In Between

Chapter One: The Boy who Creates Portals

"General Dalhart, you may approach the council."

Her voice was as sharp as the cold sting of a whip. It echoed throughout the spacious chamber with harsh undertones that could not be overlooked—something was evidently very wrong.

The general was a tall, strongly built man with a well-decorated uniform indicative of his grand service to the royals. He was indisputably the best of the best, but compared to the woman seated at the highest point in the room, he was as insignificant as the servants who polished his shoes. With a perfunctory gesture he knelt before her and muttered the traditional phrase, "It is an honor to be in your presence."

Queen Aurielle nodded in his direction, signifying that he had permission to rise. "Do you know why you are here?" she asked sternly, consistent with her typically austere demeanor. This may as well have been a rhetorical question, since she was surely about to tell him.

Regardless, he answered truthfully with the utmost respect for fear of having his title stripped or worse. "No, my queen. When I was summoned, your messenger only said that I was here to discuss our previous arrangement with the council." The general chanced an appraising glance at the queen, hoping against past experience that he would finally be able to guess her intentions. However, owing to the years of training she'd doubtless undergone to perfectly school herself into non-expression, he was unable to discern anything besides her physical features.

She had skin as pale as the moons from other worlds, lips the shade of a maiden's blush and hair as dark as the far-off expanse of space. Yet, it was her eyes that captured your attention, because they were the very definition of dark—the queen had pitch-black irises, comparable to such as the starless void that surrounded her kingdom. Combined with her lovely figure and inhuman beauty, one glimpse was enough to weaken the knees of her servants who rarely left the palace. On the contrary, the general was largely unaffected by her beauty. Though he wasn't prone to so readily become weak-kneed in any case, these physical descriptions were, in fact, accurate for the majority of women in the queen's kingdom. However, only she possessed the title that made her worthy of the throne she was sitting on.

"Tell me, were you or any of your underlings aware of the portal that materialized in the Dark Forest last night?" the queen asked without further preamble.

"I swear on my honor that I have no knowledge of this new portal. If I had known, I would have come to you at once," the general assured her, genuinely surprised at this development. It was still early in the investigation, therefore, unexplainable events such as this were to be expected. He had no doubt that pointing this out would only land him into trouble, so he refrained from commenting further.

"Surely you must understand the royal council's concern. Your assignment was to find a way to prevent these occurrences, and you have not," the queen reminded him coldly. Considering the location of this particular occurrence, it was no wonder the royals were so hasty to reprimand him. The Dark Forest had long been associated with a taboo—superstitious nonsense (probably)—which kept civilians and royalty alike from actively venturing into its depths.

"Your Highness, our team is working on it as we speak—my very best team as a matter of fact. We have recently succeeded in stabilizing a functional portal within our laboratory, and have already discovered which world the portals are connected to."

"Really?" she whispered incredulously, since this was news to her. A flurry of impressed murmurs made its way through the council, but the queen held up one hand in a sharp gesture that stopped the chatter almost instantly.

"Yes. We think—no, we are certain that it leads to Earth," the general announced. Silence permeated the room as he held his breath in anticipation. He didn't like talking about the portals and would have given his own arm and leg to keep the whole predicament a secret, but the council would have inevitably found out through other means, and lying in front of the council was punishable by law. Just as his forehead was beginning to glisten from nervousness, a new voice entered the room.