Seconds to Midnight: A Maiden of Midnight Prequel
Cain- Day Twenty-Eight

Cain- Day Twenty-Eight

Over the course of four days, I made it through all of Joseph’s journals barring one, the final one, which he had left half empty, sitting atop the others in the box next to my desk.

I had spent the last four days in a blur of horror.

Joseph was wrong. He had to be wrong, because if he wasn’t…

I glanced to the journals. Even looking at them made me feel sick to my stomach. The knowledge Joseph had gathered, the prophecy he’d written down.

The End of Days. That’s what he’d called it.

It left nothing to the imagination, with a title like that.

And at the center of it all, just as Seraphina had said, was my cousin. She was a pivotal point, according to the Nephilim.

He was wrong. He had to be. I would not entertain the ramblings of a madman. I had crossed out anything that would cause a panic if anyone were to replace the journals once I placed them in the archives.

Luckily, Destiny’s Guardians had found no mention of a ‘Lazarus’ in the Caliem Archives, except for Project Lazarus.

Joseph had been mad, and his mind had made up stories, but there was a very real threat written amongst his ramblings of Gods and secret worlds; he truly believed that, when the End of Days War began, everyone who was not related to two families- a family of Light, and a family of Dark- would perish. He believed Destiny’s immense power came from a place called Daemonium, and she would have to fight another being whose power came from the same place. The winner would rule over all Dimensions, deciding the fate of each individual world, while the loser would die.

His plan in coming to the Manor had been to decide which of the Heirs he could marry his children to, so he could use his family connections to the winning World-Killer to survive. He’d faked Dome records in an attempt to convince Zeella to one day marry Merry or Seth to Destiny. There were plans he had made to trick Destiny into falling in love with one, or both, of them.

Some of his speculation had been correct, like the idea he’d had that Des was love-starved, and the attention of two men vying for her would catch her attention. It would, and that was what I was scared of. Joseph Smith may have been gone now, but he was still training his sons to try and compete for Destiny’s hand when they were older.

He was a threat, as were his sons.

What made it worse was the knowledge that, upon hearing Joseph had returned to The Borderlands, Zeella and Lilith had started what they called Operation Eden. They would be sending Destiny into The Borderlands. They refused to tell me what for, but from what I’d found in Joseph’s notes, they were sending her after the Sacreds. They would use a mirage to prevent her from being traced back to the Manor.

Joseph needed to die. He knew who Destiny was; he was obsessed with her. Once my cousin was raised from the dead, I would make sure the first order of business would be to eradicate him.

Grabbing the final journal, knowing I only had a couple of pages left, I plucked up a pencil, flicking to where I was up to, beginning to read.

The first line was surprisingly vicious, compared to the rest of Joseph’s entries, yet entirely true.

As it turns out, trying to reason with Zeella is near impossible.

I agreed wholeheartedly. Then, I read the next line.

He won’t listen to reason in the fact that his daughter is worth virtually nothing to his court, and thus will struggle to replace a match better than one of my sons.

Worth. Virtually. Nothing.

The words hit like stones.

He had called Destiny worthless before trying to dig up her grave!

I’ve tried everything- forged Dome scores for both Seth and Merry, tried to convince Cain that my sons are worthy for his cousin- Nothing has worked!

It doesn’t matter, anyway. The information I have gathered on Desterium Maladur points to her being emotional, useless both as a Royal and as an Assassin, and I doubt she will have much of a chance in defeating another World-Killer, as it appears she hasn’t learnt how to wield her powers yet anyway. I will simply have to betroth Seth or Merry to Lyna instead. I will continue training them in how to swim, fight, run long distances, and then, when I feel they are ready, I’ll begin subtly teaching them how to trick someone into falling in love with them. I hate to do this, but it’s necessary.

Karla cannot know. The Sins cannot know, and more importantly, Seth and Merry cannot realise what they are being taught. Darcie and Reece have thankfully agreed to train them as well. Hopefully the lessons, subconsciously, will stick.

By then, Zeella might have actually bothered to train his rather useless daughter, and she might be a viable match after all. Hopefully she’s as naïve in the ways of love as she seems to be in everything else. If all else fails, I am heading to Revala to convince Queen Magdalene to attack the Manor. If Zeella will not raise his daughter to save the Manor from a full-force attack, then he will raise her for nothing.

Emotional. Useless. Naïve.

His description of my cousin was wrong. Not to mention it sounded like it came straight out of the mouth of the Manor itself.

And Revala… That name was familiar.

Flicking through my phone notes on everything I had gathered about The Borderlands and Dimension Three, I found the paragraph I had made about Revala, how its Queen had recently had a son.

I am heading to Revala to convince Queen Magdalene to attack the Manor.

Joseph had spent enough time in and around the Manor to know our weaknesses! His only reason for doing so was to raise Destiny from the dead so he could pick her brain, using the knowledge he gained to train his sons to seduce her!

No. I would not stand for it!

Grabbing a dagger, I threw the journal aside, hearing it ‘THUMP!’ atop the others in the box.

I didn’t tell anyone where I was going.

Destiny would be raised in thirteen years, giving Joseph plenty of time to turn his sons into the perfect manipulators.

He had bad-mouthed her, tried to break into her room, and attempted to dig her body up.

Joseph Smith deserved to pay for those crimes with his life.

And I would be the one to claim it.