Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
“O... lene, wait—”
“Agh!” She twisted and he moved with her, flying into the opposite wall.
“Olene!” Blood wept from a dozen cuts and wounds on his horrible, hideous face. “Wait, stop, please! I didn’t want it to come to this!”
Mama picked up his sword.
“None of this was my fault!”
One of the crystals on his lapel glowed. Mama snapped her fist back and they tore out of his many hiding places, bouncing across the floor—one of them hitting my slackened jaw.
“It wasn’t me,” he bellowed. “It was her! That demon child!”
I didn’t have to ask to know he was speaking about me.
“She’s the reason we could never be happy. I love you! I’ve always loved you, but she destroyed everything!” Kirwan strained and thrashed, his limbs pinned to the wall.
Mama halted before him, her back facing us. “I can promise you two things here today, Kirwan. I never loved you. You are the most despicable of men. Lower than a worm. Filthier than the scum-sucking bottom feeders found crawling through shit. I’ve hated you from the moment we met, and every day I prayed to Meya for your death. How could any woman love you?” she hissed. “You don’t even love yourself. The only thing you’ve ever done right in your life is Meliora.”
The delusional fool had the audacity to gape at her in slack-jawed surprise. “Olene, what are you saying? This isn’t you. This is her! Ruining everything. Coming between us!”
“And my second promise,” Mama continued on, raising her sword. “You will never hurt my children again.”
I grabbed Meliora, covering her face with my body.
“Olene, don’t—”
Mama’s sword struck true—severing his head from his shoulders. It thudded on the ground, the bug-eyed look of surprise still on his face.
I held Meliora close, not letting her look. No matter how much she despised the man, she was only sixteen. I wouldn’t have her watch her mother kill her father.
“Mama?” I croaked. “Are you okay?”
She didn’t respond for throwing out her hands. Snapping them together, Kirwan’s head flew off the ground and pinned back to the wall. “Eldur!”
The body burst into flames, smacking us over the head with heat. Greedily they consumed him, reducing the great and fearsome Kirwan Dawnbreaker to nothing but ash. She swept it out the door and slammed it shut with a cold efficiency that reminded me of something I often forgot. My mother went to war right alongside my father. She was never a wilting flower... and she never feared a monster.
“Mama?” I said softly. “Are... you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay, faywen, but I need you to check on the children.”
“But—”
“Now.”
Her tone brokered no argument. I loosened my grip on Meli standing up. My sister broke from me and ran to our mother, burying her face in her chest as she sobbed.
I left them be, knowing Meli was with the exact person she needed at that moment.
I continued on through the hall, calling for Jaclan and Gisela, but inside, my head was a wreck. Putting aside that my sister’s father threatened her life, so he could steal our coin and kidnap me and my little sister, the mind-shattering shock was watching my mother perform magic.
How? I thought she was gone, but obviously she just fell into a frighteningly deep sleep. Or did she, somehow, pass away, but then Meya allowed her to return to us—save us—with her true and natural state returned?
“Jaclan—?”
“Yes?” Jaclan poked his head out of his room—whole, healthy, and curious. “Is Mama awake? Can I show her my drawing now?”
Slowly, I stuck my head inside. Gisela and Savia were inside too. Savia napped in her cot while Gisela sat at the small table Jaclan vacated, drawing her own picture for Mama.
“Haeowen?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, pulling out of my thoughts. “Mama’s in the front room. Go and show her your—”
Screams pierced the air, invading through the cracked window. “Faywens, take Savia and go to Mama now!” I ran to the glass and peered into the street.
I choked on a cry. “Alisdair?”
My love wasn’t in the street, but faeriken were. I watched bug-eyed as the source of the scream raced through the alley, shrieking her head off as a pack of rhino faeriken charged her. I wrenched back just as they closed in on their target.
“What the fuck is going on!” The faeriken were invading? Why would Alisdair do this? We had a plan. As far as I knew, no secret female assassins have slaughtered Salman in his bed, so why would he attack now?
“Calli? Calli!” Meliora called. “What do we do?”
I took off, racing out of the room and making for the back entrance. “Stay inside!” I burst outside and shrieked, hugging my arms to my chest.
Cold! Oh fucking Meya, it was cold! A blast of freezing wind struck me, chattering my teeth.
The pack of rhinos had moved on, but they weren’t the only ones. A monkey faeriken scaled the walls of the home across the street and jumped on the roof. He had to. Two leopard faeriken were on his tail—snarling and snapping at their lost prey from below.