Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Turning in to Lavante’s flank, I open the neck of the satchel and pour a couple of the coins into my palm. They gleam in the dawn light, as if bits of the sun have fallen from the sky. I remember Mare, and wonder what she would think of me now.
Only parts of my evolution would she approve of.
I’m putting the coins back when I stop and frown. Picking one up, I angle it this way and that, an eerie feeling coming over me.
“Julion…” I breathe with shock.
I’m staring at his face on the coin. It’s the strike marking that’s different from all the others, the one that features the unbearded young man …
He was no mere knight of the court. He is heir to the throne.
Yes, I think to myself. We go to Prosperitus.
I couldn’t coerce the warrior queen with the crown, but maybe I can leverage a different throne if I do what its prince requested of me.
“So are we ready, then?” Merc asks.
I glance up, and have to shake myself back into focus. “Ah … yes, yes, we are.”
Closing the tie, I put the velvet bag back in the pocket of Julion’s jodhpurs—which have been laundered and pressed by the royal attendants and are just like new. They even cleaned the turban, although I left it behind.
Merc and I both saddle up, and then the guards—minus the two who are sitting on the ground with their heads cradled in their hands—walk us over to an exit in the back of the royal castle’s protective wall. On the approach, as our horse’s hooves clip-clop over the stone aisle, I think of the great gate, the one that opened up to mist and the ruins.
This one up ahead would be considered towering, if I didn’t have the former for comparison.
As the oak panels open, a dew-laden meadow is revealed on the far side, the dawn’s delicate, golden light drenching flowers and fruit trees alike. All around, birds chatter sweetly on branches and flit from post to post in flashes of blue and red and yellow, blooms in the air itself. Taking a deep breath, I’m reminded that the scent of nature feeds the soul, and I miss my herbs and potions.
Can I call myself a healer anymore? Or did my actions in the torture dungeon taint what I always thought was my calling to the point where I am like the Fulcrum, contaminated and no longer serving a higher purpose?
“You’ll be wanting to just follow the road—” The guard’s instructions are cut off by a burp that is obviously sour in nature given his grimace. “That would be, go north and north anew. Few travel this way, so you should be fine, but keep sharp.”
Merc inclines his head. “I will.”
“Thank you,” I say to the man. “And thank you for caring for our—”
All at once, the guards remove their hats, place them over their hearts, and bow low to me. As they speak in a quiet rush of words I don’t understand, I think they’re praying for our safe travels. Certainly as they straighten, I can feel their warm regard, even though I don’t risk meeting any of the eyes that rise up to me with open reverence.
As soon as we are outside the wall, the gate is closed and I can hear the echoing of a sturdy bolt as it’s thrown. I glance over my shoulder. Though this is the rear entry to the Kingdom, it is still grander than any I have seen, but the luxury falls away quickly as we start forward.
So many abandoned homes.
Beyond the lee of the great court and all of its acres of protected, tended, marbled finery, out here to the north and the west, there’s nothing but vacant property and overgrown fields. It may be because everyone is crammed into safety inside the palace walls, but you couldn’t fit this populace into that space.
No, this is a decline in citizenry.
And the guard who spoke was right. The carriage lane we’re on is not well tended at all, a reminder that the Kingdom isn’t looking or caring for visitors in any fashion: Weeds grow up on the shoulders, choking out a series of marble plaques that bear the profile of the Queen, and the median in the center has a cultivation of curly green grass and tiny blue flowers. The tree line that stands in sentry on both sides is sloppy with suckers invading what was certainly once a maintained allée, and there are rusted-out pieces of farming machinery decaying here and there.
And then we’re reminded of just how bad things are.
As we round a broad turn, Lavante’s leisurely trot gets choppy, and he tosses his head, his nostrils flaring and then releasing on a worried whinny. Snooze likewise shies away—
The dead cow is lying on its back in the center of the lane, its hooves lax, its belly exposed. Between one blink and the next, I see the officer I killed in a slump against the corner of the cell, his abdomen as open as a window in the summer.