“Time for what?”Marcus asked, looking as irritated as I felt.
Mother frowned, but Arim shook his head.“No, Ravyn, they need to know before it’s too late.”
The four of us stared in surprise.Never had Arim spoken so informally with our mother.Always before it had been “Queen Ravyn” or “Honorable Lady.”
Arim’s gaze burned into us as he stared from one prince to the next.“The Netharat attack this day with one purpose and one purpose only—to kill the Royal Four and destroy the royal line.”
“All the more reason to meet them in opposition.The Storm Lords do not bow to anyone,” I said, sure of my brothers’ support.That anyone could think to destroy the peace and beauty of our land… The familiar rage built, and heat festered inside me, begging for release.
“No,” my mother interjected.“We cannot risk you four now.”She glanced at Arim before continuing, her face pale.“Word arrived this morning that’s changed everything.The other kingdoms have weakened.”
“What do you mean?”Marcus asked, his clear blue eyes clouding with suspicion.
“Before the sunrise this morning, your uncles passed into the Light, along with your aunts and cousins.”Mother’s eyes shone with unshed tears.“We are all that remain of the Storm Lords.”
I stared at her in shock.Tanselm had always been protected by the Tetrarch—four identical brothers of royal blood.For one thousand years, peace and tranquility reigned over a prosperous land filled with precious life-giving soil and ever-spawning wildlife.That now evil should retake what the original Storm Lords had once fought so hard to obtain was unthinkable.
As my home, the western territory, was under attack, the other three territories lay even more vulnerable to a Netharat onslaught.It just didn’t seem possible that the power of the Storm Lords could have let such a thing happen.
“It’s true,” Arim stated, his voice full of authority.He gazed at each of us.“Your father was poisoned, like the other monarchs, by an evil the Djinn concocted.If we don’t get you four out of here, you’ll be next, killing the rest of us as surely as we stand here talking.”
Cadmus ran a hand through his thick black hair.“The shields would never let the Djinn enter Tanselm.”
“I didn’t say the Djinn entered our world, only that they’re in league with the Netharat.”
“But they ally with no one.They never have,” Marcus protested.
“Until now.”Arim spoke with confidence, his eyes grim, the inky-black irises swallowed by a fierce, red anger.“I don’t know how Sin Garu is doing it, but he’s amassed the Netharat and the Djinn to do his bidding.He’s penetrated our shields just enough to allow his wraiths to create a dimension portal and killed not one butallof the Tetrarch.If not for you four and your mother, Tanselm’s shields would have completely fallen by now.”
“And you, Arim,” Ravyn said softly.“Your power is perhaps the strongest of us.”
I stared suspiciously from my mother to the sorcerer.Her tone was unnervingly loving.
She smiled and placed a hand on Arim’s arm, earning an unwilling growl from me and a glare from Marcus and Cadmus.Aerolus, as usual, remained composed.
But what she said next stunned us all.She stared into Arim’s face.“My brother forgets himself.”
My jaw dropped, and I had to force myself to blink, then turned to see if my brothers had heard what I had.They too looked shocked, even Aerolus.
“Yourbrother?You said you had no family save Father and us.By the Light’s Form, what’s going on?”Confusion turned my frustration into anger, and I had to fight to keep from breaking something.I had a temper, and these revelations were only adding to it.
“I’m sorry, Darius, but I’m trying to tell you what I can in the brief time we have left.”My mother walked to me and reached up to stroke my cheek.“Because of the real possibility you and your brothers might die if you stay here, you have to leave Tanselm.At least if something happens to me or Arim, you four hold the power necessary to save our land.”
“But only if you succeed in the task ahead,” Arim added.
I stared at the sorcerer, unable to resist comparing the large man to Mother.Both possessed dark hair and golden skin, not uncommon throughout the kingdom.But upon closer scrutiny, I noted the same high cheekbones, the same strong, piercing stare from upturned eyes, and a stubborn chin—facial similarities that until now I’d never noticed.Probably because Arim rarely let us see him so directly, always at a distance from everyone but my parents.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell all of you sooner,” Mother said, nodding toward Arim.“But my past is complicated, and I always thought there’d be more time.You four must go and find the future.”
“The future?”Cadmus asked, incredulous, his eyes passing from our mother to Arim in alarm.“There may be no Tanselm if the enemy defeats us today.How can you ask us to leave in this time of crisis?To desert our people and you?”
“She isn’t asking you,” Arim said in a forbidding tone.“She’stellingyou to go.Your mother and I have foreseen the need for this passage for quite some time.We know you better than you know yourselves.”
I frowned.“Foreseen the need?You knew the Netharat would come.”Arim didn’t respond.“You’re sending us to another world to find a weapon aren’t you?”Arim was a commanding sorcerer, never cowardly or without a plan.“Something powerful no doubt.”
Cadmus shook his head.“We have plenty of magic here in Tanselm.Why should we leave it for another world?One that might not be open.Sin Garu has blocked all other passages to energized planes.”
“He does not know of this world’s existence.”Arim glanced at hissister—I still couldn’t understand how I hadn’t seen the resemblance before this.“Thanks to your mother’s keen spellcasting, we have a chance.The importance of this plane cannot be denied.It is there you’ll find the key to Tanselm’s future.”
