The Reckoning (The Sentinel Series Book 4) Read online

  I woke with a jerk and Seth looked down at me with concern. ‘Another prophecy?’

  I nodded as I sat up and rubbed my face, trying to push away the images I had seen. I’d been having dreams or prophecies for weeks now and none of them were good. I knew some of it was just my anxiety about the impending end of the world but although most of it was vague, the earth burning, the red smoke filled sky, people dying, I knew some of my dreams would become reality. The prophecies had that real quality to them that my dreams didn’t and what I had just seen was definitely a prophecy.

  Seth handed me a bottle of water and I took a deep long drink. He stared at me with endless patience waiting for me to tell him if I needed to but I knew that I needed to tell the Oraculum of this, well at least the ones that I was on speaking terms with.

  ‘I need to talk to Cain,’ I said as I got out of bed. I threw on a clean T-shirt and taking Seth’s hand I slid to Cain.

  He was sitting on his sofa, reading when I arrived. He looked up from his book as if it was the most normal thing in the world for me to arrive in his house in the middle of the night.

  ‘I’ve just had another prophecy. Do you have any way to contact Sebastian?’ I asked, though I already knew the answer to that. Cain shook his head. Sebastian had vanished several months before and no one had seen him since or been able to find him.

  ‘Is he still alive?’

  ‘Yes, I can feel Sebastian, even if I can’t find him or talk to him.’

  ‘You need to try to find him, Adam is going to kill him.’

  Cain sighed heavily. ‘I wonder if Sebastian knows that. He said he’d had a prophecy about Adam shortly before he disappeared. I guessed something had scared him off. How does he die?’

  ‘Adam ripped holes in his body and then burnt him alive,’ I said, then frowned at how matter of fact I sounded. When had death and torture become the norm? Although I knew that it hadn’t happened yet and it was hard to mourn the life of someone who may not die for months, if at all. The prophecies could be changed. ‘You have to stop him.’

  ‘Did you see where he was killed?’

  ‘I presume in his house, it was a lounge, there was a black sofa, lots of wood panelling. I didn’t really pay much attention to the décor when Adam was killing him right in front of me.’

  Cain stood. ‘I need to speak with the rest of the Oraculum. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  And with that he vanished.

  I sighed. I looked round at Seth who was waiting for me. I looped my arms round his neck.

  ‘Let’s go back to bed. I think we’ve got a few more hours before you have to get up,’ Seth said.

  I slid us both back to the fort and curled up in his arms on the bed, though I knew after the latest prophecy sleep would be very far away.

  Chapter 2

  The early morning light filled the sky, dimmed by the blanket of grey clouds that seemed to be a constant thing over the last few weeks. Winter was here and it would be many months before we would see the sun again.

  If we saw the sun again.

  It was now only nine days until the end of the year and New Year’s Eve was the day the Oraculum had prophesied that the end of the world would come. I lived in hope that the Armageddon, the day of reckoning, would never come, that the Oraculum were wrong but there was a small part of me that wanted this to be over with now. The waiting was endless and we still had no idea how the end would come or how I could prepare for it.

  Eventually, when the clouds grew lighter indicating it was morning, I lifted my head from Seth’s chest and looked up at him. He smiled at me when he saw me awake, tracing a finger down my cheek.

  ‘Sorry, I fell asleep on you last night,’ I said, knowing that Seth had hoped for a bit more of a romantic evening than me just falling asleep in his arms.

  Seth smirked. ‘It’s OK, I’ll have plenty of time to have you to myself when this is all over. I’m quite looking forward to it actually.’

  I pulled a face. ‘You’re looking forward to the end of the world?’

  ‘I’m looking forward to after. Me, you, Quinn probably, on that tiny island for the rest of our lives.’

  The island Seth had bought me, bought us to live on after all this was done. It had been so long since I’d had time to go there that I’d almost forgotten what it looked like.

  I smiled wryly. ‘If we get through it.’

  ‘We will. You’re strong.’

  ‘Not strong enough for Cain though.’

  ‘You’ll do it today. I’m going to be at the castle today too. I know I’m not allowed to be part of the course because I’d obviously help you rather than fight you, but I can be there to cheer you on whenever you come back there. Also Cain has promised you three days off if you can complete the course today. I thought we could go back to our island for a few days.’

  That would be bliss. I was quite sure that facing the end of the world in this exhausted state wouldn’t be conducive to being able to save it. A few days off would be wonderful. There was a knock on the door and I sighed. Even a few hours with Seth without any interruptions would be heaven but I couldn’t even get that at the moment.

  With a renewed sense of determination, and an even bigger incentive, I got out of bed and opened the door. I sighed when I saw my Guardians and Quinn waiting for me. Cain’s strict wake-up call of six in the morning was clearly not to be argued with.

  ‘Give me five minutes.’ I closed the door and quickly got washed and changed.

  Quite honestly, I really didn’t think that maintaining the training anymore was going to help me. I was stronger and more powerful now than I’d ever been and though the training had helped me to use my powers much more efficiently and instinctively, whether I continued to train for the next few days or not was not going to make any difference. As much as the prospect of the end of the world scared me and the fear of whether I would be good enough was something I lived with every day, I knew I was as ready for it now as I would ever be.

  I stepped out into the corridor with Seth and smiled at my personal guard and Quinn. The outer guard, made up of Ethan, Thomas, Philip, Noah, Jacob, and Mason’s wife Rhesa, were there too as they were all part of the obstacle course that Cain had created for me. Trey was amongst them. Seth’s older half-brother had turned up at the fort about six months ago, much to Seth and Zach’s delight. They adored Trey and it was easy to see why. He was funny, highly skilled and fiercely loyal to me.

  There was also a few Guardlings as part of the course, Zach, Deacon and a few others were all there to try to stop me from succeeding. Zach grinned at me as he stood there waiting. He and Trey were so alike, always happy and smiling. Seth was much more serious, but then he bore the brunt of everything that was thrown at me, the death threats, my dreams and prophecies, the emotional rollercoaster that I had been through over the last year, he had suffered through it too. I just hoped that when all this was done with that Seth would find more things to smile about.

  I took hold of the bond of my Guardians and Quinn and slid. We landed at the deserted castle in Scotland, where we had hid from the Oraculum when they had ordered me dead. It seemed ironic that there were three of them waiting for me in the shadow of the castle.

  Matthias made a point of looking at his watch when we arrived, and sniffing his disapproval.

  ‘Right Eve, you have exactly an hour to complete the course…’ Cain started but he stopped when he saw me sigh. I knew the drill.

  ‘We need to make sure things don’t go wrong like it did yesterday,’ Seth said.

  Leon frowned. Cain hadn’t told them.

  ‘What happened yesterday?’ Matthias asked, his gruff manner, suddenly replaced with something that sounded like concern.

  ‘She nearly died,’ muttered Isaac, angrily.

  ‘It was one of your meteorites Matthias, well at least I hope it was one of yours or we had a serious Armageddon moment. It hit a barbed wire fence and the wire ricocheted back and cut me a bit,’ I explai
ned.

  ‘A bit,’ muttered Isaac. ‘It nearly cut you in half.’

  Seth growled.

  ‘What the hell? You never said anything,’ Quinn looked at me accusingly before turning his attention on Matthias.

  ‘Hey don’t look at me,’ Matthias protested. ‘I just make the damn things and throw them, I don’t control them once I throw them, that’s the whole point of the challenge, for Eve to throw them off.’

  ‘Well maybe it should be a bit more controlled,’ Leon said, quietly.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said, not having it in me to argue.

  ‘I’ll take more care, I promise,’ Matthias said.

  ‘OK, Matthias and I will take the rest of your Guardians to their positions. Give us a minute,’ Leon said.

  Cain nodded and as the Guardians and Quinn shuffled forward to take hold of them, they all vanished leaving only Seth and Cain behind.

  ‘How’s Persia?’ Cain asked.

  I looked down at my feet and Seth squeezed my hand. ‘OK, I guess. As well as she can be.’

  Persia’s dad had died three weeks before. But it wasn’t the Putarians or the Reapers, it was a massive heart attack. He’d died in his sleep. When Persia’s mum woke in the morning, he was already stone cold. The Zeki that rushed to help said he’d been dead for hours, and that there was nothing she could do.

  I couldn’t help wonder if I had been called instead of the nearby Zeki, would it have been possible to save him. But dead was dead, even I couldn’t change that.

  ‘You couldn’t have done anything Eve, you know that,’ Cain said, reading my exact thoughts from my head. ‘With a heart attack that severe, it would have been over very quickly. And some things are beyond the powers of the most skilled Zekis.’

  The worst thing was, Persia didn’t tell me. For two days Persia and Izri stood by me, helping me with my training, as they had pledged to do all those months before. Izri, especially, had been adamant that their personal lives had got too much in the way of my protection and training before and that it would never be the case again. So they grieved in private and I was none the wiser.

  It was Lucas who told me. When Persia had snapped at me one day over something trivial, then stormed off and Izri had gone after her, he’d explained. He said he thought I should know and that also he thought it would be best if the girls went home for a few days.

  I had been horrified that they had never told me. Persia was my best friend and she hadn’t said anything. After much tears and discussion, I had taken them home. I wanted to stay with them, but my entourage kind of got in the way of the family’s grief. I felt guilty that me leaving was probably better for Persia, it kind of felt like I was abandoning her. I wanted Lucas to stay with them, but he wouldn’t. I came first as far as he was concerned and I felt horribly guilty for that too.

  It had been three weeks now, and though I had spoken to Persia and Izri, neither of them had mentioned coming back.

  ‘The others don’t want you to know, in case it makes you lose focus but Sebastian is dead,’ Cain said, announcing it so calmly that it didn’t register for the first few moments. There was no preamble with Cain. There was no soft approach to a difficult subject, he always just came straight out with whatever he wanted to say.

  ‘No!’ I stared at him in shock. ‘You said he was still alive.’

  ‘His signal went out shortly after we spoke last night. His body was found outside the Oraculum’s castle this morning.’

  I felt sick. I had seen it, I should have done something to prevent it.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault Eve, there was nothing any of us could do. No one knew where Sebastian was or how to reach him.’

  I stared at the sun glinting off the lake surrounding the castle. This shouldn’t have happened. I wasn’t sure why I felt sad for his death, he had been one of the Oraculum that had voted to kill me. But he had also been the one that had stood between Adam and me when Adam had threatened to kill me himself. There had been so much death surrounding me and I hated that another had died probably because of his association with me, regardless where his loyalty lay.

  ‘Was it Adam?’

  Cain nodded. ‘It seems that way. It happened just as you had foreseen.’

  I shuddered knowing Sebastian had met a violent death. He had wanted no part of my training or anything to do with the Oraculum. He had hidden himself away, refusing contact from anyone, though Adam had clearly found him.

  ‘You should also know that…’ Cain paused before he spoke. ‘Nathaniel believes that it was you that killed him.’

  Seth stepped forward to defend me but I held him back.

  ‘What?’ I had never heard anything so ludicrous in my life. Nathaniel had never been a big fan of mine and it wouldn’t be the first time he had tried to discredit me, but to believe that I would be idly knocking off members of the Oraculum for no reason was absurd.

  ‘Do you have any knowledge about our plans for after the world is saved?’ Cain asked.

  ‘You have plans?’ What possible plans could they have for me? ‘And what has that got to do with Nathaniel and why he thinks I murdered Sebastian?’

  ‘I don’t think you would like the plans very much. He thinks you are trying to stop them.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me what these plans are?’

  ‘Not yet. You have the world to save and I need you to concentrate on that over anything else. It’s nothing you need to worry about.’

  There was so much that they weren’t telling me, these plans were just a small part. I didn’t really trust any of them but it seemed that they didn’t trust me either.

  ‘Do you believe that I killed Sebastian?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘No and neither do any of the others. Although Nathaniel is still being kept informed about any developments and your training, I have forbidden him from coming anywhere near you. You do not need to worry about him.’

  ‘With Sebastian dead, it means the protective seal around her is weakened,’ Seth said, clearly more bothered about this than anything else. He didn’t like the Oraculum, especially not those that had voted to kill me. If Seth had his way we’d have nothing more to do with them. But the protective seal was the one thing that Sebastian had done for me before he had vanished without trace. He’d had a prophecy that Adam would try to kill me before the end of the world, presumably so Adam could try to take the glory for himself. After Adam had kidnapped and tortured me earlier that year, the Oraculum had wanted to ensure that it didn’t happen again. It had been Sebastian’s idea that they each put some kind of protective seal around me so Adam couldn’t find me. Each of them was responsible for maintaining their own layer of protection and Sebastian was a part of that. Now that he was dead, the protective seal would be weakened, though I could find no fear in that. There were many that wanted me dead and with only nine days until the end of the world, I could only hope that my Guardians and the remaining members of the Oraculum would ensure that I made it in one piece. There was still five Oraculum members alive, five layers of protection stopping Adam from finding me, though if he came for me, I would be ready.

  ‘We will be vigilant Seth. He won’t get to her, I can assure you of that,’ Cain said.

  ‘I am sorry about Sebastian,’ I said. ‘I know things have not exactly been friendly between the members of the Oraculum for many years but you were close for hundreds of years before I came along and the prophecies interfered with all of that.’

  ‘It is sad,’ Cain said, though his face belied his words. For him there were more important things at stake than the death of one of his former friends and I felt a little sad about that. Sebastian was dead and there was no one that would grieve over it. ‘Everything is changing, but considering the plans we put in motion many years ago for what would happen after the end of the world, I firmly believe his death to be for the best.’

  I stared at him in shock. What did that mean? How could Sebastian’s death be for the best? Why would he say tha
t? These plans suddenly sounded a lot more foreboding than before. I swallowed uneasily

  ‘For now we must continue your training.’ Cain said, ignoring the worrying thoughts that he no doubt could hear in my head. ‘Everyone is ready.’

  I glanced again at Cain and as he didn’t seem concerned about the plans and clearly had no intention of telling me about them yet I decided to push Adam and Sebastian to the back of my mind for now, determined to complete this course for once.

  Seth gave me a kiss on the head for luck and I slid to the first location, a raging river swollen with the rain and snow of winter. The river fell at such speed over the rocks that the resulting roar was loud and deafening. I reached out a hand freezing the water within a matter of seconds. I crept out onto the ice, hoping that I had frozen it enough to hold my weight and snatched the flag from the overhanging branch and slid to the next location, landing in a long dark cave. I knew Matthias would be lurking in the shadows, making sure I didn’t cheat.

  I sprinted through the narrow crack, the rocks grazing my shoulders painfully as I ran. Ahead was sheer darkness and also a steep ravine. I created a fireball as I ran and threw it forward, lighting my way like a flare. The edges of the ravine shimmered in the light of the fireball and I veered left, scooting quickly along a narrow ledge. The light disappeared behind me leaving only a thick gloom up ahead. I slowed, marginally knowing there was a wall in front of me, and as I put my hand out I hit it.

  Using my telekinesis I imagined the flag flying into my hand. It was harder to do this without seeing the object I was trying to move first, but I knew it was nearby. And my new strength meant I could call the flag to me from the entrance of the cave if I wanted though that was cheating apparently. As soon as it was in my fingers, I slid, landing on top of a snowy mountain.

  The wind howled around me, whipping ice into my eyes so I couldn’t see. Something hard slammed into me, throwing me on to the floor. I leapt up, before my attacker could follow through and lashed out with a brutal kick, catching the Guardian hard in the stomach. It looked like Ethan, though he was only a shadow in the snow, as he doubled over in pain.