Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
“What are you trying to say?” Kendrick asks. “How could Jasalyn’s fear and pain benefit Mordeus? What’s the connection between the torture and his resurrection?”
“Her magic alone wouldn’t be enough to resurrect him,” Natan says. “But if she began taking lives that were pledged to Mordeus—either directly or through a proxy . . .”
My mind flashes with the image of a room full of tattooed insurgents falling to the floor. The pallor of death sweeping over their faces. “No,” I breathe. Like the memory of a dream, the vision is there, then gone, slipping away like so many grains of sand.
Natan drags a hand through his hair. “We received word this morning about Mordeus’s legion stationed at Feegus Keep.”
The tremor that starts in my gut radiates out and down my arms until my hands are trembling. “They’re dead,” I say. “The night I went missing—that’s when they died, isn’t it?”
“We don’t know for sure that you were responsible,” Natan says, but I can tell he believes I was, even under the ring’s enchantment.
“The bastard knew she was going to go after his people,” Kendrick says, his jaw ticking. “He knew she’d use all the fear and hate and turn it on his guards, guards who tortured her on his orders.”
There’s a buzzing in my ears growing louder and louder. Magic is life. Life is magic. Isn’t that the number one rule of this cursed realm?
I felt that magic. Every time I used the deadly power of the ring, I felt my victim’s power funnel through me. The room spins, and I grip the foot of the bed so I don’t fall down.
In my quest for vengeance, I brought Mordeus back.
I killed all those people.
I am the faceless plague.
I stumble back until I’m leaning against the wall. My head’s spinning. This is all my fault. The deaths. Mordeus. The horror sweeping through my sister’s court.
I’m responsible for all of it.
None of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t bought this ring.
None of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t so readily forfeited everything for revenge.
Bile surges in my throat, and I struggle to speak around it. “You’re saying Mordeus isn’t only pulling strength from me. He’s alive because of me, because of what I’ve done.”
“That’s not possible,” Kendrick says. “To be the catalyst for his resurrection, she would’ve had to offer . . .” I feel the weight that falls over him the moment the answer clicks into place. When I meet his eyes again, there’s nothing but devastation in those icy-blue depths. “What did you trade for that ring, Jasalyn?”
I want to crawl out of my skin. To escape the rot of my mistakes. To undo all the horrors I’ve wrought upon this world.
“Jas, what did you promise that witch?” Kendrick rasps.
Tears burn my eyes and the room swims. “It was nothing to forfeit a life I never wanted,” I whisper. The whole point of the ring was to free me from my fear, and now there’s nothing I fear more than what I’ve done because of it.
The irony cuts me off at the knees, and I sink to the floor.
“This wasn’t you.” Kendrick drops to his haunches before me. “If anything, it was that ring. But that’s not you. You could never become like the monsters who gave you those scars.”
No. Because I don’t leave scars, only dead bodies.
“Jasalyn,” Kendrick whispers. “This wasn’t you.”
But he doesn’t understand. I wanted this ring because I wanted the power to be able to do just this. I traded everything for this curse. I wanted them dead. And now they are, and so many more.
“Mordeus is in the Eloran Palace?” I ask Natan.
“That is what I believe, yes.” He shifts worried eyes between me and Kendrick. “The Seven must be protecting him while he gains strength.”
“Why would they protect him?”
He sighs heavily. “The same reason they did anything for him before, even when he held what they needed most over his head. They stand to gain something.”
I look to Kendrick. I have years of experience locking away my feelings, and I call on that now as I push to my feet. “And the sword—the one at Feegus Keep—that can get us to the palace?”
Kendrick’s expression is bleak. He searches my face as he rasps, “Yes.”
“And this sword—it can kill anyone? Even a resurrected king?”
He looks pained. “Yes, but so long as you’re wearing that ring, the daylight will make you weak and—”
“We go today.” I fight the panic and terror rising up in me with everything that I have and lift my chin. “I’m the reason he’s back. I won’t be the reason he gets stronger.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Felicity
IF I WEREN’T STILL FIGHTING the cave demon’s toxin, I might’ve been able to keep myself from sleeping for a day, maybe two. But my body is too brutalized and battered, even after the healer, and I can’t use any of my old tricks.