Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1000(@200wpm)___ 800(@250wpm)___ 667(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1000(@200wpm)___ 800(@250wpm)___ 667(@300wpm)
A heavy door sits at the far end of this vast room. I imagine there are guards outside. Who knows what else is beyond. For now, I have the answer I needed.
In moments, I’m back in Ulysede.
“Another wormhole, Your Highness?” Lucretia mocks.
But I’m rushing up the stairs, desperate to find Zander. “I’ll be back with all the scribes as soon as I can!”
Jarek is waiting at the top of the steps. The Cindrae have stepped back. “What happened down there?” he barks, panic flashing in his eyes as he takes in the blood smears under my nose.
“Long story, but it’s fine. We have more tokens. Useful ones. The golle gave us this.” I hold up the bronze horn.
“For what?”
“I don’t know, but this”—I wave my wrist to show off the gold bracelet—“stops the Prime from binding my affinities.”
“And what is she doing out of her snake pit?”
I turn to where his attention—and scowl—has swung and realize Lucretia has followed me up. “She’s serving me. Lucretia, why do you look so amazed? You’ve seen all this before.” I doubt anyone knows Ulysede better than the sylx, and yet she gapes as she takes in the throne room.
“Seen it, yes.” She shuts her eyes and tips her head back. “But I have not felt the sun in many millennia, my obligation to my old masters binding my corporeal form to that place.”
I absorb her words with a wave of pity. She’s been in that crypt as long as Ulysede has been sealed. When she was lurking around the city, unseen, it’s because she had no other choice.
Jarek doesn’t share my compassion. “What does ‘serving you’ mean, exactly?” The question is for me, but Jarek towers over her. “Are you saying I will have to look at her on the daily?”
Lucretia’s eyes widen and anger I’ve never seen before ignites within. “Does my appearance not please you, servant? Would you prefer another?” In an instant, her face morphs into a replica of my old one, of Romy Watts.
Jarek’s dagger is drawn in an instant, the tip pressed against her throat. “How dare you wear the queen’s face.”
“This is not the queen’s face.” Her lips stretch wide with her hiss.
“I know what you’re doing, and I will execute you for this,” he growls.
A drop of blood trickles from where the blade digs into her skin, but she shows no fear, leaning into it.
“Enough!” I shake my head. I remember the first time she did this, taking on Eden’s form. It’s even more unnerving now. And dangerous. “Lucretia, you are not allowed to wear anyone’s face but your own. Do you understand?”
In another blink, she’s back to her usual humanlike form—a beautiful female with high cheekbones and full lips. “I will not wear anyone’s face but this one, Your Highness.” But there’s challenge in her eyes as she stares down Jarek.
Snarls and shrieks sound then, pulling our attention toward where a gargoyle—a golle, Lucretia called its kind—stares down two squealing goblins, or kaeli. With a swing of its fist, the golle sends both the pot-bellied creatures flying.
The Cindrae move swiftly with spears drawn, leading them all away.
“It will not be long now before the factions forget their peace accords.” Lucretia smiles as if reminiscing over fond memories.
“Are you saying they don’t get along?” What about that scene we walked into through the gates? Of kaeli and wisps splashing in fountains and browsing carts?
“They are usually at war with one another. It is inevitable.”
I groan. I have enough to deal with. I cannot handle bickering nymphs too. “Is it safe having them in Ulysede?”
“It depends what you consider safe.”
“There are hundreds of children in this castle, Lucretia. What would you do if you were me?”
She falters on her answer. It’s the first I’ve ever seen her stall. “I would remove all nymphs from the castle grounds, Your Highness. The Cindrae will manage those within Ulysede with zero tolerance.”
“And what about those not in Ulysede?” The ones who passed the golden gates and disappeared into Islor.
She grins. “Her Highness has enough to worry about.”
“That’s comforting,” I mutter.
Would you like me to remove the nymphs from the castle as the sylx advises, Your Highness?
Oredai’s question slides into my mind. After what I endured with the nymphs, it feels like a healing balm. “Yes. Peacefully.”
Of course.
His responding smile sends shivers down my spine and makes me think our definitions of that word are vastly different.
“Let’s find Agatha and then get out of here.” I’m desperate to see Zander.
17
Annika
I blink against the burn of saltwater as I come to, lying on a pile of rocks, my dress sopping wet and cold against my skin. Vague recollections of retching stir in my memory, but I will gladly welcome that for eternity if it means never feeling the agony of raw merth again.