Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 92392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
In the surrounding torchlights the Silent Ones looked like figures standing in their own spilled blood.
Another group of six of them remained near the slab, standing so still that twice I mistook them for carvings cut from the dark. Then one would shift, and the red would move, and my heart would slam against my ribs hard enough to hurt.
I can see why no one ever knows who they are. They’re good at hiding, even when they are right in front of you.
My breath curled above me and vanished. Leaves shifted in the high dark. An owl called once, twice, and then went silent.
After that, the whole forest held still around this clearing as if it knew what we had come here to do, and how all would be changed forever.
Dear God. . .
I stared up at the moon. It hung full and white over the trees. Light poured down through the gap in the canopy and silvered everything it touched.
This will change everything.
I held that thought the way a drowning woman held a ragged rope, praying it could save her.
I needed home. The animal part of me wanted to roll off the slab, run into the black trees, and never stop running. That part of me screamed under my skin.
This is the only way. . .
And then just like that. . .a baby girl appeared in my arms.
She came without warning and her scent rose to my nose—fresh roses and honey, clean skin and a hint of powder. And I dragged her scent into my lungs like it was air and did my best to hold it there for as long as possible.
God, she was so warm.
The heat of her tiny body bled through the thin robe and into my frozen chest. My baby girl was the only warm thing in this whole cold clearing.
She had my brown skin and Kenji's eyes, dark, sharp, and already too clever for her own good. She fit against my chest like she had grown there. Like she belonged nowhere else. Her small hand closed around my finger and squeezed. Her whole fist barely made it around the one finger.
I would have let her hold it as long as she wanted.
I would have rocked her all night.
Still. . .
she looked up at me.
And she knew me.
And she trusted me.
I’m sorry.
Then, a warm hand settled on my shoulder.
I looked up.
My grandmother stood beside me and hummed a slow tune. Behind her, other women stood from my family. Some I recognized. Some I didn’t. It was a long line of them stretching back into the darkness past the torchlight—dark-skinned, broad-backed, every shade of brown.
Some in headwraps.
Some in chains.
Some so free it made my eyes water.
Trembling, I looked down the line of women stretching back into the dark.
Some watched the baby.
Some watched me.
One older woman stood with tears shining on her cheeks. Another pressed a trembling hand to her mouth. And suddenly I wondered how many of them had stood where I sat now.
How many had looked at a future they would never have?
How many had said yes anyway?
I shut my eyes.
Stop. Don't do this to yourself.
I opened them, and my baby girl disappeared, and the moon stared down where her face had been.
I breathed through my teeth and dragged myself back to the clearing and cold stone.
A large bowl waited on the ground between my open feet. Age had blackened it. Carved figures circled its sides, yet they appeared so worn as if smoothed by centuries of hands.
The moonlight poured into the bowl’s mouth.
A hooded figure stood behind the bowl. A taller person was on the right, holding the rod.
Swallowing, I stared at the rod.
It was thin, dark metal and longer than my forearm. It narrowed to a point fine as a long needle. The torchlight slid down the length and made it gleam.
Fuck.
I shivered, and a new vision came.
My little girl sat on a small bicycle in a wide green yard, and Kenji crouched beside her with one hand steady on the seat and one hand on the handlebars. He spoke to her as if it were the most important conversation of his life.
And then she nodded her little head and wobbled forward on the bike. He kept his hand on the seat and ran beside her.
Reo stood near with a massive medical team like he’d prepared for every possible injury to the Little Tiger.
But she remained balanced.
And when Kenji let go, she rushed forward and laughed.
And Kenji stood in the grass with the biggest smile on his face.
And Reo and the medical team clapped.
What are you doing?
I blinked and shoved that away.
The Death Guardian walked over. When I first met her tonight, she’d pretended to be an old woman with a hunched back. She’d held her cane in a shaky hand.
Now, she prowled over tall and muscular. Her gray hair was out of the bun and hung white to her shoulder. A fierce expression covered her face as if she were more than ready to fight the war tonight.