Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
For a good mile, we travel in silence, and I scan the area around me, looking for the forest version of the giant crab.
Another half mile in, there’s a growling sound that I’m fairly certain, from my slight obsession with National Geographic, is a big cat. I rotate as a white tiger leaps from a giant rock, and by the time I start running, he’s on the ground and on my heels. I rift back to the rock where he’d been moments before, only to find a second cat join me so close I can see every muscle in his lithe, agile body, his teal blue eyes fixed on me, and I’m fairly certain he sees me as dinner.
My heart leaps, and I rift back to the edge of the forest. Micah appears by my side. “Running won’t kill a demon, and if you let it live, it will kill someone else.”
“Okay, but those are not demons. I’m not killing those tigers. This is their home. I’m the intruder in the forest. Did you see how beautiful they were?”
“You are not making your training easy.”
“If I didn’t care about those tigers, I don’t think you should want fire in my hands.”
His lips press into a fine line. “Fair enough. Let’s try something else.” He catches my hand and rifts us back into the forest to stand in front of a cave.
“What is this place?” I ask.
“Why don’t you go inside and find out? I’ll wait for you here. And remember, rifting doesn’t teach you to fight, Ember. You have to stand and face the danger.”
Okay, I’m officially nervous. “What’s in there?”
No sooner do I ask that question than a giant, hairy spider comes crawling out of the cavern, and the damn thing locks its attention on me. Micah disappears. Asshole, I call out in my head. I hate spiders.
Then kill it, he replies.
It’s the size of an elephant, and it has fangs like the crab. Why is that a thing here?
Big means a bigger target.
The damn spider lets out a scream that sounds like an old lady who smokes, and it charges at me while the forest taunts me with an onslaught of whispers. I yank my dagger from my sheath, but the creature is so fast, it’s already almost on top of me. I now have the joy of a close look at creepy, beady eyes accented by those ridiculous long white fangs.
I dive underneath the spider.
It’s not a smart move. It has some sort of claws underneath its belly that start punching at me, and it’s all I can do to roll out from underneath it with my body intact. What ensues is a lot of me rolling and it screaming while I stab it everywhere I can and still fail miserably at killing it. I end up pinned to a tree with its fangs in my face, and I attempt to stab it in the eye but hit its forehead. It doesn’t care. It’s not even a little fazed.
I rift to the outer edge of the beach and drop to my back, huffing and puffing. Micah kneels beside me. “Eyes and vital organs, Ember.”
I sit up, riled all over again. “I tried! I stabbed that thing over and over, and it did not die.”
“You’re operating out of fear, not strategy.”
“It was scary,” I argue.
“It’s nothing compared to a demon.”
I glower at him in utter frustration. “Then you go kill it.”
“All right. I will.” He disappears.
I rift to the area where I left the spider, and Micah is standing in front of it while it screams in his face. Daggers appear in each of his hands. He shoves them into the spider’s eyes, and as it squeals in pain, he yanks the dagger from the sheath at his thigh and plants it in the top of the spider’s head.
The spider collapses. Micah yanks the blade from the spider’s head, cleans it on the ground, and then shoves it back in his sheath before walking toward me. “Now you know how to kill a spider.”
“Is there a book that tells me what’s in the forest?”
“You don’t need a book on the forest. This forest will submit to you the minute you prove you’re its ruler. And you do that by showing it who’s boss. You need to learn to kill demons. Read about demons.”
“Then why am I fighting in the forest?”
“Because you can’t go back to the human realm until you can control your powers and suppress the serpent. That means magic needs to be second nature. I could have killed that spider twenty ways. You need to know you can, too.”
“With magic?”
“Yes. With magic. Where did those extra blades come from? Why do you think it died from my blades and not yours?”
“Magic.”
“Right. I used poisoned blades. But none of this is about spiders or giant crabs. The minute we leave Elysium, you need to know who, when, where, and what when it comes to demons. We’re going to the library, and you aren’t going to get distracted by spellcasting books. We’re going to study demons. Together. After which, we’ll meet Gabriella, and you will learn to use your fire. If you can master it, it’s the answer to everything.”