Chapter one
A Hole In The Sky
Riftsinthefabricof time and space were becoming a real nuisance.
I stared up at the swirling black hole and grimaced. It warped the surrounding air, shifting and contorting so that the starlight of the night sky shimmered. The lights of the Aurora Borealis weaved in and out of this world, dancing in a way that was entirely new and utterly terrifying.
I breathed out, watching as the tiny molecules of carbon dioxide exiting my body condensed into an icy mist before my very eyes. It was cold here; the climate bordering on inhospitable. Even my two thick coats, one of wool and one of fur, and thick, woolen socks weren’t keeping the chill from reaching my bones. My teeth chattered as a familiar voice spoke from beside me, shouting to be heard over the cacophony of the fissure, the long, guttural wail it was making, like the world was crying out to us as it ripped itself apart.
“Professor Belling,” Wyn Kendrick shrieked.
I turned toward a man who I could only describe as supremely average. Average build, average height, average light brown hair and dull gray eyes. Ridiculous wire-rimmed spectacles sat perched upon his nose, sliding ever downwards so that he had developed the habitual tick of pushing them back up again. The only difference in his appearance between here and the grim desk job he occupied in a nondescript government facility far away was the skepticism in his eyes and the little line of frost along his jaw.
“Every attempt we’ve made to close the rift has only resulted in ripping it open even further.”
I frowned, turning my attention back to the breach, considering.
“If we could reverse the polarity—” I began, already knowing he would have a reason we could not. That was always the first attempt they made.
“It’s too strong, too big,” he told me. “Our machines can’t generate enough power even in a more accommodating environment. But out here…”
“Right. Yes, I understand.”
I narrowed my gaze, staring into the swirling mass as if it would reveal itself to me. As if it would gift me some epiphany, some solution to this celestial conundrum.
“It isn’t behaving like a normal black hole,” he said then. “Not that there is a normal black hole, to be certain. But what I mean is, it isn’t exhibiting the sort of properties that one might expect from the astrophysical anomaly that you and I have spent our lives studying.”
That he had spent his life studying. Men like Wyn studied the black holes, the celestial bodies, the stars and their alignments. I studied beyond those things. I studied past and present and future. I studied connectivity and meaning. I did not research black holes because I wanted to know how they formed or where they had come from. I studied them because I wanted to know where they would lead. And it was merely fortunate that my studies coincided with a point in history in which these anomalies had apparently decided to materialize in our own skies.
“You mean it isn’t devouring every bit of matter surrounding it,” I replied, raising a brow to remind Mr. Kendrick that I wasn’t a fool.
If this were a true black hole, it would have created a field of gravitational pull so powerful that nothing could evade it. Not even light. Hence the name “black hole”. And yet, soldiers milled about below it, glancing uncertainly upward from time to time as if waiting for a threat that they could actually shoot to present itself. Unanchored crates and equipment lay scattered around tents and snowdrifts. Scientists who were more concerned about marking themselves as intellectuals and distinguishing themselves from the common servicemen flitted from instrument to instrument in their flimsy lab coats.
“Precisely,” Wyn answered with a nod, adjusting those accursed spectacles and ignoring my look of displeasure at being patronized, yet again, by a man in my field. “It’s behaving just like the last three except even more erratically.”
“How so?”
“The pattern of the swirls is different, more intense. Just like the last three, it seems to be moving quite a bit within itself but even more so. It’s… tumultuous.”
“Tumultuous,” I repeated, turning back to the mass of inky black stained against the night sky. It was an apt word. Wyn and I had dispatched the last two of these ourselves without a problem but this one was different. I couldn’t define how I knew. Just that I felt it. It wasn’t just the sheer size of the anomaly. In fact, it almost seemed even larger than it was, like there was an even bigger aura surrounding it, a darkness we couldn’t see, and it felt… angry.
“I should return to the university,” I started, turning my attention away from the rift and back to Wyn. He was already nodding as I explained myself. “The Dean should be informed and I will reach out to my contacts in the world of academia. If they have any suggestions—”
“I don’t have to remind you to keep this out of the press’ hands this time, I assume,” Wyn interrupted me, his tone changing from friendly scientific collaboration to authoritative warning. “We don’t want a repeat of last time.”
“The people had a right to know,” I snapped, bristling at his insinuation.
“We cannot trust the people to regulate their emotional response to such news,” he barked back at me. Sensing his own rising fury, as well as mine, he took a breath and sighed, trying to relieve some of the tension. But his eyes were still as cold as the frigid landscape around us when he added, “Not every anomaly is apocalyptic, Seren.”
Perhaps it was the condescending insinuation that I couldn’t tell the difference between a new avenue of scientific study and the end of the world, perhaps it was his assumption that he had any right to command me at all, or perhaps it was the use of my given name rather than the one he knew I preferred. But I saw red as the rage welled up within me and I prepared to set it loose on my disgruntled colleague.
Before I could tell Wyn Kendrick how I really felt about working with him, a booming roar of fury that shook the very mountains themselves interrupted us.
Wyn and I ducked, on instinct, and turned toward the only phenomena that could have made such an unnatural sound. We both stared up at the roiling black hole just as a full sized minotaur tumbled from the sky.
There was a moment of hesitation, of awe, as every person gathered in the camp stopped what they were doing to stare at the mythical beast that had just dropped down among them. My jaw slackened as my mind hurled itself into oblivion, trying desperately to understand the signals that my eyes were sending to my brain. A minotaur, exactly as described in ancient Greek legend, with the body of a giant, muscled man and the head and tail of a bull. It roared again and the sound filled my ears as I blinked away my shock. It was real.
The soldiers broke the spell first, shouting and running for their guns, taking up position all along the mountainside. They aimed the shaking barrels of their rifles at the fabled monster and waited for the command to shoot. The minotaur wasted no time either. It brandished the biggest axe I’d ever seen, raising it over its head and roaring so loud the mountain beneath our feet trembled. Wyn ducked but I remained standing, my eyes planted firmly on that axe.
