Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
A prickling sensation sparked in my feet, as if my skin was waking up after a too-long sleep. The prickles raced upward, needles and silk and electricity all at once. I gasped as it spread from my calves, to my thighs, to my spine.
Golden smoke rose and clung to me, fusing to my skin. Where it touched, light bloomed. That light pulsed the faintest green at first, but quickly darkened to a shade matching the emerald.
Amazing. The stones hummed in approval.
Ian’s grin reformed, slow and triumphant. “Behold,” he said, voice thick with satisfaction. “The Ember of Everlight. The only power great enough to defeat a monstra army.”
Shock almost buckled my knees. I caught myself on instinct alone, fingers curling to grab hold of something solid. Anything that said I was still just a girl standing in a ring of stones, rather than a deadly weapon newly unsheathed.
My pulse roared in my ears. Every breath felt too loud and too thin at the same time. Me. I was just me. A royal farm girl made of doubts and stubborn hope, of water and love and all the fragile things that broke too easily.
I stared at my hands, at the emerald glow tracing every vein, and a thousand moments collided inside me, bringing brutal clarity. Every warning. Every vision. Every prompting from Elowen. All had pointed to this.
I was the Ember of Everlight. Not Andrea. Not anymore. Me.
I dragged a hand over my face, wishing denial could erase everything else. How could I be the spark of annihilation to end the monstra armies?
Sharp and possessive, Ian locked on me. “We just needed to re-ignite it—so I can take it.”
Elowen believed this was our final loop. That the Ember—me—had been depleted with each new life. Ian must not share her suspicion.
“You are a container,” he explained, “just as Andrea was. Just as I will be, through the emerald. I should have guessed your identity the moment I spotted you.” Stroking the gemstone, he laughed, then lifted his prize into a beam of sunlight.
A wind erupted around me, lifting the brightness from my skin and funneling it into the emerald he held, causing it to glow.
Cold seeped into my bones. Here was my vision, come to life.
“Sin explained the Ember would resurface in a different water maiden. The very reason I wed one, certain she was the one.” He stroked his precious. “She didn’t last long in the stones, however.”
Killed by a madman, he’d once said, knowing he was referencing himself. More monster than any of his clones. I wrapped my arms around my middle, desperate to understand. “I drank a serum. I’m not truly a water maiden.”
“Now you lie to yourself. You are Sandrine’s daughter, are you not?” Ian tsked before placing the glowing gemstone over his heart and closing his eyes, clearly relishing the sensation as it faded into his skin, becoming a tattoo again. Only now, it glowed.
Finally, Jasher spoke up. “She doesn’t know.”
Ian grinned slowly, gleefully. “Allow me to enlighten you then. Sandrine is Hakeldama’s original water maiden, Andrea.”
That… no. Not possible. Not even worth contemplating. “You’re wrong. Sandrine is human.”
He scoffed. “I assure you, Sin is never wrong about Andrea. We think she awoke in the cave-in, though we aren’t sure where she hid for nearly twenty years until washing up on that shore, without her memory, and met Ahav. But we’re certain she started the time loops. Sin has begun to remember…”
I withered into myself. My mother. A water maiden. Andrea. The first of our kind. Me, a water maiden by birth, not serum.
Cords stood out in Jasher’s neck. “Elowen is Sandrine’s—Andrea’s—daughter as well. And your half-sister.”
Another shock jolted me. Elowen…sister? “No.” But the visions I’d had…
“Oh, yes.” Ian smirked brighter than before, only to hiss and peer down at his chest.
My eyes widened. The emerald. The glow was lifting from Ian’s skin in glittering flecks, swirling, collecting.
Like a lightning bolt, it arrowed back to me and shattered, hitting my skin like needle pricks.
I sucked in a mouthful of oxygen. The stinging points vibrated, humming with power.
“No,” Ian bellowed. “Reject it. Expel it. Now!”
Compulsion hit, and I attempted to obey, but the Ember remained on me, in me, as if it had a mind of its own. The stinging heat and hum only intensified.
Did I have the power to crystallize him?
“Very well,” he snapped. “We’ll do this another way. Once you’re dead, the Ember should abandon you. And if it doesn’t, well, we’ll start over. Sin said I cannot stab you, so I won’t.” He waved to the side of the nest. “Jump, Moriah.”
Jasher double-blinked.
This compulsion gripped me with greater force. I fought it. Fought so hard.
“We might not have another life,” I spewed at him, digging in my heels as my body attempted to force me to the threshold of the nest.