Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Prins Yngvarr glances at Casimiria as she reluctantly lifts her wine. Immediately upon setting the cup down, she winces and rubs her temple, then shakes her head like she’s struggling to keep her focus. The prins stiffens, and when the next lady insists on a toast, he speaks up. “So many toasts. Even a man would soon struggle to stand upright. Are we perhaps asking too much of our guests?”
Prince Anastasius smiles widely. “Father, perhaps you can allow the royal vitalians to treat their headaches before bed?”
The king agrees heartily, and the toasts keep coming.
An aklo slides up to Yngvarr’s side and whispers in his ear. The prins politely excuses himself, and Quin and I share a look. We follow him inside to his rooms. Chairs are tipped over, books have been ripped apart and strewn over the floor, clothes flung across the room. His carved masks, smashed.
He picks up a shard of the mask that he and Casimiria had bonded over and closes his eyes. Blood drips from his hand where he squeezes the sharp edge. He finds all parts of this mask and sets about gluing it together. When it’s done, he calls in his aklos and returns to the banquet.
Only, Casimiria is no longer there.
Neither are the princes.
Yngvarr asks the aklas where she went, and sniffs her abandoned cup as they tell him she needed to rest. “The prince sent his personal aklas to help her.”
He stiffens and drops the cup. We rush to keep up with him as he charges through connecting courtyards to a side building shrouded with flowering vines. A warm glow spreads over the pink flowers from indoor lanterns. Two silver-robed vitalians emerge. One is a young Chiron, Florentius’s father, and he’s frowning, clearly displeased.
Prins Yngvarr stops them. “Why are you . . . Is she here? Have you given her the antidote?”
The other vitalian sneers at the hostage prins and drags Chiron away.
A wild gust of wind sweeps magenta petals around us; Quin steps sharply forward and stares hard in all directions. “We should go. Cael!”
But I’m right behind the prins as he swings open the door.
Casimiria is half undressed upon the bed, held in Anastasius’s arms. Her head lolls back, exposing her throat and the top of her bodice, and her dress is riding up one of her long legs to her naked thigh. But that is by far not the worst of it. Light is swirling around the crown prince as he absorbs her lovelight, his eyes slammed shut. He crushes Casimiria against his chest, murmuring something in her ear.
Quin calls my name again but I’m rooted in the doorway, watching as Prins Yngvarr staggers into the room and grabs a decorative sword from the wall. At the slide of metal being released from its sheath, the crown prince snaps his eyes open and calls for his guards. I lurch to the side as uniformed men sweep into the room and restrain the charging prins.
“You’re despicable,” Prins Yngvarr spits out. “You drugged her. You stole her light.”
“She was always going to be mine.”
A roaring wind tunnels viciously inside, rattling the bones of the memory. The air is thick with swirling pink petals and razor-sharp leaves, their vibrant colours fading as this reality fractures around us. Crumbling walls groan and splinter, and the once recognisable manor morphs into a chaotic whirlwind.
Debris hurtles around us and Quin grabs my hand, pulling me out of the way of falling beams. I gasp against his chest. This is what Prins Lief meant when he said the dromveske could be dangerous.
Quin urges me ahead, left and right, zigzagging past hurtling objects. If we’re not fast enough, these winds will swallow the path to the rune door whole and we’ll be flung into the recesses of this memory, a place it may be impossible to come back from.
Quin protects my back tightly, the only steady thing around me, his pulsing heart between my shoulders warm, real, unchanging. It, and the sudden glow of the rune gate in the distance, has my heart hiccupping.
Suddenly, I feel something tug my leg, coiling tighter with each frantic try to escape. Panic bubbles in my belly. Quin is already curling around me, yanking and pulling with urgency. “Hold on, I’ve got you.”
His voice is a song amidst howling winds. He snatches a stone brick walloping past him and smashes it against the vine, slicing through its hold on me.
I fall forward with the sudden freedom and Quin steadies me; with a fierce look across the splintering courtyard, he hauls me toward the shaking door. Winds wail and I glance at a banquet table cartwheeling towards us. I shout and try to shove Quin out of its path, but he refuses to let go; he rolls with me, further from the rune door.