"Uhm, Magnus? What's the plan?" Joshua asked. His voice was steady, but I noticed his grip tightening on the wheel.
Outside a squad of heavily armed security were making their way towards the vehicle.
"You need to get out here, Catherine," I announced.
She turned back to me, her face pale in the blue glow of the dashboard. "And what about you and your brother?"
"We'll get in," I said, leaning back into the leather. "And if we don't… well, I've been to enough parties to last a dozen lifetimes. One more gala won't kill me."
The guards were ten feet away.
"Out. Now," I ordered.
Catherine took one last lingering look at Joshua,who had the audacity to wink at her,before she stepped out into the floodlights. I rolled down my window by an inch.
"If we do make it in, Catherine," I said, watching her through the gap, "you'll know us when you see us."
I didn't wait for her to nod. I rolled the window up.
We sat in the silence of the Fenris and watched. Muffled conversation drifted through the glass as the guards grilled her about the vehicle. One man,built like a heavyweight roman wrestler with a jagged scar across his cheek,stared at the car longer than the others. Probably wondering why such an expensive car was used as an Uber.
I reckoned that was Catherine's cover up.
"Take us back down," I ordered.
Joshua let out a massive sigh, his shoulders sagging with relief. "For a moment there, I actually thought you were serious with all that 'getting inside' talk. Glad to see you've still got a grain of sense left."
I shot him a look that would have turned a fully grown mammoth into a museum exhibit. The idiot was the reason we were here in the first place.
"We are getting in, Josh," I said as we made a sharp U-turn, tires screaming against the asphalt. "Just not through the front door like commoners."
Joshua groaned, the realization hitting him. "Oh, no. Not the 'Sterling Way.' My suit is Italian silk, Magnus! Do you have any idea what mountain mist does to silk?"
"Drive the car, Joshua." I replied.
Two minutes later, we were at the base of the peak. Above us, the Altican dome loomed like a fallen moon.
"Reminds me of the old days," Joshua said, stepping out of the Fenris. He rolled his neck until it popped, then started jogging on the spot, before rounding up with a few jumping jacks.
"You're going to ruin the suit," I observed, leaning against the cold hood of the car.
"Please," he huffed, stretching his arms behind his head. "I'm just checking if the tailoring is stress worthy. A divine being like myself can't just look good. He needs to be able to fuck people over without a tear to his suit." The idiot sounded just like his father.
I rolled my eyes, my jaw clenched, and checked my watch. We had exactly two minutes until the debut began. In my head another clock ran ominously, inching towards a fate I could not yet understand.
I looked up to dome above us and shifted my vision, my pupils narrowing and my sight increasing my a thousand times. I could see the seams in the opaque glass, the geology of the artificial mountain, and the air vents protruding from the rock like iron lungs. I scammed from one end to another, check-in for a route within, but there were none that were logical.
The vents were out of the question; they were exhaust only, pushing out high pressure heat. That left the main gate.
heavily fortified steel and a jungle of cameras with a sprinkle of men who looked like they were paid to die for their employer.
"Heavily guarded," Joshua muttered, following my gaze. "For humans, anyway."
"We're going through the front door," I said.
Joshua stopped his mid-air stretch, a slow, dangerous grin spreading across his face.
"Eh what happened to not going through the front like commoners?" Joshua asked, his hands resting on his waist.
Instead of answering his question I turned to him and asked the question that had been on my mind. "Why'd you tell her who we were?"
"Tell who? Catherine?" Joshua's brows furrowed in confusion.
"No Jasmine." I retorted, taking an angry step towards him. "You know damn well who I'm talking about."
"Easy, easy." Joshua said taking a step backward, his hands up in mock surrender. "I didn't say anything to her. I'm not stupid."
"Then how'd she find out?"
He sighed and dug his hand into his pockets and produced his phone. Seconds later he flipped it and turned to the screen to me. Am article with pictures of me and family standing Infront of a our Sterling Co headquarters shined before my eyes.
"Shit!" I cursed, bringing my hands up to my head, pacing back and forth.
"It doesn't necessarily ruin things brother."
"Really? Well I don't even know the plan well enough to know when things are ruined?" I complained.
"Ehh, well it was just supposed to be a casual introduction between the both of you. How the hell was i supposed to know it would lead this far?" Joshua grumbled.
Well, he was right. I couldn't blame him, or father completely. It was their fault in a way, setting me up for this marriage without even a hint on why I was doing this. Then there was the part about her appearing in my visions.
I scoffed. Father still believed I was being paranoid ehh? Well fuck him. I was going to go in there, and find out more of what I could from Layla. As for the guard well....they were only mortal afterall.
"So are we going in or not?" Joshua asked.
"We're atomising." I announced to my brother. Joshua's face fell and his eyes clouded with apprehension.
"Eh, I don't think the debuts that important." He announced and turned to retreat into the car but he was a tad too slow.
I forced my will, he struggled for a bit, but he was no match for me. Our bodies began to fall apart, breaking off like dust from old furniture. Soon there was nothing of us left where we had stood.
Instead, we were moved with a gale of wind, one I had summoned. We drifted upward the domed manor.
Below us, the Bawangun forest stirred in the night wind, branches swaying in the night breeze. Above, the stars shined bright and clean, untouched by New York's light pollution, the way they had looked centuries ago, and just beneath us lay the dome, reflecting the entire universe like a dark mirror.
I had to say it. If the dome looked pretty from below, it was heavenly from above. Entire constellations shone of its polished surface. A celestial pearl magnificent in an ocean of green.
We passed over the front gate in silence, probably leaving a trail of frostbite on the guards' skin as we went.
If the outside of the dome was beautiful, the inside could only be described as otherworldly. A brickwork Elizabethan castle rose straight up to meet the sky, its towers and battlements sharp against the curved ceiling, the dome itself completely invisible from the inside, just a faint shimmer high above.
The asphalt road had vanished. In its place lay old, worn brick, flanked on both sides by black iron oil-lampposts that flickered with real flame.
For a moment it felt like stepping centuries back. The past breathing again.
The only reminder of the present was the line of gleaming, expensive cars that stretched along the driveway, their polished surfaces catching the lamplight.
A line of people in expensive tuxedos and beautiful gowns stood in a line in front of the main doors. Two twelve foot slabs of curved wood.
We came to a stop in front of a beautiful car, our bodies taking form from the wind. Joshua stood next to me, his tousled hair extra tousled and his face unnaturally red.
"Let's never do that again," he said between gasps, bending forward with his hands on his knees. I couldn't blame him. Atomisation was a risky trick. Lose an ounce of focus and you reform without an arm or an eye. Plus it was even harder focusing with your brother fighting against your will.
A loud bell rang out through the evening air. The debut was beginning.
"Quick, Joshua,they're starting." I hurried toward the long line of masked figures. And then I remembered.
Masks.
I quickly shaped one from ice so dense it looked and felt like a crystal. It had jagged edges and an uneven surface. An ice mask in the true sense of it.
I turned to see Joshua already styling a frozen clown mask. I stared at him for half a second and then decided he wasn't worth it.
"I'm not even going to ask."
"What?" Joshua complained. "It's a nice mask. Plus it serves a deeper purpose. All hail the fo..."
But at that moment, another thread in this mystery unfolded. Another angle to the Countdown blazed into my head. Joshua's voice faded, as my mind blazed with pain.
For the first time since Layla left, the countdown screamed.
SIXTEEN DAYS, TWENTY TWO HOURS, SEVEN MINUTES AND FOURTY SECONDS.
At the back of it a voice thick with age and malice laughed. A voice I had heard before. The voice from my nightmares.
Welcome, Frost God.
And I was forced into another vision