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)
I watch as Lach disappears. As we did since childhood, Lach will make the preparations needed to circumvent the people trying to hold us back. Lach’s bad reputation serves our purpose. And mine serves it as well. No one walks after Lach, preferring to praise me for my reasonableness.
Roan looks out over the yard where Max Harper stands talking to a desiccated horse, his face a mixture of horror and an odd sense of wonder.
“That horse.” Roan nods toward it. “How long has it been dead?”
For a long time as far as I can see. There isn’t a lot of flesh left, just sinew connecting bones.
“A year or so. Max loved that filly.” Rye smiles.
Roan lets loose a long whistle. “It should be delicate. It shouldn’t be able to move like that. The bones should be brittle and break almost on contact. Yet that corpse is moving with ease, almost as it did when it was alive. Is that always what happens around your brother?”
I stare at the dead thing. I’m beginning to follow Roan’s line of thinking. “They weren’t at first. The first creatures he brought back were very weak. They mostly were things like rats and vermin that lay where they died. But you buried the dog and the horse.”
Rye Harper’s eyes flare. “We buried that horse deep. Max didn’t want the bears or the mountain trolls to get her. He dug for a day and a half. Our neighbors, Rafael and Cameron, helped us.”
Roan whistles again. “That horse climbed from its grave when Lachlan’s power called. It makes me wonder what he could do if he focused that power. Gives me something to think about.” He starts to walk into the house but puts a hand on my shoulder. “Thank you, Your Highness, for being so reasonable.”
Reason has nothing to do with it. I give the vampire a placid smile. He won’t be thanking me in an hour when he realizes we’re gone.
We’re coming, Bron.
Nothing is more important than Bronwyn. Nothing.
Chapter Eleven
Torin, the Asswipe Pretender
I walk into the room. Deep underground, I can feel the cold chill in my bones. This is the place of hags and their black magic.
“Why do you need me here, Your Majesty?” Maris asks, her blonde head held regally despite the cesspit we’re walking into.
“I told you. I want my queen by my side.” The hags insisted that both royals be in attendance as they work this spell. The spell that will lead me to Bronwyn Finn.
“She isn’t alive. I identified the body myself.” Maris dressed for the occasion in all white, making her sure to stand out in the darkened chambers. My bride always prefers white and sunny shades, saying they’re Seelie colors. I rather think it’s a clever disguise to mask her dark, brittle heart. Maris is a vision of loveliness amid the gloom. Her very tranquility is what makes her such an effective partner in betrayal.
“Your Majesties.” Una greets us in true form. They can be nothing less in this space. Her bland attractiveness is gone, and her true self makes Maris stop and shudder delicately.
Glannis joins her sister. The hag’s nose grew by three inches, and her flesh sags everywhere. Una is thin to the point of gauntness, her cheeks hollow and lips sunken in. When she smiles—I’m not sure I should call it a smile—I notice the hag has no teeth.
I rarely see them in their true forms, not since that fateful day they saved me from the ogres and set this land on the path to purity.
Of course, what they don’t know is that once I win the day, I intend to get rid of them as well. But not until I have no further need of them. Until that glorious day, I hide my distaste.
“You’ve had hours and hours. What have you discovered?” I ask, wanting nothing more than to get this over with.
Glannis frowns, her skin sagging until I’m not sure how she can see. “Bronwyn Finn is alive.”
Maris gasps. “Impossible. I saw her body.”
“This body, Your Majesty?” Una asks, gesturing toward the back of the cave.
A girl sits on a log, her youthful face illuminated by the firepit in the center of the cavern. She appears to be fourteen or fifteen, a girl trapped forever in the first blush of her womanhood. She wears a fine overdress of sheer, pale pink silk. Her hair is pinned up in elegant braids. There’s a sun-shaped pendant around her throat, the crest of the Finn line.
Maris stares at the girl, moving in closer. I must give my bride credit. She matches her actions to her words. She isn’t a shrinking violet. She’s slit a few throats in her own time. My queen walks up to the girl and puts a hand under her chin. She looks delicate in the firelight, the dead girl. There’s no question she’s dead. Her pretty gown is blood stained, and there’s a hole in her belly. Yet she sits there as calmly as she can, as though she waits to be called into the temple or the schoolroom.