Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
There are still hours to go before we can begin. I don’t argue with the vampire though. Dellacourt left behind a whole rich life to follow his cousins. Perhaps it’s time to toss aside my preconceptions and start asking questions.
Perhaps it’s time to become a king no matter what my father thinks.
“Could you tell me about the situation here?”
Dellacourt’s green eyes widen slightly. “Are you sure? You didn’t seem at all interested before.”
“I am now.”
Dellacourt smiles. “Then take a seat, Your Highness. Consider this your first briefing.”
I sit, and the vampire begins to speak.
Chapter Nine
Bronwyn
The late-afternoon light is warm on my skin as I stand in the middle of the town square, music and laughter all around me. The Festival of Threshing. The agricultural provinces all have their own ways to celebrate the hard work of the season. Here there will be a small party for the threshing and a huge feast after harvest is done. But I won’t be around for the feasting this year. I’ll be on the road, these people I came to care about left behind.
I watch the children dance around the maypole, the colors blending, making a rainbow as they bounce and sing. And my heart hurts because I know how much Ove wanted to attend. But the brownie is in hiding. I was forced to leave her in a cold cave with her mother. Gillian took food and blankets, but it’s only a matter of time before the guards think to search for them. Torin’s principles of purity have finally reached the outer provinces, and there is nowhere left to run.
Then stop running. You’re of age. The time has come to fight. Gather an army. Be the princess you were born to be.
That angry voice in my head is becoming louder and harder to ignore. I’m not a child any longer. My brothers, it seems, are not coming back. I’m the only Finn left for a rebellion to build around. If Gillian and I leave this province, how long will it be until something else sends us running again? How long before we run out of places to hide? And how many of my friends will die along the way, without my defense because staying alive is all that matters? Do I want to spend my life like this, hiding and pretending to be something I’m not?
And that brings up the real question. Who the hell am I? I wasn’t brought up to be a warrior princess. I was brought up to be a fluffy wife. Time and hardship molded me into something else. Something more.
Who is Bronwyn Finn becoming?
“Hello, my dear. Your dress is lovely, though I wish you had worn your sapphire-blue one.” Micha’s rheumy eyes take in my form, and I can practically see the old man salivate. He’s dressed in his country best—a velvet overcoat that is overly adorned with golden buttons and jewel-encrusted medals proclaiming some military service he never actually performed. Micha likes to steal such things from condemned prisoners and pass them off as his own, or so rumor has it.
One thing I’m not about to become is the mayor’s wife. I’ll fight like hell to avoid that, no question.
“I apologize, Mayor,” I say with a yawn, already planning my getaway. “I suppose I wasn’t thinking about such things as fashion. The harvest begins tomorrow. There was much to do this day to prepare. All the work has tired me.”
His lips curl in a condescending smile. “Well, we shall have to make ours a particularly short engagement so you shall never have to work a plow again. Though I would say there will still be a bit of plowing involved in your life. Do not worry, dear. I’ll be the driving force in that particular harvest.”
It’s all I can do to not show my disdain. I let my eyes go wide and innocent. I need to be as virginal as possible so when I slap him silly, I have the perfect excuse of utter ignorance. “I did not know you planted your own food, Mayor. Well, that explains why you selected me as your mate. I can certainly help with your farming techniques.”
The guards behind him laugh, elbowing each other. The mayor joins them. “My bride will need an education, will she not?”
“You’re the man to give it to her, Mayor,” one of the guards says. They stand behind him, two large men with swords at their sides. I notice the long, distrustful stares of the farmers around me.
I feel myself flush. I want to show them exactly what my education over the last years taught me. Swords and knives and hand-to-hand combat were taught by a pair of open-minded goblins. They taught me to fight dirty, to use my hands, my legs, my teeth. Anything to win the battle. They taught me that the only true honor in battle is to stay alive.