“Being together for three thousand years.” My breath had caught in my throat, and I thought I would cry. “I can’t even fathom it.”
“Me neither,” he said. “Five hundred years has gone by so slowly. I’ve seen so much. To live six times the amount I already have is mind blowing! But if I’m going to do it, I’ll only do it with you.”
“Wow,” I said, squealing like a piglet. “Imagine you and me, rulers for three thousand years. But … it’s a big deal. I need to think about that.”
“Take your time. We should get a drink to celebrate,” Roki said. “You know, like the first time we met.”
“I’d love to.”
But before we could go anywhere, a strange feeling enveloped me. Then two voices were in my head, saying, “This is Hanchell and Riedel. You must come to Shiol. We need you immediately.”
I looked to Roki and he was nodding. “Yeah, I got the same message. They must be summoning all the Min. It sounds like an emergency.”
“A Min emergency!” I cried. “That can’t be good.”
The Shiol Roki and I arrived to was not the one I knew, the empty vacuum with its peaceful sky overhead. Rather, it was the bright and pulsing city Roki had shown me all that time ago. We were transported into a massive plaza, a place much like Coronation Square in Geniverd’s capital. Around us were other Min in human bodies, and also creatures I could hardly comprehend. There were lizard people, humanoid beings with pointy ears and short limbs, winged creatures without legs, orange-skinned people over nine feet tall, limbless blobs, and countless other life-forms. I could hardly keep from staring.
“This is the real Shiol,” Roki whispered to me. “This is where the Min from other dimensions, other planets, other realities all live in harmony. It’s why the city looks so strange. It’s an amalgamation of a thousand different cultures. When we have time, I’d like to explore it with you. Even after five hundred years, I still haven’t scratched the surface of Shiol.”
“I’d like that very much,” I said. But really, I was overwhelmed. Where did a newly minted Min begin exploring such a grand and infinite city?
“And those are Riedel’s and Hanchell’s true forms.” Roki gestured to the Crown of Crowns, who had just revealed themselves above us on the podium. I balked at their true forms. They were three-headed monsters with scaly gray flesh, yellow eyes, and webbed feet.
“Incredible!” I said. “I can’t believe I’ve been talking to monsters this whole time.”
“Not monsters,” Roki said. “They are from Dimension Z8. They were chosen as the best among us three thousand years ago.”
“They’ve lived for almost four thousand years … That’s impressive.”
I wanted to ask more questions, but the Crown of Crowns began to address the crowd.
“Hello,” Hanchell said. Even as a three-headed monster, I thought she looked compassionate in her golden robes; there were twinkles of kindness in her six yellow eyes. “We have brought you here to announce that our tenure as Crown of Crowns is coming to an end. In approximately six months, the Seeing Water will pick our replacements. That means you clever Min have time to partner up and present your cases. Choose wisely. None of you will live long enough to have another shot at being orchestrators of our galaxy.”
“The suitable candidates must not only be clever,” Riedel said. “They must also be strong, wise, invested in the future of the universe, and willing to make the hard sacrifices to keep the balance.”
I thought, If trying to run Geniverd was stressful, what would running the freaking galaxy be like? If we were selected, how would Roki and I cope?
“If you’d like to be considered for the position, please present yourselves to us sooner rather than later,” Hanchell said, her gray tail wagging. “For now, we bid you farewell.”
Hanchell and Riedel sparkled like static and then were gone. And that was when I looked through the crowd and saw Lordin glaring at me.
The crowd of aliens and interdimensional beings was gone. The square was empty. Lordin and I stood alone with the eerie strangeness of Shiol’s megalopolis looming in the distance.
“You stole my cure,” she said. Lordin made no attempt to attack me. She simply stood glaring at me in Hagan’s body. It was creepy and intimidating.
“You were killing people,” I said. “What did you think I would do?”
Lordin shrugged. “I’m just surprised you found it. It’s not like I can blame you for trying to save the world. I wasn’t comfortable with the death toll either, but I was powerless to my mama’s commands. I needed to gain status in this body.”
“So that you could schmooze your way back into Zawne’s life?”
“Something like that.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “You both know the Great Secret. Why not just reveal yourself?”
Lordin laughed, folded her arms, and shook her head at me. “You guys were married, Kaelyn! Don’t you think I tried? Zawne’s a noble man. When I came to him in Shiol, I altered his reality so that he would see me in my original body. He told me he loved me even beyond death, but that he was a king and would not fold his commitment to his new wife, Kaelyn of Gaard, the daughter of my mama’s enemy.”
“Oh …” I said. It was starting to make sense. Zawne had been honest with me the whole time. He’d had no intentions of cheating, so Lordin had needed to maneuver me off the throne somehow.
I said, “You used Emell’s lifelong thirst for vengeance to try to dispose of me because Zawne rejected you. So you hatched an insane plot to spiral the world into chaos and get me banished for being a bad queen. Then you were going to insert yourself in Zawne’s council and make him fall for you in Hagan’s body!”
“Well,” Lordin said, “it was Mama’s insane plot. The virus would have been
