Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
“Don’t go giving that to all the males.”
Kerrigan rolled her eyes. “Let’s hope I’m not saving anyone else’s life.”
“You’re still returning to Kinkadia,” he said with a frown.
“Council,” she reminded him.
“I want to reclaim my throne with you at my side.”
“I suspect it will be easier without a half-Fae with you.”
“That is going to change,” he said in earnest. “Not just for my curse, but because it’s time to put the past behind us.”
“I’m glad, and I will be waiting for you in Kinkadia. Because you will have to return to the Society now, you know?”
He shot her a grim look. “Hopefully, they accept me.”
“They will. You’ll be the only House of Shadows representative.”
She explained how she had had to give up the tribe to join the Society, but they’d created a loophole for him. He would be insane not to exploit it.
“And Wynter?” he asked.
The Erewa had restrained her and given her a magical-dampening potion. Kerrigan had been okay with just knocking her out.
“Bringing her back to House of Shadows would disrupt your throne as much as my return.”
Fordham frowned. “But where else can she go?”
Kerrigan smiled grimly. “I have an idea.”
“Oh no. Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like it?”
“Oh, you’ll hate it.”
Then, she kissed him, watched him climb onto Netta’s back and head off to reclaim his throne. She would miss him, but they both had too much to accomplish before they next met. At least this time, she knew he would return, and he would be hers when he got there.
She thanked the Erewa for their hospitality, strapped Wynter onto Tieran’s back, and left the mountains behind. The city awaited.
34
THE MADNESS
WYNTER
Wynter awoke in a blank room.
There was a bed, a small table with a goblet full of water, and a bucket to piss in. A chain attached her leg to the wall. The chain was solid iron and made her skin crawl. Iron wasn’t exactly deadly to Fae, but it wasn’t comfortable. Like an itch that she couldn’t scratch. A sickness she couldn’t stomach.
She was familiar with sickness. Her mind had been clouded with it all these years. The madness that possessed her to find an escape from the eternal House of Shadows isolation. She had done it. And then she had lost … everything.
Someone had changed her out of her black fighting leathers and into a plain cotton shift. Her body had been washed. Her hair was the color of snow.
A princess of the realm in nothing but white cotton with her leg chained to the wall.
And no access to her magic. She could sense that it was buried somewhere down deep, but she couldn’t touch it. Her black shadows that she had grown so accustomed to were gone. There was no way out. Not even if she got the chain off of her leg.
Wynter’s brain turned over and over the events that had led here. She kept slipping on the details, pulling them apart and putting them back together.
She had won at Lethbridge.
No. She had lost.
She shuddered at that word.
Aisling had been at her side.
Her beautiful Aisling. Strong, proud, and loyal. The only woman Wynter had ever favored. Well, there were others that she had shown favor. Males and females. But none who were as constant and selfless as Aisling. None who saw her vision and asked, How may I serve?
That was love, wasn’t it?
Service. Destiny. Loyalty. Defiance. Pain.
She had been in so much pain. That bitch had blasted her with some energy magic that Wynter had never seen before. Kerrigan had knocked her hard enough into a stone wall to have it crumble down on her head.
And she had died.
No. Everyone thought she was dead.
There was nobody.
Wynter clutched her head. Something had rattled loose again.
It was her mother, sitting on a bench next to the stable. She was babbling to herself again. Wynter looked up at her in awe. She was the most beautiful female Wynter had ever seen. Ethereal. One second, she was laughing with her hand on Wynter’s head, and the next, she was absent. Her eyes were empty, her hand no longer gentle, her mind gone.
A candle snuffed out.
Wynter called for her, but a servant dragged her away. The candle in her eyes sparked on and off until she took her own life to keep the glass from rattling inside her skull.
“Stop,” she pleaded with her memories.
She had the same glass as her mom. And she knew it to be true only because she had seen it in her mother. But she didn’t see it when her own eyes lost their luster. Aisling had been there then. She kept her hidden away. She waited until that light came back. She had kept Wynter’s vision intact.
Then, the glass returned more and more often. Longer stretches of time. It only a matter of time before the glass stayed forever. That was why she had fought so hard for a way to escape the isolation.