeter than any angel, her words mingled with the stinging winds that swept through the chamber. With a vacuum of kindness, she sought to cleanse my mind. But my mind, as ever, remained beyond such aid.

“Jean. Look at me, Jean!” a command, not a request.

I opened heavy eyes to the letter clenched in my left hand and the balled fist of my right. The slender, delicate fingers of an alabaster hand interlaced and unlocked mine offering a strength alone I lacked. A second raised me by the chin, a most delicate ascension, and there she stood. Aurora took me in with those sapphire eyes. How I longed for them to shine green.

“With your permission?” She held out a hand.

“Pardon.”

“May I?”

“May you what?”

“The letter, Jean.”

I looked to the crumpled paper unable to place the thing as a meaningful document, the information it held but two words, yet feeling like a novel composed of my doom.

When Aurora leant forward and kissed my cheek, her gentle fingers prising the letter from my hand, I acquiesced.

“Hm,” she said, flattened the paper and envelope back out and replaced the latter within the former. She then slipped the reacquainted pair inside her blouse, the spell broken.

“Thank you,” I said.

“We will find her,” she whispered. “I promise you, Jean, we will find her. The Marquis shall not evade us.”

Aurora seemed adamant, so resolute. I was neither.

Merryweather stood off to one side in wretched torment. A marionette, strings cut and broken, a husk, he seemed shattered by affairs. His limp form swayed from side to side like a reed in a windswept lagoon, his every feeble motion a provocation.

“Leave him,” Aurora instructed. “Jean, leave him be.”

But I could not. Even in the depths of despair, Merryweather riled me. I had my hands about his throat in an instant. Another, and I found myself in a collapsed heap at the far side of the gargantuan chamber.

For a second, I thought Aurora to have intervened; she had not. The Nordic princess stood where I'd left her, a look of shock coating her pale visage. No person, man or woman, not even Grella the strongest to have ever laid a hand on me had struck me harder. The shock of it so confused, I looked about seeking some unseen army where there was none. And slowly, ever so slowly, as I shook my head and stilled the spiralling stars, the truth dawned. As my world stopped revolving to settle like an autumn leaf, I returned my eyes to the Britannian.

Merryweather remained impassive, his face upturned to the broken ceiling and the falling snow. The Arctic coated him in a slow accumulation of white, not even the snowflakes landing in his staring eyes causing him to blink. He stood there, catatonic, swaying to another world's breeze; I would never see another look so forlorn for as long as I lived. A broken man, Merryweather's lips mouthed unheard words, his eyes more, but not a hint of animosity was shown towards me. The situation called for a different approach.

“Walter,” I said, softly closing the distance between us. “Where have they taken her?” It was a punt, but I had to try something.

“She's gone.”

“Yes, she's gone, and I must know where.”

“I do not know where,” he breathed.

For once, I believed him. The anguish in his eyes could not be faked, for anguish is that most base of human emotions. Then again, were we still human?

“Do you know who is with her?” I attempted.

“Yes.”

I waited for what seemed an appropriate amount of time, but he was not forthcoming.

“Who?” I persisted, as Aurora glided to his side. She slipped her hand into Merryweather's and placed an arm around his shoulders. Even from one so cold as she, the action warmed the heart.

“Who, Walter? You must tell us if you can.”

The crunching happened in such gradual increments, I didn't realise what occurred. I thought myself to have stood on something, a shattered pot, glass, or some such object, and backed away a pace. I had not. The chamber floor remained immaculate in its ice smoothness. But the sound, that slow grating, hung in the air like churned gravel beneath a carriage's wheels.

My eyes swept the chamber, but all looked undisturbed, the snow too light to cause disruption. I gazed at the sky, but a falling winter is a silent oblivion at the best of times. My examination complete, I returned my attention to Merryweather who stared into the darkness impassive. Aurora, however, was less so. In utter disbelief, I watched her eyes narrow, lips purse, face contort. The crunching grew louder, ever louder, as the Nordic princess recoiled in obvious pain, though I still knew not why. Yet even in agony Aurora remained composed.

“Merryweather,” she said.

There was no response.

“Walter,” she prompted.

Nothing.

“Walter, you are hurting me,” she gasped.

He did not acknowledge her.

“Please, dearest Walter, it's time to let go now.”

And as suddenly as it had started, the crunching stopped. Aurora's released hand fell to her side, no longer milk-white, but blue. The girl doubled over in clear distress, as Walter turned and whispered, “I'm sorry.”

“For what?”

“Everything.”

“I don't understand!”

“I'm not sure you ever will.”

That annoyed, although he meant no ill.

“Just tell me who she is with and I shall forgive you.” I lied, of course, but as I was clueless as to what he referred, I had little choice but to feign leniency. “Who did she leave with, Walter?”

“With the Marquis, Raphael Santini, two Nordic princesses, the twins, and Linka, of course. There may have been others, but they are all I witnessed.”

It took a second for his list to sink into my thick skull. Somehow, something didn't seem right? I scratched at my chin and mulled his words over and over, name by name. I looked to Aurora, who still rubbed at her discoloured hand. The girl shrugged a silent reply.

“So, she is with those you mention?” I sought reconfirmation.

“Yes.”

“Then, she is alive?”

“Yes.”

“Have they harmed her?”

“She cannot be harmed.”

“News to me!” I exclaimed, raising my eyebrows to Aurora.

“She is immortal,” Merryweather whispered.

“Aren't we all?”

“There are differing stages of immortality.”

“So Linka is safe, you are certain?”

“Linka?”

“Yes, Linka,” I snapped, unable to control my building anger.

“I do not know.”

“Then, why say what you said?”

“I'm not talking about Linka.”

“Then who the hell are you talking about?” I fumed.

Merryweather's eyes narrowed, his face turning from the Arctic night. “Who did you think I was talking about?” he asked.

“Linka,” I replied, wondering what new lunacy I'd become embroiled in.

“You refer to my mother, don't you?” Aurora said.

“Of course,” he replied. “Who else?”

I stared from the dandy to the princess and back again in utter bemusement.

“Why?” asked Aurora.

“Because I love her. I have always loved her. I will always love her. And she will always love me.”

“What!” I interjected, the fires of rage approaching inferno.

“I thought you knew,” he stated, quite unabashed by my temper.

“Why the hell would I think that? All I care about is Linka.”

“Don't I know it,” he huffed, once more back to his old self.

I would have vented my fury upon him, but Aurora came between us, her arms outstretched in placation.

“Why is he always like this?” Merryweather asked her.

“Jean cares for Linka as much as you do for my mother.”

“Are you sure?” He gave me a quizzical look before returning his attention to Aurora. “I didn't think him capable of caring for anyone.”

“I am sure,” she smiled. “So tell me, where has the Marquis taken my mother and the others?”

“I do not know.”

“Think, Walter,” she insisted. “You are so much wiser than Jean and I. You have seen so much compared to our young selves.”

“Well, you are mere saplings,” he said, but the intonation of his words set my blood to boiling.

“We are,” Aurora agreed, “which is why we need you to think.”

I bristled at that but kept my mouth shut for expedience's sake.

“Where would you take them to be safe from Jean?”

“Hmm?” Walter tapped his fingers on his forehead in a most irritating fashion. “Where would I take them?” he mused.

“This year,” I added.

“He is so impatient,” he said to Aurora out of the back of his hand.

“Even so,” she replied.

“Well, either to the Baltics and Gorgon. Old allegiances and all that,” he winked. “Or, if not there, then home.”

“This is home, you idiot,” I said, shaking my head in frustration.

“Not the Nordics' home, meine dummkopf. His home.”

“Then we must hurry to his castle,” I said.

“That was Portia's home, never his.”

“But we shall never find Shangri-La.”

“Is he always so stupid, dear girl?”

Aurora gave a slight shake of her head, which seemed to placate him. I pretended not to notice and remained silent.

“Where is his home?” Aurora asked in so polite a fashion as to be grovelling.

“Venice, of course.”

“Venice is gone!” I snapped.

“But not forgotten,” he sang back in a lilting voice.

“He's lost it,” I said to Aurora. “We might as well give up on him.”

“Have I, Jean, have I lost it? Have I really?” he rounded on me. “Where would you hide from you, pray tell? Come on, snap, snap.”

“I'm going to rip your head off,” I growled.

“Not if I'm underwater, you're not.”

“And like being tipped over the edge of a waterfall to crash upon the rocks beneath in liquid fury, it hit me.”

“Ah, the penny drops. Where to hide from a hydrophobe? Let's have a think. Duh! Under the sea, perhaps? Although in your case the middle of a puddle would probably do.”

Despite wanting to slash him in two, his logic was impeccable. Venice had sunk beneath the Aegean long before I was born to a world on the brink of death. The place inhabited the same legendary status Atlantis had to humanity if books were to be believed. I would never have given a thought to a city being inhabitable beneath the sea, but why not? It made no difference to an Eternal who neither breathed nor wished to if his home was sunk beneath the waves. The Marquis, like all the Hierarchy, knew of my distaste for water. If one wished to remain distant from me, there would be no better place. Although that still beggared the question why would one wish to remain hidden from me? Until now, when they had every reason to.

“It'll take us an age to get there, you know,” he continued, prattling to nobody in particular. “Still, it is far more appealing than this dire scene. I am bored beyond words of all this snow and ice. It's so plain, so very plain,” he said to Aurora, as an aside. “But someone else will have to navigate, I'm really quite lost. And I have no intention of running like a lunatic across an unending, monotonous landscape clueless of which direction I head.”

“We can take a Zeppelin,” I chimed.

“Well, that's marvellous that is. What Zeppelin?”

“They crashed one and had another in here, chances are there's another somewhere to be found.”

“Be a good boy then and go and have a look, whilst I sit and wallow in abject self-pity.”

“You're good at that,” I retaliated.

“Look who's talking.”

“Gentlemen,” Aurora interrupted, “I suspect we may have more pressing concerns.”

“Like what?” I snapped.

“Yes, like what?” Merryweather parroted.

Aurora turned from us with the calm assurance I had become accustomed to and pointed to the funnelled entrance we'd emerged from.

“Do you get the impression we were not meant to leave?” Merryweather mused.

I would have answered with some glib comeback but there wasn't much point. A faint dusting of ice fell from the tunnelled entry point like a broken hourglass. It was nothing really, yet deeply disturbing in that nothingness. I slunk over to the thing and placed a hand to the cold ice: it vibrated. When the floor started shaking, which only added to my initial worry, and then a crack split out from either side of the passageway, I imagined the worst.

“You're taking it rather well,” Merryweather chuckled.

“What, being crushed?”

“Not crushed, dear boy. If we stand in the centre of this immense carbuncle, I suspect the disappeared roof will harm us not. It is the ocean that shall soon consume the space we inhabit that I would worry about. If I was you, that is.”

My face fell, much to Merryweather's amusement, as he ran off on a circuit of the chamber; I couldn't be bothered to chase him.

An explosion of sufficient proportions as to flatten all three of us rocked the chamber then. Chunks of ice the size of coffins fell from the ceiling's leading edge and I doubted if Merryweather's first proclamation of non-harm might be correct. A second blast and the first droplets of Arctic water seeped into the chamber.

“Any suggestions, Aura?” I asked, more in hope than expectation.

“I have never ventured here, all this is as new to me, as you. My one suggestion would be to remain central, as Walter suggested, and wait until we can swim out.”

“Yes, let's do that,” Merryweather laughed. “Let's all hold hands too. I think that would be a nice touch, don't you, Jean?”

“I am not waiting to be submerged,” I retorted. “Or eaten, for that matter.”

“What's he talking about?”

“The orcas, Walter,” Aurora replied a look of horrified realisation washing over her sculpted features.

“Damn, I'd forgotten about them. I have a feeling they'd enjoy a princess sandwich.”

“You have such a way with words,” I hissed.

“They're my speciality, dear boy. Without words, we are no more than beasts.”

A third more destructive force wracked Hvit's structure. Cascades of shattered ice fell from on high as the undersea city's adjoining wall blew inwards. Merryweather was quick to duck the ice's murderous trajectory; Aurora was not. She took a chunk of ice two feet square to the side of her temple and fell like a lopped, white rose to the chamber floor.

Merryweather was at her side even quicker than I, cradling the girl's head in his arms, whilst casting his eyes about in panic. “If you've any ideas?” he said, his eyebrows raised.

I did not reply. Instead, I took off around the perimeter of the cavernous arena hoping to find something that should aid our escape from Hvit's doom.

Tables of accumulated paraphernalia toppled before my desperate flailing, copper and brass parts from unknown experiments flew from scrambling hands, but nothing of any use displayed itself. I tore at piles of junk, dove behind stacks of this and that, but found nothing. Then, just as I'd resigned myself to a watery grave, I made a discovery.

“A rope, Walter. I have a rope.”

“Bravo, sir! Now, what the hell are you going to tie it to?” Merryweather shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“I could tie it to you and chuck you out of here,” I snarled.

“My fingernails aren't what they used to be,” he said, chewing on one to demonstrate. “I suspect I'd be as much good as a chocolate fireguard.”

“Aren't you always,” I mumbled.

“Pardon? Hm? What?”

“If I can fashion a hook, I might throw it beyond the ceiling into the pack ice.”

“Ooh, you're a regular boy scout.”

“A what?”

“Never mind, now is not the time to jest.”

“Is it ever?” I growled and gave him such a look of contempt as to curdle milk.

“Well…”

“Well, what?” I retorted.

“Get on with it.”

Chapter Two - Wet

Buried amongst the debris was a shard of steel almost sword-like in length. I flexed the thing, which offered substantial resistance, so heaved with all my might to twist one end upon itself. The metal bit deep into my skin, but my force was fashioned from desperation and I was not to be denied. Once happy I'd made as good a hook as an unskilled man might, I then realised it useless without a hole to feed the rope through. That was less easily accomplished. I flickered around like a lighted match seeking to remain un-wetted as the waters poured in from every angle. The Marquis' name was never far from my cursing lips as I slipped and fell, only to watch a riveted unit shake free from the wall and collapse upon my prize. However, to my astonishment, the retrieved blade-cum-hook had acquired a gash down one side that allowed at least in principle for the rope to gain some purchase along its flank. I wrapped the rope around said gash three times, then once more for good measure, fastened it beneath the hook and with a word of warning to Merryweather, who chose to ignore me, tossed the thing high into the air.

“Ouch!” I yelped, as it hit me on the head.

“Oh, bravo, genius, you nearly made it a quarter of the way that time.”

Although I wanted to rip out Merryweather's vocal cords, he was correct, I had miscalculated, and not by a bit. “You could always help,” I suggested.

“I could,” he said, flicking water from the chamber floor at my trousers.

“Try should.” However, he'd already turned away.

And so I started my beachcombing a second time searching for anything I might tie together to form an extension to my original grappling iron. I found nothing.

“Use the curtains,” came a Britannian voice.

“Why didn't you say that before,” I growled, as I sprinted across the deepening surface to tear two thirty-foot-high drapes from either side of the tunnelled entrance.

“I would have, but I found them in rather good taste and didn't wish them sullied.”

“I'll sully you in a minute!”

“Temper, temper. Anyway, I'm doing all the hard work.”

“Lifting Aura's head from the floor is not my definition of hard work.”

“She's heavy, and I'd rather you addressed her by her full name, not some abbreviated abhorrence.”

“Aura, Aura, Aura,” I rattled off, as I knotted the curtains together, and then attached them to the end of the rope. A sharp tug and the whole assembly knitted together. It was the best I could do; I was not a handy man.

“What a botch job,” Merryweather bemoaned. “A child could have done better. If only your father could see you now.”

That rankled, but I ignored him, took a step back and tossed the hook high into the air and out of the chamber: it held.

“I think I shall risk the water,” Merryweather stated. “It is no comment on your craftsmanship, but I have no desire to fall from so great a height. I shall sit here in the water and levitate into the atmosphere like an Arabian djinn in silent splendour.”

“Walter,” I said, lifting Aurora from his arms and tossing her over my shoulder, “I couldn't care less.”

The look on his face was priceless, almost worth a wet end. Almost. The dandy looked so perplexed that I thought I might laugh. But, as ever, Merryweather was quick to adjust his plans to the situation. He jumped to his feet in a spray of water, leapt over my head, and clambered up the rope.

“Wait for us, you Britannian git,” I called, as I struggled hand over hand after his fast-ascending form.

Merryweather climbed at such a pace that the rope jiggled and wiggled in my clutches and I thought the hook to come unsecured at any moment. However, fortune favoured us, as it did not. The greater problem was that I could not climb fast enough to outrun the ocean. The seawater poured through the cracked walls at such velocity that with every passing second the chamber stood in an ever-deepening flood. I looked back once and once was enough.

I battled on with the resigned expectation of soon becoming orca chow or worse. Aurora rocked back and forth across my shoulder like a see-saw; a perilous ascent made worse, as the bottom of the rope churned in the maelstrom of the chambered ocean.

“Merryweather, you coward!” I bellowed into the Arctic darkness. “Bloody well help us!” Futile expletives, the Britannian was long gone. Aurora and mine's extraction would take considerably longer.

I took a deep, unnecessary breath, focused straight ahead, and almost let go of the rope; an eye observed me through those translucent walls. At first, I thought it a trick of what blue light remained. But it was not a thing of blue, a mere reflection in cobalt of some circular object, but an eye of jet black. A huge dark star, far bigger than that of any orca I'd witnessed, it hung in the midnight depths as though suspended in time. A gentle thing, quite unlike the cold calculations of an orca eye, which devised your demise in divisions of pain, it was the orb of a pacifist, a thinker, and it meant no harm. I knew it with a rare certainty, for I felt it in my heart. The creature blinked; an eyelid of barnacles slid over its giant orb to say hello before retracting away. And, for some unknown reason, I stopped.

Despite the crescendo from the tumultuous waters cascading and clattering around the great chamber of invention, a serene calm came over me. We linked that leviathan of the deep and I, two creatures as out of place as each other. We shared our grief for the past, the present, and the shortening future, and for a fleeting, fraction of existence, I felt a kindred soul. We were one, but not for long. No sooner had we bonded than our link was broken. The creature tore away in a flash of dread. And although it should have been impossible to tell from an eye what the creature behind the orb experienced, I knew it feared for its life. Something passed between us as it turned away from Hvit's almost-glass walls, enormous flukes propelling the creature into Arctic depths. The whale, for what else could it have been, was pursued; another experience we shared. No sooner had it turned tail than three obsidian hunters shot past in the liquid darkness. Another life had not long to live in our dying world, one I would have imagined already long extinct. A fourth streamlined predator did not transcend into those netherworld depths but paused mid-flight. The thing hovered where its larger compatriot had lingered and smiled a dagger-toothed grin. In a six-inch proliferation of teeth, it found humour in my expected demise.

There was a time when I would have panicked, the killer before me waiting for Hvit's walls to shatter, the water rising, ever rising, but I would not die in that damned place. I would not succumb to the fear of a submerged finale, nor perish in the jaws of a murderous fish like Grella and who knew how many countless Nordic others. I was Jean, an Eternal, and I would not allow the girl I carried to die whilst in my care.

So, I climbed. I hauled myself and my burden up, the freezing waters gaining by the second. The orca rose with us. The beast watched through that lens of a wall, observed its prey; that only fuelled my fires. In fact, any fear of the creature evaporated as it disappeared then returned after taking a gulp of required oxygen. It was an air breather, and I pitied its pathetic existence, always one breath away from death. I almost wished for those walls to shatter so I could dig my talons into its dirty, great eyes and rip them out. I'd take the beast with me to Hell if it was the last thing I did. Merryweather, too, if I got half a chance. The Britannian might even have returned to the top of my list if I'd had longer to stew on it, but, again, I had misrepresented him.

I had miscalculated on Walter's behalf. I had thought him fleeing when he ascended, but I was wrong. For as my toes felt the tumbling waters lick at them, I found myself hauled at great speed into the air. Up and up my burden and I shot. We traversed with such haste that I had all on just to retain my grip. I dug my talons deep into the rope and pinioned Aurora between my neck and shoulder. Walter pulled as though his life depended on it, never mind ours, such velocity did we attain. A glance down saw the ocean a distance below, a glance up, clear air drawing rapidly closer.

By the time Aurora and I flew out of the chamber roof and an extra twenty feet into the air, before plummeting to the ground in a shared heap, I was almost too shocked for words.

I lay on the compacted snow just glad to be alive, in a manner of speaking, my non-heart almost beating with relief. I scratched at the deep blanket of white as if for confirmation of non-liquidity and sighed with relief at its resistance.

In fact, so relieved was I, that when I stood to thank Walter for his eventual assistance, seeing him gasping into the snow some way off came as little surprise. The deep baritone of someone demanding of more respect than he caused a more substantial shock.

“Good evening, Jean. Thank you for saving my sister.”

“You're welcome, Prince Grella. You're very welcome indeed.”

Chapter Three - Brother

“How badly is she hurt?”

“Just knocked unconscious,” a Britannian voice replied. Merryweather again held Aurora off the ground.

“Who is he?” Grella asked. The dismissive nod of his head suggested he did not overly care.

“May I introduce the most annoying creature the world has ever known, Sir Walter Merryweather.”

“Merryweather.” Grella rolled the word around his palette as if sampling a dream.

“Charming,” Merryweather huffed. “I didn't have to save her, you know.”

“You didn't,” I protested.

“But I would have, I was prepped and ready to go. I was you know. Thing is, you're so big and strong, it made practical sense for you to do the lugging and I the thinking.”

“And what have you thought?”

“Nothing yet, but I'm working on it. I am, after all, caring for our dear princess, so I'm clearly preoccupied. One might call it a role reversal or such like. I'm sure it's only temporary, as I can't expect you to do any thinking for more than a few minutes.”

“I beg your pardon,” I said, in my most sarcastic tone.

“You two seem to know each other well,” Grella said. He gave Merryweather a sideways glance, his eyes narrowing, but nothing more.

“Oh, yes,” beamed Merryweather despite Grella addressing me. “Jean and I are very best friends.”

“I'd term it in a looser manner.”

“Hm! I'm both shocked and disturbed by that,” Merryweather sulked. “I could have said I was your only friend, but I didn't wish to embarrass you. Now, I wish I had.”

“You are not his only friend,” Grella interjected much to my surprise. Any further comments were cut short, the Nordic prince staggering then dropping to one knee, his face etched with pain.

Merryweather looked my way and shrugged his slim shoulders. “I never touched him.”

I ignored the fool and took a half step forward to aid the stricken prince. He responded by raising his palm and shaking his head. “The orca,” I suggested.

“The orca.”

“May I see?”

Grella set his jaw and drew back his cloak. The result was sickening, and I almost baulked. His unveiling revealed a near perfect set of symmetrical teeth marks across his midriff. Every dagger-like gouge pooled with blood, the outer rim of each individual hole encrusted with Grella's life essence. He looked like a man of two parts sewn together by the world's worst seamstress.

“Good God, man!” I exclaimed.

“I fear God forsook us many aeons ago.”

“You're not wrong there,” Merryweather quipped.

Grella folded his cloak back about him almost as if ashamed of his injuries. With an effort akin to toppling a mountain, the prince got to his feet and wobbled over to his sister's side. He took her head with delicate grace from the dandy, then eased the rest of her body into his arms and rested with her in the piled snow. Merryweather did not protest and allowed the Nordic to cradle his sister in a loving embrace.

“Dare I ask how?” I enquired.

“How what?” Grella sighed.

“How you escaped the death both Aura and I felt certain you'd suffered.”

Grella pulled such a sour face I thought he should scold me for even asking. But his expression softened when he realised I meant no slander.

“Luck.”

“Ah, that clears that up then.”

I shot Merryweather one of my best foul looks. He responded by zipping at his mouth.

“I'm sure it was more than just luck.”

“Not really.”

“But Aurora said even she could not catch you, that the beast carried you far away.”

“She came after me?” Grella looked astounded.

“She did. Without a second thought, she dove under the ice in pursuit. When she did not resurface, I reasoned to have lost you both.”

“One less burden,” Grella huffed.

“Never that, Prince Grella. I believe you to be the single most underrated man I have ever met. You astound me at every turn.”

“Why was I not included in your calculations?” Merryweather held a hand to his heart. He gave a look of such abject horror, I almost wanted to laugh, but remembered at the last moment just how much he antagonised me. I remedied the slip with a dirty look. He sidled away.

“Underrated man,” Grella sneered. “Are we men, Jean? I am less certain of it with every accursed day.”

“I believe so even though at times I have doubted it above all else. If we look and think as men do does that not make us such?”

“Perhaps,” he replied, but his slumped shoulders suggested he remained unconvinced.

“You are the best of men,” came words of such quiet that even an Eternal's ears struggled to hear them.

“Sister,” Grella whispered. “You sought to save me.”

“I did.”

“Then, Jean did not exaggerate.”

“I do not believe Jean prone to such embellishments.”

“No, I suppose not,” he said, stroking long, milk-white hair from her face.

“And I believe you still owe both he and I an explanation.”

“Oh, you heard.”

“Yes,” a simple reply. “I believe we make our own luck and should like to hear how you made yours.”

Grella appeared lost for a moment. He raised his head and stared off towards the ocean, reflective, deep.

“The creature hurt you, didn't it? You, who thought himself above pain.”

“I had forgotten such things.”

“Pain is something I have lived with every day of my life.”

“I am sorry, my sister. If I could change things I would, but time is a fickle mistress and always seeks to distort one's best intentions. You have been wronged in the worst of ways, a sin I am guiltier of than most, for I knew it so from the start. I do not know what else to say.”

“You don't have to say anything. But the pain I felt as the leviathan tore away into the dark depths with you impaled upon its teeth hurt me more than anything I have ever experienced. That is no mean claim for a child with centuries of hurt. I never thought to look into your ruby eyes ever again. So, dear brother, tell us how you survived to then save us.”

“It was the being taken that shocked me, not the pain,” he whispered. “I heard the crunching of ribs, saw blood disperse into the water, even wondered whence it came. I hung in the creature's maw unable to believe how I a prince amongst men, an heir to a world, albeit a doomed one, could suffer at the teeth of one of the ebony giants. But I did, sister, I did. I almost gave up, too. It was not the anguish, but the fact a beast had achieved what I had thought impossible. A beast!” he reiterated. “It was the embarrassment that caused me to freeze, the shame.” Grella placed his free hand to his wounds as though they leaked his spirit into the Arctic night. “Everything was so still, so silent in those minutes. I hung there in the abyss waiting for it all to end, a snowflake in an obsidian night. Like a ghost, I perused the darkness expecting to join with it forever. The water pushed past, and I relaxed into the oblivion I had thought myself as an Eternal cheated of. That's when I heard the sound of motors. They saved me. Only one thing could cause such a tumultuous disturbance to the still Arctic waters: our city's most secret chamber opened to the elements. Mother was leaving Hvit. I angered.”

“And…” Merryweather pressed, his interest in proceedings suddenly piqued.

“And…” Grella mimicked.

“How did you know it was she? Why did you anger? How did you get away?” The dandy blurted question after question to an impassive monarch-in-waiting.

“I have suspected her plotting for some time. The realisation of that truth spawned my anger. And I escaped the orca by drowning it. When the creature thought me deceased it drove for the surface to shatter the ice and break free, which it almost did.”

“And…” I found myself saying much to my own foolish pride.

“I braced myself against the underside of the ice sheet and held the creature submerged. The orca required air, I did not. Extricating myself from its death grip was not so easy as we drifted ever-deeper, nor dealing with the blood loss I had suffered. But, as you bear witness to, I survived. The swim back to Hvit coincided with the Super-Zeppelin's departure and your whimpering friend's cries of anguish.”

“To be fair, some of that whimpering was Jean,” Merryweather corrected.

“Either way,” Grella sniffed, “I saw that damned ship float off into the night and cursed my impotence.”

“Did anyone see you?” Merryweather slathered, the froth sliding from his lips.

“Yes, one saw me.”

“Who?”

But Grella's features were set, his taciturn expression unwilling to reveal more.

“Who?” Merryweather begged.

“You now know as much as I,” replied the prince.

I could see in the Britannian's blood-shot eyes he was less than satisfied with affairs. But Merryweather was ever pragmatic and his anger ebbed away.

“What is a Super-Zeppelin?” Aurora asked cutting straight to the point as was her way.

“It is an airship that can depart not just Hvit, but also the planet.”

“The what!” Merryweather and I gasped in unison.

“They seek to cheat fate.”

“What fate?” asked Aurora.

“Yes, what fate?” I echoed.

“Who does?” added Merryweather.

If Grella would have answered, we would never know. At that moment his albino face paled further to a death-mask sheen, and he fell back into the soft snow.

“Oh no you don't, mate,” Merryweather bared his fangs, snatching the prince up by the scruff.

“Take… your… hands… off… him!”

The blow, more rockslide than strike, knocked Merryweather halfway into the next day, so far did he travel. Aurora hit him with such power, I expected his prone body to slide across the ice for all eternity. It did not. Instead, Merryweather spun in mid-air to land on his feet, coming to a sliding halt, and was racing back across the Arctic ice and snow in less than the blinking of an eye. His face, contorted with rage, snarled like a rabid wolf, his fists balled and ready to strike. But Aurora was quicker. She was up on her feet and braced between her aggressor and brother like a snarling she-wolf. In true Merryweather fashion, he backed down.

“I was only thinking of how we might find Linka if what he said is true.”

“Really,” said I.

“Indubitably, dear boy, yours and Aurora's wellbeing are forever at the forefront of my thoughts.”

“And mother?” Aurora interjected.

Again, a flash of something other than the man I knew assailed Merryweather's features, but he was quick to suppress it.

“She too,” he replied with composed dignity.

“I never got to ask, Walter.”

“Ask what?”

“Why you referred to her as saying she said she'd wait.”

He cocked his head to one side and replied, “I never said such a thing.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“You infer that I lie. I cannot. I am the most honest individual you have ever been friends with.”

“You are not my friend.”

“Ouch, that hurts, Jean, twice in the space of a few minutes. Thou words doth strike deep,” he said in exaggerated fashion placing the back of a hand to his forehead. “I thought I was your only friend, anyway.”

“Not anymore,” Aurora answered, taking my hand and pulling me to her brother's side. The shake of her head was almost imperceptible, but it said more than a thousand words; I let further questions lie.

“So what now?” Merryweather sniffed.

“We leave,” replied Aurora.

“But we've only just got here.”

“Look behind you,” she said in her cool way.

Merryweather did. His disappointed, “Oh,” said it all.

Hvit was no more. The enormous hole in the ice created by the retractable roof stood filled to the brim with ocean, the city's flotsam and jetsam congealing on its surface. The sea ice crystallised upon the broiling waters even as we watched. Multiple creaking and groaning sounds soon converged to a single, sharp crack, as of a lightning strike, and the city and all that it had stood for was lost to the Arctic waters forever.

“Bugger.”

“Thank you, Walter,” Aurora replied. “But in essence, I agree.”

“Can we move him?” I asked.

“Oh, don't worry, I'll be fine,” Merryweather said with a placatory gesture.

“Not you, you idiot, the prince. Please don't tell me we have to stay here with this lunatic?”

“We shall all travel together,” Aurora's response.

“Hooray!” cheered Merryweather. “It'll be just like going on holiday. I haven't had one of those in – well, a very long time,” he concluded.

I rolled my eyes.

“I shall take Grella,” Aurora offered.

“But you're a… you know… girl,” Merryweather quivered.

“Your point being?”

“The weaker sex and all that. You are a most delicate flower, after all.”

“I shall endeavour to manage.”

“Ah, my own motto repeated: endeavour to manage when others falter.”

“I wish you would,” I said.

“Ooh, that hurts. And I didn't see you offering to help. She is a girl, Jean. Decorum states you are to be courteous to them.”

“I am a princess and more importantly family,” Aurora interjected.

“Family,” Merryweather sniffed with contempt, but Aurora did not bite.

“So, which way?” I asked.

“How did you know which way to go when you last departed Hvit?” she replied.

“I didn't. I just walked in the opposite direction to the water.”

“Well, that's marvellous, absolutely marvellous! Thank God you weren't allergic to ice or we might just run around in circles screaming.”

“Thank you, Walter,” I bowed.

“Oh, you're quite welcome. I couldn't have answered her better if I'd tried.”

“You didn't try.”

“But so sorely wish I had.”

“This is getting us nowhere,” Aurora said.

The princess stooped to gather her brother and set off walking with him cradled in her arms.

“Where are you going?” Merryweather snapped.

“Away from the water.”

“Oh God, you're not taking Jean's advice, are you?”

Aurora did not reply. The pale princess strode off with purpose, Merryweather grumbling in her wake.

I took one last look at where Hvit's brooding legacy lay obliterated and then set off in pursuit. I was glad to leave; the city was better off sunk.

Chapter Four - Hunting

I lagged behind the others, dragged my feet through the deepening snow, the furrows of their passage my guiding tracks. Not that I didn't want to walk beside them, I did, truly, but sometimes a person has no option but to remain apart. This was one of those occasions.

The snow-filled distance became a balm, a salve I applied with liberal strokes, and as oft was my way, my mind wandered. Perhaps it was those feathered snows, perhaps walking away from the light, but the spatial barrier between my compatriots and I became a physical one. If left unchecked, one's sanity whittles away in such solitude like limestone cliffs before the ocean's heaving breaths, an absence of words creating a void filled by nothing other than the realities of life. The eternal melancholy that clung to my being deepened, a moroseness set upon me. Thoughts of lost love and she of the emerald eyes consumed my every moment and for all I knew I might have been traipsing through Hell. In many ways, I was.

* * *

I'd heard it said each falling ice crystal unique, as individual of composition as those they descended upon. One would never find two identical snowflakes even if one searched for all eternity. I guessed my father taught me that, but couldn't be sure? I'd always had a tendency to be foggy around matters concerning he. For me, though, it was a clear untruth, for every single snowflake bore a face and that face was Linka's, always Linka's. Each tiny, white gem that gathered upon my night-hued clothing was she, delicate and displaced. I twinkled in the glare of her eyes and felt a better man for it. She smothered me in herself, cast her atoms upon me, yet I was no more able to touch her than if she stood before me, and it hurt. One might have said it weighed upon me. If I'd had a soul, I'd have said it twisted, contorted in pain. If I'd had a real heart, I'd have said it shattered. If? Always, if.

I lifted my head to the enforced darkness, traced the pattern of the falling night, an endless barrage of little, fluttering shapes falling to earth. Had they passed my darling's eyes, too? Was she up there gazing down from the Super-Zeppelin's windows tracing a line to the selfsame snowflakes that touched me?

No matter which way I considered, no matter which way I pondered the possibilities, they brought us no nearer and thus were pointless. It maddened the man I was, and like one of the caged beasts the Hierarchy used to parade at extra special parties, I raged. I seethed in my skin as Linka's perfect form was replaced time after time by the contorted sneers of my enemies. Even if I screwed my eyes up tight and quested for images of my lost love, I always came back to those same twisted visages. The Marquis was most prominent, bulbous oath gloating from behind invisible walls. He laughed at me; I did not like being laughed at. If it wasn't he, then Chantelle, her flaking, ashen self loomed out of the darkness, more night than the night itself whispering accented words of hate. That made things worse. My fingers grasped at the thought of her demonic form's nearness to Linka, and at what she might do. But worst of all on that floating barge of collected enemies, worse than the Marquis, Chantelle, Raphael, and the whole of the Nordic peoples was Queen Serena. She looked down on me with contempt written across her every feature. She hated me, as I hated her, and I sensed with all of my un-beating heart to fear her most, for she was the most unpredictable. Linka remained safe to a degree with both her sister and the Marquis, for both wished to use her to get to me. I still didn't know the reason for that wish but was thankful for it. If either of those two devils had deemed my darling unnecessary, then I knew she would never have seen another sunrise. But they did, and that offered hope. Serena, however, she was another thing altogether. I felt her as fickle as the new moon and twice as unobtainable. The what, where, and how of her game was as unknown as when she'd taken charge of Linka in Hvit. Yes, Serena was the one to watch. I felt her animosity wriggling within every cell of my being. She could turn with the tide, the blinking of an eye, a breath. Such things troubled me greatly as I traipsed through the Arctic snow. Such things troubled me deeply as the author of so much of my dismay giggled to Aurora from close by.

I sought to lose myself in the darkness, disperse the voices, postpone my worries, free myself of a burdensome mind; I failed. Yet the night offered quiet and for that, I was grateful. Darkness had to have some uses. Unlike the sun, that was. Sunlight had proved such a disappointment, so much less than I'd hoped. One would have thought a sky of a cheery disposition would beget children of a cheery disposition. How wrong I was. How I longed for it to stay night, and how I longed to spend those nights with Linka.

I gazed into the sky and wondered if she was in light or night before returning to my earthbound misery.

* * *

I followed my fellow Eternals across the Arctic ice in a daze of self-loathing and bitterness. Footstep after endless footstep, more automaton than man, I laboured in their wake. I traversed the furrow ploughed first by Aurora and then deepened by the trailing Merryweather. If not for it, I would have wandered off and never returned, such a torpor had taken me. Like a carriage stuck in the ruts of another, I pursued the pair oblivious to the world around me until walking right into the back of the Britannian.

“My apologies,” I said by reflex.

“Shh,” he hissed.

“Don't tell me to shh.”

“Shh, you idiot.”

“Why?”

Merryweather shook his head in peeved fashion and pointed to Aurora. Statuesque, the Nordic stood some way ahead sniffing the cold, night air.

Launching a pre-emptive strike at my parted lips, Merryweather put a finger to his own and shook his head once more. He was enraptured by the girl, I could see it in his eyes and every expression. He sought to understand her mannerisms as I might her words.

I leant around my Britannian colleague to get a better look. Aurora was lost to a world of her own. If she knew we observed her, she did not let it show. As if mesmerised, her head tilted one way then the other at a speed to not even trouble the falling snow. The Nordic princess sampled the air, licked at the night's essence.

I was clueless to her actions even when she stooped to rest her brother on a duvet of snow. What she did next was more direct.