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)
“Ultimately,” I say, swallowing around an unexpected surge of emotion, “it was Misha who convinced my sister that I needed to walk the halls of the dungeons, needed to be on the other side of the bars to convince my mind that I was truly free.”
“Not a bad plan,” he says softly. “If you could handle it.”
“I vomited three times that morning. I would’ve done anything not to go—anything except letting my sister know just how horribly broken and haunted I was from those weeks. So I went. I took her hand and let her lead me down into the bowels of the palace, where she informed me we had half a dozen insurgents imprisoned for plotting against the throne. She used her own shadow magic to shield us, so the prisoners could neither see nor hear us, but I knew the moment we reached the last few steps that those dungeons were not the ones from the worst nights of my life.”
“What did she say? Did she try to find where you’d been kept?”
“I never told her. I let her guide me up and down the row of cells, pretending I was looking for something familiar, as if I could have forgotten. And when we were done, she told me she was proud of me.” A shiver runs through me as I remember that day, how I’d smiled as if I were healed, as if I’d faced my monster and emerged triumphant. Why tell her I would’ve preferred that prison to the one I knew? Why tell her nothing she could do could fix me?
“She would be proud of you even if she knew the truth.”
I shrug. There are too many truths I’ve kept from Abriella. Perhaps some would make her proud, but others?
I would hate to see the disappointment in her eyes if she knew all my secrets.
“I hate the idea of you returning to that keep without any weapons of your own,” he says.
I lift my gaze and frown. “Then arm me. Give me a dagger or a sword.”
He pulls a short blade from his scabbard and places it on the table. “There’s a pocket on your hip where you can hold it.”
I arch a brow. “You aren’t afraid I’ll turn on you while you sleep?”
His grunt implies that nothing about me scares him. “I trust you to keep any murderous tendencies to yourself, but I was initially referring to magical weapons.” He searches my face for a long moment. “If there was a way to awaken your dormant fae magic, would you want to?”
I take the dagger and shove it into the sheath built into my leather pants, all the while avoiding his eyes. An image of Mordeus’s face flashes in my mind. Why did the gods see fit to grant such magic to a human girl?
“What if I told you I rejected that part of myself long ago?”
“It’s still there. It’s just sleeping.”
“What about teaching me your magic? You have more than any human I’ve ever met.”
“We were trained since childhood—potions, spells, incantations. Our parents insisted that we be versed in every magic available to us.”
Even when our mother told us fanciful stories about magical worlds every night, she never taught us how to use any. “Why?”
He puts two fingers beneath my chin to tilt my face up toward his. “Because we were the ones who were supposed to lead the revolution, and they knew we’d need it.”
That almost makes me smile. I’ve never been part of something like this before. Never had a cause. I didn’t realize how good it would feel. “Why did they choose you?”
His eyes turn sad before he answers. “The oracle predicted that I would overthrow the Elora Seven. And so, for every day I’ve hunted Erith, he’s hunted me in return.”
“Is that how you got tangled up with Mordeus—back when we were in his dungeons together? Was it about the revolution?”
He pulls away, turning back to the fire. “Everything was strategic with Mordeus. I was nothing more than a chess piece.” He draws in a long breath and slowly exhales. “The Seven had a sort of alliance of convenience with Mordeus and tasked him with finding and ending me, but Mordeus was far too self-serving for that. He wanted me alive for leverage—so that they would have to answer to him. It’s the same reason he kept the Sword of Fire. Because they needed it. Because they knew it was their greatest weakness.”
“So the oracle predicted that I would kill Erith and you would overthrow the Magical Seven?”
“Dream team, aren’t we?” he says, but the words sound too heavy.
When he stares over my shoulder, I realize Remme and Skylar have returned to camp.
“Is the perimeter secure?” Kendrick asks.
Remme sighs, and Skylar lifts her chin. “We have neighbors,” she says. “A group of Unseelie rebels to the east. Closer than I’d like.”