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)
Valerian crawls to him and collects his shuddering body, holding him tightly, futilely trying to heal him. Liandros tries to speak, but blood bubbles out of his mouth and he goes limp.
Valerian rocks him back and forth, telling him not to sleep, telling him the vitalians will be here soon. He continues rocking as Prince Anastasius charges towards the crusaders, baby in one arm, sword in the other. He steers it towards a purple-cloaked figure. “Who ordered this?”
When the crusader doesn’t answer immediately, he presses the sword tip against his throat, drawing blood.
Another crusader spits blood to the ground. “The new king of Iskaldir. His revenge aligned with our purpose.”
Valerian strokes Liandros’s cheek, whispering for him to wake up.
My eyes are damp and it’s hard to swallow. But another thought has me lurching out of the messy scene and hurrying through the woods for the door—
A brutally devastated cry pierces the woods and sky, making them rumble, making winds sweep . . . Valerian’s grief. Gusts tear at my clothes, rip branches from trees, send lethal leaves slicing through the air . . . I stagger through it, fingers clawing into the fading earth for purchase.
Logs roll down a bank and I scramble out of their way—
Wait, they weren’t logs. They were people. Two people covered in mud and leaves, as stiff as trunks . . .
I spy the rune door, thirty yards that way. Should I race there first and re-enter the scene from the beginning, hopefully finding them in the recesses of this memory? Or do I risk becoming lost too?
Do I even have time to come back?
With a pounding heart and pounding steps and a pounding gale at my back, I slip and slide and chase after their rolling bodies. One bumps to a stop against a boulder and the other is about to hurtle off the edge of a cliff—I dive for a limp arm, slamming against the ground, catching it by the wrist as it goes over the edge.
A tornado is forming, whipping all the leaves from the trees. Need to hurry. I pull at the broad wrist, feeling the hard wood of my carved violet oak armband. Prince Nicostratus. Through pinched eyes, I see his form as I heave his weight up. We lurch back with the aid of a wind that is still carrying Valerian’s cries.
With strength that comes from utter desperation, I drag two deadweight souls towards the rune door, fingers clutching their wrists like I’m binding our fates together. Winds swirl around us, debris a curtain sweeping towards us. I crash to the ground, covering Casimiria’s and the prince’s exposed faces. A jaggery branch skids across my back, tearing through fabric and skin, and I bite down on a cry. When the curtain passes, I take their wrists and pull defiantly, blood sluicing down my back. The sting keeps me grounded, keeps me focused on the faint glow of the door in the swirling darkness.
To falter now, to fall, is not only to lose Casimiria and the prince, not only to lose myself, it’s to lose . . .
With a surge of determination, I double my grip.
Icollapse on the damp platform beneath the luminarium, calling hoarsely for Lucius.
He pounds down the spiral staircase and I yell out what he needs to stack. He’ll have been consuming teas while I was searching. He’ll be ready.
Magic is faster. Ultimately, that fact always remains.
Lucius hasn’t even reached the last step before he’s funnelling the spells into Casimiria and the prince.
I see colour slowly seeping into their faces, and with plummeting relief—and queasy anxiety—I leave Lucius to finish his spells while I check on the souls upstairs.
They are stirring.
I skid over to the little girl and Akilah, taking their pulses as they sit dazedly upright. They’re ticking smoothly, getting stronger by the second.
The little girl starts pouting and calls out for Nestor.
“It’s alright,” I murmur, patting her back. “He’s waiting for you. You’ll see him soon.”
She sniffs and Akilah offers her skirts for the child to wipe her tears away.
With a frown, Akilah asks quietly, “Where are we?”
“You fell into the regent’s dromveske. Your soul will leave soon and you’ll return to your body.”
“This is part of your trial?”
“Yes.”
She takes in all the familiar faces of the island prisoners stirring awake around her, and pins a frown on me. “If we leave, do you win?”
“Yes.”
“What about Florentius? What about his brother?”
“What about his brother?” Lucius says, coming up from behind with the prince and a hobbling Casimiria at his side. Their gazes hit mine and widen. Between the prince and me is a thousand questions—between the king’s mother and me, the quiet reminder we have scores yet to be settled.
I jerk my head away to Akilah climbing to her feet. “If we leave now and Cael wins the Medicus Contest, all your lives are in jeopardy!”