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)
“Pressia? Did you just say Pressia?”
Tarq laughs. “I think you’ve been in the heat too long. Come on.” He claps me on the back. “Let’s go home. There’s a feast in your honor tonight, brother. It’s your coming-of-age day and your last night of freedom. Let’s make it count. We can worry about hallucinations and delusions after the wedding.”
1
Tarq talked enough for both of us the entire walk back to the palace.
Yep. Palace.
I just stayed quiet and spent the entire time trying to fit all the pieces together. Pressia is the market nymph who wrote all those books in the apothecary. And even though I didn’t study them hard or anything, the illuminated images on those pages were beautiful enough to leave a mark in my memory. I can picture her face, and her clothes, and her words were both poetic and powerful.
But how the hell does this makes sense? And if I know Pressia, and she has books in the apothecary—so many books it would’ve taken decades, if not centuries to write—this means… this means she was there.
With me?
Before me?
After me? That’s not really logical. But not much about my life has ever been logical.
Tarq walked me through the palace. In fact, he walked me all the way to my apartments. I think he’s worried about me. And he has every right to be. Not only have I been having premonitions, or hallucinations, or delusions about Pie in this timeline, but there was no way to hide the fact that I was very confused.
I think that’s why he talked so much on the walk back. He could tell there was something wrong with me and he didn’t want to put me on the spot.
He’s such a good friend. I know Pie doesn’t like him, but she just had a bad first impression. Tarq is loyal. Just spending one hour with him in this hallway memory was enough to put me firmly back on his side.
I mean, I’m not gonna choose him over Pie or anything like that, but I’m not going to turn my back on the only true friend I’ve ever had.
Aside from Tomas, of course. Maybe we weren’t close until Pie came, but we were constants in each other’s world for two thousand years. That counts.
But this Pressia thing. It’s bothering me. And the part that’s really kinda flippin’ my world upside down is the idea that she was there.
With me.
That maybe it’s not just where the name Saint Mark’s comes from that I have forgotten. Or the fact that Tarq and Pie were some kind of marriage promise. Or all that blacksmithing I used to do.
Those are pretty big things. And I still don’t know what Saint Mark’s is all about.
So… is it possible that there was someone with me in the sanctuary all this time? And perhaps that someone was Pressia? Not just the slave caretakers?
My brain can’t deal with that. Because what would it mean?
Am I obligated to go find her? And if I am, what then? Are we married?
Do I need a divorce before I can marry Pie?
I get up from the chaise I’ve been lying on and walk over to the large, covered terrace to gaze out at the village around the palace. It’s a nice palace. Open rooms with lots of atriums. Intricate mosaic tiles on the floors. Columns lining breezeways made of stone. And pools. Lots and lots of little plunge pools. There’s even one in my apartments.
The pyramids are off to the left from my vantage point. There is a lot of farming going on here, and a lot more water than one might expect in the desert. But it’s not really the desert. Those dunes I came out in were just a very small part of this landscape. An anomaly. An attraction, maybe. Somewhere you go to play war games with your buddies. Who are not Bedouins, but regular monsters, just like Tarq and me.
In fact, almost everything as far as my eyes can see is lush, and green, and growing.
A commotion off to my right diverts my attention from the landscape to a group of humans. There are a lot of humans here. In fact, as far as I can tell, they outnumber the monsters by a factor of many. They are pretty much all I saw inside the palace as Tarq walked me to my apartment.
Down below, in a courtyard that is open to the sky, they are bowing with praying hands towards an approaching procession of single-axle carriages pulled by teams of oxen. And further back there is a line of walking monsters—hands bound together, feet in shackles, and being pulled along by ropes attached to the last carriage. They stumble, like they are about to pass out. But they keep going because they have no choice.