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)
I don’t need Brie knowing that though the timing of the marks’ appearance is random, the scars themselves are not. Each corresponds to an injury inflicted on me in Mordeus’s dungeons.
I don’t want her knowing about what happened to me during those weeks. What good would it do, anyway?
At least now I have the ring and my nights tracking down my enemies. At least when my heart is cold, I feel like I can breathe.
On the other side of the room, my handmaid draws the curtains, and the streams of golden sunlight turn to swaths that fill the room.
I squint, push myself up, and lean against my velvet headboard.
“It’s nearly lunchtime,” my sister says. There’s no censure in her tone, only concern.
“I had trouble falling asleep.” A lie. Once I took my herbs at sunrise, sleep came hard and fast. And the nightmares with it.
The dreams of my days in Mordeus’s dungeons haunt me, but worse than those are the dreams where I’m in his body. My mind twists my worst memories until my dreams show our “visits” from his eyes. In those dreams, I have to see the terror in my eyes as he steals all my control. I have to see myself writhing in pain from his brutal torture. But the worst part is how I feel in those dreams. How much I relish the power. How satisfying it is to see myself suffer.
Brie stares down at her hands. Her red hair falls forward, a curtain hiding her face. I always loved her hair—an orange red like the lilies in the Court of the Sun. It’s grown long again in these last few years, and now the waves flow down to the middle of her back. Once upon a time, I’d sit behind her and weave it into braids.
But that was before. Before the dungeons. Before the Throne of Shadows. Before the person I loved most in the world became what I hate most: a faerie.
“It’s normal, you know,” she says. “Excessive sleeping is a symptom of depression and—”
“I’m not depressed.”
When she lifts her head, I flinch at the pain I see in her eyes. “I know you’re not happy here. You can talk to me.” Her desperation hurts worse than the many daggers twisted into my flesh while I was Mordeus’s captive. “I fight every day for the people in this court, and all the while I feel like I’m losing you. I can’t do this if you are the cost.”
Then don’t. But I can’t ask that. Not when leading these people means everything to her. Not when, if it weren’t for me, Brie would be happier now than she’s ever been in her life.
And besides, what’s the alternative? Brie uses her magic to glamour herself so we can go home again? I miss the realm of Elora, the land where we were born and raised, the way I miss the innocence of my childhood. There’s no going back, and we both know it.
“You’ve suffered through so much,” she says. “Two major traumas that you never speak of. If you needed to talk—”
“I don’t.” I tear my gaze from hers and stare at my lap, counting down the seconds until she leaves me alone.
“You don’t even want to sew anymore.”
“This again? Why are you so fixated on me sewing? You probably have a hundred servants capable of the job.” I give her a smile. Not the seductive smile of the Enchanting Lady, and not the satisfied smile that curves my lips when death takes my victims. No, I give her my Princess Jasalyn smile. This is the expression of the girl I’m supposed to be. Meek and scared, but grateful. “I’m truly fine. You’ve given me a home, and I am content here.” Another lie. I’ve gotten too good at this.
“Nevertheless, I would like you to go stay with Misha for a time.”
Everything from last night comes back in a rush. Mordeus is back, and my sister wants to send me away.
But I’m not supposed to know any of that and she doesn’t seem to remember, so I cough out a laugh. “I’ll pass, thanks.” Misha is my sister’s best friend. He’s a nice enough male, but when he visits, I always feel him poking around in my head. Luckily, he’s also the one who taught me how to guard against such mental exploitations. He taught me well, but I find it unnerving nevertheless. I always fear slipping in his presence. What would he do if he knew my secrets? Tell my sister, surely, and then what?
What would Abriella do if she knew her terrified little sister was leaving a trail of her enemies’ bodies throughout the mountains?
What would she do if she knew what I traded for that power?
“The Wild Fae territory is beautiful,” Brie says.
“I’m sure it is, but I don’t want to go.”