Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
The next thing I know, I am standing in Vinca. In my nightmare with a red dragon circling above me. Not breathing fire, but spraying it. Everywhere. And my head is pounding out a beat that is too fast, and too loud, and too much.
The whole city is engulfed in flames and this is when I look down at myself and realize I am nothing but a charred collection of bones.
I scream, and then I’m inside the palace. Sitting on the throne, but I am not me, I am the old king and I am looking at me. Real me. Lioness me. Teenager me. Princess, not queen. Me.
He is looking at me. And his thoughts are busy, and loud, and gross. And he is thinking about blood.
My blood.
And this is the answer to all my questions. The question I never wanted to ask.
Why, why, why?
My blood.
Pie’s blood.
But Pie was gone and I was the next best thing.
No, I was not made perfect the way she was, but I was made.
I am her, with faults. The first try. The pilot program. The preliminary study. An exploration of possibilities.
Daughter number one’s blood, the king is thinking, is just as good as daughter number two’s.
What does that mean?
“Oh, come on, Callistina.” I refocus my eyes and Pie is sitting in front of me on a large rock. Her long, gangly wood-nymph chimera legs are crossed and she’s leaning back, sunning her face in a stray beam of light that shines down through the forest canopy. “They didn’t need me. They just needed my blood. And you and I have the same blood. He knows you do because he had it tested. Remember?”
Then she laughs and I realize she’s just a delusion and it’s me who’s laughing.
Because she’s right.
All they ever wanted was my blood. The king tested my blood as soon as I arrived in Vinca. I am from Saturn and far, far back… Fatum.
Fate. The will of the gods.
I am the will of the gods.
What does it even mean?
I don’t know. I can’t think straight. Why the fuck does my head hurt so damn bad? The pounding. I put my hands over my ears to make it stop, but they touch a hot, sticky mess all over my hair. And when I look at them, my palms and fingertips are covered in blood.
“The same blood,” Pie says, back again. “And a hole in the fabric of time. Isn’t that funny!”
I don’t think it’s funny, but I do think about a tern-girl keeping a bottle shop in the Sphere Market. And how she is more animal than I am. And how she is one of the first. And how there were no lionesses in the Glory time. And that makes perfect sense because how the hell could there be lionesses from the House of Fire—how the hell could there be royal beasts at all—when I hadn’t been there yet?
“It was Tarq who made the hole, you know.” Pie is still talking. But she can’t possibly know this. She wasn’t there, I was.
I was.
I. Was.
Pie turns into me and I am the one sitting on the rock. My long, gangly gryphon chimera legs are crossed and I’m leaning back, sunning my face in a stray beam of light that shines down through the forest canopy.
And it’s not me talking, it’s Tarq.
“A rip in the fabric of time, Callistina. A way to go back and redo it. That’s why they want my book.”
The book. I hate books. Books are the problem. Everyone is writing a godsdamned book and leaving information all over the place where anyone could find it.
“I found it,” Tarq says.
See? That’s what I mean.
“I found the way through the doors. It’s so simple, too. It’s a very simple recipe of acetic acid and—”
But I cut him off, finishing his sentence for him. “Sharptongue and goldberry.” Only this is not my voice, it’s the voice of Nysta. His wood nymph partner in crime. Who went through his doors to find more wood nymphs so they could make wood wine and—
“How did you know?” Tarq looks thoroughly confused.
And I want to say, Because I’m the one who used it first, you dumbass! I put it in a quicksilver bottle that wasn’t a quicksilver bottle, but something else, and I blew up the fabric of time and made a door from there to here!
But I don’t say any of that. Because he’s already gone.
Was never here.
It’s just a dream.
A fucking nightmare.
And my head. Won’t. Stop. Pounding.
Then someone is dabbing my face with a cool, wet cloth, whispering in my ear, “You’re OK. It’s OK. I’ve got you. I’ve got it all under control. You’re gonna be OK. It’s gonna be fine. Just… sleep.”
It’s Eros. But when I open my eyes, it’s not the Eros I knew.