Seconds to Midnight: A Maiden of Midnight Prequel

Destiny- Day Twenty-One

Cain shook me awake on the final day.

Doomsday. D-Day. The end of the world. Whatever you wanted to call it, it sucked.

I sat up in my cot, groaning and pushing my hair back, grumbling, “What time is it?”

“Dawn,” he answered with a groan of his own, stretching his back. I heard the bones cracking satisfyingly before he checked the watch on his wrist, “According to our sources, we have until the end of the day to get out of here.” It wasn’t going to be a care-free day, that was for sure. Even at the end of the world, the Manor kept ticking. We were clockwork. Endless.

There were still plenty more prisoners to take care of, and more people to process through. The Manor had forbidden anymore humans. None of them were surviving going through the Divider.

I hadn’t been through the Divider myself yet, making me wonder if I would simply drop dead after stepping through. I was afraid of the thought. And what of Cain? His father had been human! What if my cousin died?

Cain was holding a clipboard- the next list of Super-Naturals that the Manor had granted entry into Korath. My eyes flicked over the dozen or so pages. In his other hand was a list of people who had applied for entry, and needed to be sorted. Some would make it through, a lucky handful that the Manor decided would be useful with or without their alliances, while most would be sent to the dungeons. The ‘processing rooms’ I called them, just to take off some of the fear that I was growing accustomed to smelling day in, day out.

“Do you want the happy job, or the sad job? I’m sorry to tell you that they’ll both require the same amount of effort on your part,” Cain teased, lifting both clipboards, enunciating his words with a smile, and then a frown. How did the Manor expect us to get this much work done before the end of the day, and still get out with our own lives? Zeella hadn’t even given me enough spare time to pack my bags for when we did run!

Snatching the clipboard of approved people from his hands, I muttered, “I don’t appreciate your sass.” Cain was already striding away, eager not to waste a single second in this tent, but I heard him call over his shoulder, “Pot. Kettle. Black.”

Entering the processing rooms was always the worst part. The shift from cold, crisp air to stale, stagnant air that was heavy with the reek of piss and the depths of Hell knew what else always hit me the hardest, followed by the wave of emotions. Down here, they were safe from most of the explosions, unless we got unlucky enough to have one drop right on our heads. The wards carved into the stones protected them from radiation, although some of them were beginning to fail. We were running low on those wards, and because of it, people were beginning to die. The stench of their bodies made me wrinkle my nose. The Manor had said nothing about burying bodies.

The living cried out, their hands slipping through the bars, desperately clinging to my clothes as I walked by. Their begging was weak and mewling. Pathetic.

I ripped the fabric from their grasping hands, reading over the clipboard. The names were unfamiliar, sorted by the type of Super-Natural they were. I clicked my tongue.

First, the Faeries.

Heading deeper into the tangle of prison cells, I listened to the hollow ring of my footsteps on the concrete, humming a haunting tune to stave off the walls pressing in around me. The further in I went, the more my powers died in my veins. Whatever wards the Manor had carved into this place were sapping them away. We placed the stronger Super-Naturals deeper in, surrounded by more wards and more concrete.

I found the first male I was looking for. He was sickly and thin, having spent the better part of a month here. His rose-coloured skin was cracked and dry, and his wings, which resembled the petals of the flower whose colouring he bore, were tucked in tight against his body. With his arms wrapped around his knees, which were drawn up to his chest, he was quiet and submissive. Broken by a month locked indoors.

“Tassarion?” I questioned, tilting my head. He didn’t seem to hear me.

Taking a step closer to the bars, I again repeated, “Tassarion?”

I barely got his name out before the Fae male leapt at me, his hands gripping my shoulders and wrenching me against the bars. My snarl as I collided made the metal ring out, the iron leaving rows of burns down my face. Grabbing his hand, I twisted his wrist, forcing him to release me, shoving him back from the bars. He tumbled to the floor, too weak to continue his assault, spitting insults at me. They washed over me. I’d heard them dozens of times already, from every other prisoner in here. Attacks weren’t uncommon either. Where the Manor rewarded my cruel brutality, others condemned it.

Bending to pick up the clipboard, I wiped down my clothes and the papers, muttering, “The Manor approved your application. You’re free to go through to Korath.” Around us, other Fae who heard my words hurried toward their cells, eager to see who had been chosen out of them, trying to find some kind of pattern or reasoning to our selection. There was only one pattern- the people who the Manor allowed through were people who had offered us something. A skill, an alliance, power, money. Tassarion’s family, if I was recalling correctly, had offered a tithe. For the rest of his life, he would be paying the Manor for the honour of being chosen to go to a new world.

There was a weak hope in his eyes, clouded with disbelief and mistrust. I couldn’t blame him.

Summoning the key to his cell, I held it up, warning, “If you attack me again, I will kill you and leave your body in this hallway forever.”

Pastel eyes studied me, weighing up his odds. I snorted, unlocking the cell. The door swung open.

Rising slowly to his feet, he swayed and shuffled toward me, gripping the walls for support as his knees buckled.

Cain was nowhere to be seen as I led Tassarion across the snowy fields, toward the Divider. The Faery eyed it warily, not trusting an unknown portal in our territory. The blue and pink crackled and wavered, reaching tendrils out toward us, trying to lure us in.

“Go ahead,” I sighed, brandishing toward the portal, “There should be people waiting for you on the other side.”

“You first,” Tassarion coughed, bracing his hands on his knees and nodding at the Divider, “Prove it’s safe.”

Rolling my eyes, having heard this conversation a thousand times before as well, I stalked toward the portal, lifting my arm pointedly before shoving it through the portal.

Warm air brushed against my skin, defrosting it. Wrenching it back, I showed Tassarion my perfectly-fine arm.

Without another second of hesitation, he sprinted toward the portal, shoving me aside into the snow and leaping through, vanishing in a second.

Picking myself up and heading back toward the processing rooms, I muttered, “Ungrateful prick.”

I spent the rest of the day processing prisoners. Some wept, some thanked me, others glared or spat or even tried to kill me. The ones that succeeded at drawing blood got the sharp end of Inferos rammed through them.

The rest I simply led to the Divider, and waited until they were gone to mutter insults.

By the time I limped toward Cain and I’s tent, it was nearing nightfall, and my job was done. Out of the one-thousand-four-hundred-and-six people locked in our dungeons, one-hundred-and-thirty four had been approved. Six of them were dead.

I was exhausted, mentally drained, and in sore need of dinner. The screams and wails of fear and disappointment from those left behind still clung to my mind. None of them knew today was the final day, that they were the ones to be left behind. I didn’t care for their crying at all.

Cain was already waiting for me, his arms crossed where he leaned against one of the posts that held up the tent.

“What took you so long?” He demanded. Shaking my head wordlessly, I fell heavily into a seat. It was an effort to speak, but I managed to force out in a long sigh, “How much time do we have left?”

“Forty minutes.”

“Anything left to do?”

“Menial shit. Lilith wants us to retrieve some last-minute documents from the Manor.”

The Manor was a ten minute walk away. I was surprised Cain wasn’t already sprinting out there. We would be cutting it damned close.

Pushing to my feet, I groaned, “Let’s get going, then.”

The walk through the snow was one of solemn silence. Even Cain kept quiet, his usual cheery deference numbed by the scenes around us. The bodies had begun piling up, our soldiers fighting to keep a wave of Super-Naturals from getting through the Divider. They had been called back at noon. Now, it was my power and a line of wards stopping them. The last line of defence.

At nightfall, we would be leaving.

The Manor was a dark blotch on the sky, holding strong against the end of the world. It was steadfast. Unmoveable.

Something in my heart settled at the sight of it, even as another part of me roared in hatred of that dark black building, with its heart of stone.

Zeella wanted his Assassin just like this building. Cold. Lifeless. Devoid of any emotion except hatred and brutality.

He wanted me to be something that people saw, and feared.

Shoving the thoughts down, I pushed my hands into the pockets of my jacket, muttering, “We should be quick.” It was the first words I’d spoken since we’d left the tent, Cain pausing in checking his watch to nod at me. A muscle in his jaw feathered at the sight of the building.

We entered its quiet halls, Cain extending an arm to me out of habit. I rested my hand in the nook of his arm, telling myself it was just as much as habit when in reality, his touch was the only thing that was successfully fighting off the sheer wrongness of striding through an empty Manor.

In my entire life, the Manor had never gone silent like this. There had always been someone. Something.

The key to Lilith’s office was in Cain’s hand now, and he nodded his head for me to wait at the bottom of the stairs when I spotted them and groaned, too exhausted to consider scaling them. Since Zeella wasn’t here to see the display of weakness, and the cameras were gone, I took a seat, laying back on the stairs and listening to Cain walk upstairs… He shook me awake not long later, holding a box of documents, the lid taped shut. The key to Lilith’s office was nowhere to be seen, but I supposed he left it behind. She wasn’t going to be needing it anymore. My cousin’s eyes were soft and worried, peering into my face, and he murmured, “Are you okay to walk back? Need me to carry you?” Cain hadn’t carried me to bed since the HeartKeeper mission, where I’d passed out from the bloodloss.

“You can’t carry me and the box.”

Placing the box down on the floor, he ripped it open, tossing aside the lid and grabbing the handful of papers, shoving them into the bag on his back and zipping it up before opening his arms for me. I hesitated, wanting him to carry me, since I couldn’t comprehend the monumental task of walking back home, but not wanting to appear weak.

“The Manor isn’t here,” he reassured when I glanced around.

Nodding, I allowed him to scoop me into his arms, clutching me close to his chest. The muscles in his arms flexed, but he didn’t complain for a second as he carried me through the halls and out the front door.

“Am I heavy?” I teased tiredly when he adjusted me in his arms. Snorting, he admitted quietly a moment later, “You aren’t a little kid anymore, that’s for sure.” I fell silent, resting my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat through the thin fabric of his shirt, utterly comfortable in his presence. Cain was my protector, my shield against the world.

It was snowing by the time we approached our tent. Cain laid me down on the cot, his watch beeping as he wrapped his blanket around his shoulders. Checking it, he revealed, “We should leave now. Fifteen minutes to go. Lilith has asked me to check the frontlines one last time for anyone useful. I want you to wait by the Divider. If I’m not back in thirteen minutes, you go through without me.”

Nodding dutifully despite knowing I would never leave him behind to be blasted into pieces, I stood, rising on my tiptoes to press an exhausted kiss to Cain’s cheek before walking out. Cain went in the opposite direction, heading for the frontlines, a sword sheathed down his back, hidden by the blanket he clutched close against the fading day. With night came a deadlier cold.

The weight of the knowledge that this was the end took away my energy more than the long day ever could. I would never see the Manor again, never bask in Earth’s beauty again.

The nerves of a new, unknown world made me fidget worriedly when I reached the Divider, keeping out of its reach, watching time tick by on my phone. It had only been a minute. Nothing looked different than any other night recently. The sky was dark. The snow was kicked up and pushed around by the wind. Nothing screamed ‘end of the world’, not standing out here, in the middle of nowhere. There was no indication in the sky or weather that Earth was in its final moments. Given how bored I was, I sent a flicker of power out, unlocking the cell doors, bringing the wards down. There. Now if people were smart enough to run, they could.

I hadn’t packed anything for the journey, but my Guardians had taken my clothes, books and documents for me already. All that was left was a collection of jewellery that I could always replace- My gasp pierced the air, panic cleaving my heart as I shot to my feet, looking in the direction of the Manor. My mother’s wedding ring was still at the Manor! I’d meant to collect it today!

Checking my phone again, I swore. Fourteen minutes and thirty seconds to go.

Tossing it into the snow, I dropped my jacket and began sprinting for the Manor…