The enormous weight on his shoulders was slowly destroying him. Every last fiber of his being was focused on somehow pulling together enough strength to stand the intense pain coursing through every muscle in his body. Diago was aware that if he didn’t hold on until Vyns got back, Lyam would die right then and there. As his back gave way just a little more—only a fraction of an inch—the thought that he wouldn’t make it out of there ran through Diago’s mind. He was exhausted, but he pushed from his mind the vehement protests coming from his aching muscles for putting them through such punishment. If he couldn’t make it, if he succumbed, at least he would know he’d given every last ounce of effort he had left in him. Letting a comrade die was not an option.

  He didn’t remember the last time a situation had forced him to choose between his life and the life of someone under his command. They’d spent an eternity in peaceful times, with no conflicts of any kind, and he’d thought this mission was a simple one. Never before had a task associated with the Minors caused him the least bit of trouble. But a devastating and embarrassing failure was threatening to mar his reputation and his honor.

  A crunching sound resounded off the damp walls and Diago’s back dropped a little more. Dying in a sewer in London while chasing a Minor seemed like the most humiliating ending to which he could aspire.. His spirit revolted against a destiny so lacking in dignity, and he let out an inhuman scream that roared through the tunnels and drained even more of his last stores of energy. His arms hurt more than any other part of his body; it was as if they were being crushed. In a couple of minutes—max—his strength would be completely sapped.

  Vyns recognized the scream and shuddered. Diago was in trouble. He put the body he was carrying down on the ground and raced through the tunnel. He kept running as he jumped and dodged the piles of waste and trash that filled London’s sewers. He finally got to the end of the passageway and turned left. He kept moving until he crossed under a small stone arch and came to the place where he found his companions.

  Piles of debris were scattered about the muddy floor. The wall opposite the entrance that Vyns had come through was fifteen feet long. Diago was positioned with the upper part of the wall against his back and was leaning forward at a forty-five degree angle under the weight of several tons of earth and stone. His strength was the only reason the wall hadn’t given way. He had one knee on the floor, his arms extending straight out to the sides, his body supporting the entire weight of the collapsing wall. Drops of blood dripped from his fists and Vyns saw two small red puddles below each arm. Diago’s thin face showed the tremendous strain; sweat was running down his forehead and face and into his beard, then continuing down his neck and soaking into his clothes. Someone was lying unconscious at his feet. Vyns recognized Lyam by his white and blue jacket. He knew immediately that Diago couldn’t last much longer.

  He went over to them and bent down, ready to hold up the wall so they could escape.

  “No,” whispered Diago. “Lyam first . . . I can hold it.”

  Vyns did not hesitate. He put Lyam on his shoulders and carried him out to the stone arch he’d gone under when he’d come in. Diago was his superior and he should obey his orders, but that wasn’t the reason for his obedience. Despite the fact that he didn’t especially like Diago and, in his opinion, a Guardian shouldn’t be posted outside the Nest, Vyns had never had a reason to question his decisions. So he put Lyam in a safe place and rushed back to Diago.

  “Your turn,” said Vyns, leaning his shoulder against the wall. “I’ll hold up the wall until you get out of here, and after you cross under the arch I’ll let it come down. Can you make it over there?”

  A slight movement of Diago’s eyes was the only response he could offer, but it was enough for Vyns to understand.

  “Let’s get out of here!”

  Vyns took over the support of the wall and managed to lift it a quarter of an inch. Diago fell flat on his face as soon as the weight was off him. Knowing they were still in danger, he started crawling toward the exit without looking back. He collapsed next to Lyam, then turned his head and nodded to his comrade, still unable to speak. Vyns jumped away from the wall, which immediately began to cave in. He ran toward his companions and made it to them in the exact moment the first stone smashed into the floor. Tons of rubble, brick, and rocks crashed down, raising a thick cloud of dust. When the avalanche ended, Diago and Vyns and were surprised to see the back end of a green military truck and a massive silver cannon protruding from the rubble.

  “Are the Minors at war?” asked Diago, staring at the cannon.

  “I don’t think so,” answered Vyns, who knew much more about them given his rank as an Observer. “It was a convoy of three trucks that was at the entrance to London. I saw it when we were getting close to Raven. They came from the North, but unless things have really changed, they’re not at war again. Considering their nature, though, it wouldn’t surprise me. How are you doing?” he asked, abruptly changing the subject.

  “I’ll be okay,” responded Diago. “I just need some time. Where is Edmon?”

  A pained expression flashed across Vyns’s face. He shook his head, his eyes lowered.

  “That can’t be! What happened? Did Raven kill him?”

  “You should have let me strangle that pig when I had the chance next to the river.” Vyns voice was infused with both rage and pain. “I left Edmon’s body behind when I heard your scream.”

  “And Raven? Did he escape?”

  “The Minors have him. One of their leaders . . . I can’t remember his name . . . Gordon, I think . . . Gordon saw Edmon from up above before I could get him out of there. I doubted if I could pick up Raven, too, before they got down there to get him, and then I realized Edmon was dead . . .”

  Diago felt the agony behind those words as an echo of his own pain. It was hard to accept that Edmon was dead. He’d known him for only five years when he’d taken over the command of the group charged with capturing Raven. Edmon had been the only one to accept him with no grudges, and he’d liked him from the very beginning.

  With Vyns it had been just the opposite. The first order Diago had given after arriving was to give up searching for Wyn. Confrontation with Vyns was inevitable; he felt something special for her, so resigning himself to stop searching for her was harder than anyone could ever have imagined. Wyn had disappeared shortly before the Wave, and Vyn’s group had been on a mission to find her. But that was before the Council made capturing Raven the priority.

  “How is it possible that a Minor killed Edmon?” pondered Diago, thinking out loud. “There’s no precedent for something like that.”

  “Raven isn’t like the other Minors.” Vyns stood up and began pacing. “There’s a reason why they’ve ordered us to catch him. The Council must know what makes him special; if not, they wouldn’t have us chasing him. They should have warned us! Plenty of orders but no explanations . . . But, then again maybe you knew something . . . Did you tell us everything?”

  “Watch yourself,” Diago warned him. He was aware of the close relationship between Vyns and Edmon, but he was not about to tolerate insubordination. “I’m going to assume it’s your grief speaking and not your mind. You know as much as I do about Raven. Too much confidence on our part might be part of the explanation. We weren’t expecting that a Minor, not even Raven, could kill one of us.”

  “Edmon made no mistakes. And he was the strongest of us all.”

  “We all made mistakes, including you. Where were you when Lyam was knocked out? Your assignment was to take care of the group’s Healer. Now he can’t heal me, and we’ll never know if he could have cured Edmon.”

  Vyns kept quiet but tightened his fists to the point his knuckles turned white as he tried to control his outrage. Diago hadn’t wasted any time pointing out his mistake and making him feel guilty. He hated him with a vengeance, but not because of the accusation. He hated him because, down deep, he knew he was right.

  “It’s been too long since we were involved in a combat situation,” added Diago. “It’s been many millennia since the only war in our history and we all let ourselves forget what we learned from it. We can never leave the Healer unprotected. Our worst mistake was not considering Raven as a true threat.”

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  Vyns hated him even more for his sudden magnanimity. It wasn’t enough to rub his face in his mistake, he also had to show he could be generously understanding. Somewhere inside himself, a small voice was telling him Diago was right and was only trying to help him, but his rage was too powerful. He choked back his words and remained silent for a moment.

  “I’ll go get Edmon’s body so we can get out of here,” Vyns finally said, controlling his tone. “I’ll take care of him and Lyam.” Without waiting for confirmation, he turned and went off.

  Diago rubbed his aching legs with his hands. Without the help of the Healer, he would not completely recover without resting. The leather of his long jacket was torn near the shoulder from having supported the wall for so long, and his brown, short hair that normally was combed back was now falling in tangles over his forehead. He lifted his head and shook it, but his hair was stuck to the sweat on his forehead. His thin face was flushed and still frozen into a look of rage that accentuated his crooked nose even more.

  When Vyns came back with Edmon’s body, Diago gazed at them with the realization that their friendship wasn’t the only thing that tied them together; they looked so much alike they could have passed for twins. Their blond hair and curved eyelashes were the two traits the contributed most to their similarities. They’d spent their whole lives together. And they’d always had the same rank and the same duty assignments. Rumor had it that Edmon had even turned down a promotion to stay by his lifelong friend’s side.

  “That took you a long time. Did something happen?”

  “I couldn’t find Edmon’s weapon,” explained Vyns.

  “We can’t look for it. We have to go.”

  Diago stood up. Vyns picked up Lyam and put him over his other shoulder. They went into a tunnel toward London, walking in silence. Small streams of waste flowed through the underground labyrinth that made up the city’s sewer system. Humidity hung in the air, which only served to magnify the stench. They came out into the subway systems where several homeless people warmed themselves around small fires, and just beyond them they took the exit for Crystal Palace, near the heart of London.

  In a little less than a half hour they arrived at two Victorian buildings that had contained one of the best schools in London until the Wave put an end to all educational activity. They went into the building that had housed the classrooms and offices. It was partially in ruins, and the snow accumulating on its facade supplied the inside with constant dripping water. The walls of the classrooms they passed through were flaking away, and old school supplies were scattered all over the floors. When they got to the basement, Diago drew a rune on one of the walls with his forefinger. The moment the symbol was complete, a section of the wall drew back and slid silently to one side.

  “I’ll put Lyam in his room and then I’ll get Edmon’s body ready for transfer,” announced Vyns.

  Diago nodded absently and went off to rest. He fell onto his bed and crossed his hands over his stomach. A warm, soft light emanated from them, wrapping around his body for several seconds before going out. Diago fell into a deep sleep.

  He woke up the next day, completely recovered. Four candles in the corners of his room lit with a wave of his hand. Diago left his room, allowing the silence to envelop him. He walked along without making a sound, aware of the significance of the absence of sound around him . . . they were in mourning. He entered a circular stone room with a vaulted ceiling. Five black pillars were spaced evenly around the perimeter of the empty room. The pillars were attached to the wall and rose up slightly more than three feet off the floor, encircling the center of the empty room. Resting two inches off the floor at the opposite side of the room was a rectangular crystal urn. Inside it rested Edmon’s remains. Sorrow hung in the room like a thick, heavy fog.

  Diago walked toward Vyns, who was kneeling in front of the urn, and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “I could have kept this from happening,” lamented Vyns, turning toward his superior. No sign of tears remained on his face and his eyes were neither red nor swollen. His grief was internal and profound, a grief none of them had felt for a very long time and which, from the beginning of their history, they believed they would never feel again. It was the kind of suffering that only an immortal can endure. “I had his neck in my hands . . . one simple move and Raven would have died. One simple move and Edmon would still be with me.”

  “We are not masters of life and death,” replied Diago. “We cannot know when our time will come. Remember that, during our first centuries, we didn’t even think we could die. We were so accustomed to immortality that the certainty of being destined to share all eternity blinded us to other possibilities.”

  “That was too long ago,” said Vyns, unmoved by the history lesson. “And now we’ve discovered our mistake in the most difficult way imaginable. This was a cruel lesson to have to learn. A human has never before killed one of us; he shouldn’t even have been able to hurt us.”

  Diago agreed, at least in part. In the first battle of the only war that had ever stained their history, their people saw the most unusual and incredible of all sights: a dead body. Death was an inevitable outcome for mortals, a necessary step in their existence, but they had wrongly assumed that death was never going to touch them. Yet it had happened. Their brothers died, and the pain associated with death of one of their own was, from that moment on, a inexorable part of their feelings and experiences.

  The manner in which death had become a reality in their lives had been as shocking to them as it had been to see the lifeless remains of an immortal for the first time. Their people had only known peace. But then the unimaginable had happened, and it had been a thousand times worse than war; it was civil war. Many of their companions, friends, and brothers and sisters had died at the hands of their brothers. No other event, not even the Wave, had changed the course of their history as much as that conflict. It had created a “before” and an “after.” And another horrible concept that had been previously nonexistent in their culture came to life in the same instant: that of the enemy.

  “We’ll get Raven,” promised Diago. “You can be sure of that.”

  “I know.” Vyns stood up and looked at his superior. His eyes burned with fury. “But this time I won’t make the same mistake. When I come up against that bastard again . . .” Vyns clenched his jaw and a vein pulsed on his temple. “I’ll kill him.”

  “No, you won’t.” Diago didn’t like having to impose his authority in this moment of mourning, but he didn’t have a choice, especially since he knew Vyns was more than capable of following through on his threat. “Our orders are very clear; we must capture him alive.”

  “I suppose you’re referring to the orders from the Council,” hissed Vyns, a tone of insubordination in his voice. “The same Council that has never stepped foot in this dimension. They don’t know what’s going on here, or what Raven’s capable of. They should come see for themselves.” A glimmer appeared in Vyns’s eyes, and Diago couldn’t tell if it was rage or anger. “I’ve spent three thousand years among the Minors and I assure you there is no precedent for what we’ve seen lately.”

  It was true that the Council had never left the Nest, and Diago doubted if they ever would, or at least that the three Justices would. They were perfectly well-informed and their direct presence on this plane was not necessary. Since the Elder had disappeared, the Council had had to assume responsibility of the government. It was the logical solution, and the right one, in Diago’s opinion. The three High Counselors, known as the Justices, were the wisest of their people so he didn’t care much for the tone Vyns had used when he’d spoken of them.

  “Don’t you dare question the Council. Their wisdom is greater than ours. I represent their authority and you will comply with their orders.”

  Vyns was quiet for a moment. He seemed to be considering the advisability of pushing the discussion any further.

  “And if it’s to save my life?” Vyns pressed on defiantly. Direct confrontation with a superior wouldn’t lead anywhere, but indirect confrontation might get results. At least he’d find out just how important Raven’s life was. “Should I let the Minor kill me too because the Council wants him alive?”

  “We’ll make sure that scenario never comes to pass.” The discussion was beginning to try Diago’s patience. “You know that if it came to a life-or-death situation, no one would fault you. But just be sure that it’s the preservation of your life you’re after and not a matter of vengeance, or you’ll regret it. If we focus our efforts on carrying out the will of the Council, nothing like that will happen.”

  “Who knows? Maybe you’re right. But you haven’t been on this plane long. You don’t know the Minors like I do. Wait a few centuries. The stench of this world will leave a deeper mark on you than you think, and the same goes for their disturbing light. The shadows in this place will get to you, too.”

  There was no question that Diago’s five years of experience on Earth was nothing compared with what Vyns had acquired after spending more than a millennium there. He wondered if he would be thinking the same things if he’d spent that much time on this plane. It wasn’t a place that could be compared to the Nest. Its light was indeed different, but the shadows didn’t bother him. For him, the sounds were more bothersome, with too broad a spectrum for his tastes. It came as no surprise that mortals could only catch a tiny fraction of the huge variety of sound waves that swept over their world. With such short lives, they wouldn’t have time to do anything besides listen. But it was the different scents that he liked most about the place. Diago was greatly interested in the almost infinite number of nuances that he was discovering in their smells.

  And now he was now faced with a task that he didn’t like at all. He would have to inform the Council about their progress, or rather, their lack of it. He decided he’d had enough of Vyns’s complaining for the time being.

  “I think you understand your duties,” he said firmly. “I have things to do. Make sure Lyam is all right.”

  “He’s recovering. A few more hours and he’ll be as good as new. I’ll go see him.”

  As soon as Vyns left the room, Diago began to put his thoughts in order. Informing the Council was his priority now. The hardest part would be telling them about Edmon dying at the hands of a Minor. He was about to begin when fog began to form in the middle of the room. Someone was coming. Diago stepped back and waited expectantly.

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