Page 91 of Ruby Red Sky

Suddenly, everything went dark under the Realm’s instantaneous nightfall and a cold breeze swept down the sidewalk.

“Oh shit, what the hell is happening?” Selena turned in a circle, a blade appearing in her hand.

The guards moved even closer but still kept the expected physical distance. “Back to the castle,” the taller man ordered.

A couple of people started running down the sidewalk, one holding a newspaper over his head as if it were about to rain. Someone bumped into my shoulder, shoving me into my friend.

“What is going on?” I asked her, smoothing the spot on her arm where I hit her.

The wind picked up and I looked at the sky. Amazingly, there were two moons. The silver orbs were full and luminous; their craters and mountains drawn in sharp relief. Despite the rising chaos around us, I knew I would one day paint them.

Selena took my hand. “I don’t know but we need to go. This isn’t right, it's never cold here.”

I’d truly thought it was just summertime. “No? Oh man, I guess... what do we do?”

I swiveled my head back and forth, eyeing our guards. One of them took out a cellphone and my head jerked in surprise. “Those work here?” I asked Selena.

“Sometimes,” she replied, grabbing my hand. “Let’s just go now.”

We were locked into the crowd, bodies streaming past us, everyone’s voices tense and loud. One of our guards motioned to us with his hand. It felt like we were trying to swim upstream against a raging river. There was no rhyme or reason for the flow of traffic, with everyone heading in different directions.

The noise fell when nothing else happened. The cold breeze remained, and heavy clouds still darkened the skies, periodically blocking the moons, but there was no progression. The atmosphere was stretched tight with the weight of an impending storm, edging us the way a tornado warning would. Nobody knew what to do, nobody knew what would happen. All anyone could think of doing was seeking shelter.

My hand had a vice grip on Selena’s as we were led down a narrow corridor between two buildings. We dashed across the road to the other side, winding our way between people and carts, all the way to a door tucked in an alcove.

“Oh lord,” Selena groaned. “Ugh.” She glanced at me. “Just stay close to the wall when we get in there.”

The door was opened and one of the men went first and then he beckoned us inside. “Oliver will go first and Sven will be behind you,” my friend declared.

“Okay,” I agreed, not really understanding what I was committing to. Everything was nearly black around us, now, and it got darker the moment we were closed inside.

A torch was lit, and the flames wavered over a second wooden door with roughhewn boards and a black iron latch. Oliver pulled it open and deftly tossed the torch over our heads for Sven to catch before producing a second one.

A steep staircase was in front of us, where it led to—a mystery. I couldn’t see the bottom. A freezing cold wind washed over us like a blizzard as we began our descent. My muscles seized, screaming at the unwanted chill while my skin felt like it was trying to hug my bones for extra warmth. My breath puffed in a white mist that instantly turned into something like snow, dusting my shoulder when I turned my head.

Selena’s teeth chattered loudly, and her eyes softened when she looked at me. “Give it a minute and you’ll acclimate a little bit,” she tried to reassure me. I could barely make out her words.

I clung to the handrailing and carefully followed Oliver and her. More torches sprang into life, lighting our way, and soon we reached the bottom.

“Stay to the left, miss,” Sven directed me, gesturing for me to step closer to safety.

To the right, all I could see was a wall of black. After we shuffled forward and my eyes adjusted, I was able to start to make out some kind of ledge alongside us. The floor wasn’t smooth and the soles of my shoes weren’t designed for hiking. I felt every bump and lump of the stone and couldn’t see past the dark to figure out what was beside us. It took everything in me to stay upright and in place.

The pull of the abyss was too strong. My gaze kept tracking to the side, as if I could penetrate the deep nothingness and see what lay behind it.

I wanted to.

Sven grabbed me suddenly, pulling me back in line. “Don’t—there’s nothing there. I mean that in the most literal sense.”

My hand brushed the side of my upper arm, wiping the foreign, masculine touch away. Sven’s words only managed to pique my interest further. “What do you mean? It's just like empty space?”

Selena tugged on me and I started walking again. “There might be water way down there somewhere, nobody really knows. We just know to stay away,” she told me.

“Okay,” I muttered, giving the void another glance.

“It does that to everybody, you just have to ignore it. Block it from your brain.”

She knew it was deeply affecting me. She said to shut it out, so I tried to think of anything other than the alluring hole in the ground. All that did was make me think of it more.