Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Then she says, “First bid, please.”
This is when I notice that the royal beasts in the tiered seating between the gods and the people each have an older lioness standing beside them with an auction paddle.
Several paddles go up at once and there is basically a bidding war. I don’t understand the money, so I don’t really keep track of that. But the whole thing only lasts about thirty seconds.
Then she is proclaimed, “Taken,” by the mistress and carefully retraces her steps back down the bridge where her very excited sister whisks the little lion-girl towards a hallway and they disappear.
Number Two has already been called and is stepping on to the platform when my attention returns to the ceremony. It’s the same routine. She has also been engineered by the alchemist Brinn and her gift was bestowed on her by the goddess Aphrodite.
Each alchemist has created four girls for each of the gods, or goddesses, in the line of succession.
Ostanes presides over group three and I am Number Eleven. When Number Nine is announced people forget the rules and begin cheering wildly. She’s the one Saturn gifted a red apple and I learn that it contains the power of truth-telling.
This almost makes me snort. Saturn handing out truth is next-level irony.
Number Nine’s little sparrow peeks her face out from her neck, her little beak moving, and I know the girl can hear the bird because her eyes kinda flit down towards her shoulder.
But no one seems to notice this. And Mistress Ryella doesn’t mention the caveat about the power of the apple being locked up in the beak of this bird.
Hmm. Interesting.
So the royal beasts have no idea that the magic little lioness they are buying can’t even use her gift.
Wow.
It’s like ten pieces of my life puzzle just slid into place.
I got the bag of rings. I can open doors. I can spell.
But I couldn’t. Not really. Not until Pia and I were separated. And once she was dead—
Holy fucking shit.
I look up at Callistina. She’s not paying any attention to me, she’s so absorbed in the ceremony. But I told her the truth. I told her about the birds. Hell, I told her the actual spell!
And, obviously, it means nothing to her today. She thought I was crazy.
But in a few years’ time, when the other royal beasts have figured out that Ostanes put a spell on us girls to bind our gifts—yeah. She would know that what I told her in those moments before the ceremony was all true.
And somehow, she becomes queen. Perhaps taking my place after I was kidnapped by the eros devil? And then what? She commanded Tarq to look for me? Is that why she had Tarq hunting wood nymphs?
But how did she know I was a wood nymph chimera?
Maybe she didn’t.
Maybe that part was a guess.
Meanwhile, back at the child-slave auction… Number Ten has just been sold and the next thing I know, my number is called.
“Ready.” This is a statement, not a question. Callistina isn’t even looking at me. She’s holding my hand, but all of her attention is on the stage. She takes a step, but I do not take a step with her. And when she realizes this, she turns, her face fierce and stern, her words coming out through clenched teeth. “Do not mess this up, Pie. If you’ve got a fever or have gone ill, you need to be strong and brave. Everything is riding on this moment.” Then she squeezes my hand very hard, so hard I wince and almost cry out.
But then her grip loosens and before I can even respond to what she just said, she looks back at the center of the room and takes a step.
This time, I walk with her.
No one claps or anything, but the moment I leave the shadows lining the edges of the circular room and enter the light, they are murmuring. My eyes sweep over the people on the floor. Their wood-nymph faces. Their satyr horns. They cup their hands over their mouths to make whispered comments and maybe it’s just that I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the lion-girls who came before me, but this feels… weird.
Like they know me.
Like I am somebody.
When we get to the wooden bridge Callistina lets go of my hand, bends down, and places a new medal on my sash. None of the other sisters did this, I’m sure of it.
I don’t know. Nothing is making sense anymore. I’m lightheaded, and my stomach feels queasy, and Pia is chirping at me, her warm feathers pushing against my neck. But I can’t understand her.
When Callistina straightens back up there are even more murmurs and the people directly in front of me even gasp.
Someone loudly whispers, “It’s the mark of the Saints!”