Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
I smirk.
The horror is starting to give way to relief and even a little bit of excitement. What just happened will change everything, one way or another.
“What are we going to do?”
“I think we should head for the mountains,” Einar says. “It’s time to get clear of Eclipse for a while. I know you don’t care for the wilds, Darcy, but it’s going to be dangerous, and we won’t know where the danger is coming from. You can never risk being seen again.”
“Never?”
“Not in the short term. The king’s maiming, or death, or whatever it is, will not unfold in public as it does in private. They know very well what you did, and they will want you as dead as those guards, or worse.”
I know exactly what he means by ‘or worse.’ It’s the same thing the king meant when he said I belong to him.
“I believe they will try to hunt you down in silence and kill you, would be my guess. Unless they come to the conclusion that you acted in self-defense and are unlikely to be an ongoing threat, but I doubt the kindness will go that far. It really depends on what happens. If the king dies, it depends on who they decide to replace him with.”
“But he has twenty-one heirs. You’d have to kill an awful lot of people to eradicate his line.”
“His line is meaningless. He may have bred, but he doesn’t have the royal genes.”
“And who will decide who replaces him?”
“The cardinal, of course. The cardinal speaks to the wolf god.”
“Wolf god,” I snort. “It’s all such bullshit.”
Nobody disagrees with me.
We leave the city without being stopped, and without any news about the king or the palace breaking. Life is going on as if nothing happened. It’s an almost eerie feeling to go through social feeds and realize that people assume everything they need to know is here, when in reality everything they think they know is a lie.
Halfway up the mountain, consequences erupt.
Red suddenly flashes from the undergrowth, as a fully tactical assault is unleashed on us from several different angles. The tires are spiked, and the doors are hit with spear-cups that sink into the metal and then crank back to yank them open.
The rear of the van is flooded with men in red tactical suits.
There is no time to fight back. A red bag is dropped over my head, and I am carried, screaming and flailing out of the van. I feel something wrap around my neck almost as soon as the bag goes on. I don’t know what it is, but I know I can’t shift. I’m all out of juice.
“Run!” I scream to my mates. “Run!”
CHAPTER 22
Some time, and a whole lot of silent transport later, the bag comes off my head, and I find myself face to face with a man whose visage is as widely known in Eclipse as the king’s was. The cardinal is in his fifties, has graying hair and usually the sort of face that suggests a charismatic, yet kindly nature. We appear to be in one of his chambers. A glance out the window tells me we’re in Eclipse City, but not in the palace.
The cardinal is popular. Far more popular than the king, really, because he leads the city in religious ceremonies, and also makes himself available for various public appearances on television and such. A couple of weeks ago he was helping rehome puppies.
He does not have the rehoming puppies energy now. He’s taller than I realized, well over six feet. The robes he wears are mostly red, edged with white. They’re impressive. They do the job they were meant to do, which is to intimidate a common person.
“Darcy No Last Name,” he says, his voice deep and warm, but I know that’s an illusion. “Darcy, Darcy, Darcy. You have been a source of quite a great deal of trouble for quite some time, haven’t you?”
“Yes.” I squeak the word. He doesn’t seem angry at me, but I’d bet with a man like this it doesn’t matter. You can’t read someone like him. He could be amused. He could be happy. He could be seething with rage.
“You’re going to be good for me, aren’t you,” he says.
I nod. There’s something in this man that emanates power. The king I met certainly didn’t have this level of personality. He was nothing more than a horny asshole, just a common dude who got to live in a castle and produce scores of kids who looked just like him.
The cardinal is celibate. I’ve heard that’s a way for him to generate power. I think it’s working.
“You’ve committed quite a number of crimes,” he says. “I believe you actually killed one of my guards not long ago. It was reported that a young woman got into a duel, then resisted arrest, attacked the guards, killed one, and shifted into a wolf form and fled toward the academy. We have been watching you since that time, and you have been up to quite a great deal, haven’t you?”