Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 229266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1146(@200wpm)___ 917(@250wpm)___ 764(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 229266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1146(@200wpm)___ 917(@250wpm)___ 764(@300wpm)
“You are what they want,” he said. “With you, they will be able to do more harm to both Atlantia and Solis than if anything happens to me.”
“If anything happens to you—” I cut myself off, unable to go there when everything between us now was still so new, when it would breathe life into the fear I already felt. “These people need you more than they need me.”
“Poppy—”
“Do not ask me to do that.” I looked at him. “Do not ask me to run and hide while someone I care about is hurt or worse. I will not do that again.”
He closed his eyes. “This is not the same.”
I started to demand how it wasn’t when I heard the low call of warning from the fields. Both of us turned as fire sparked and a torch flamed to life in the distance, one after another until light spilled across the empty road.
Casteel signaled back as he reached for the hood of my cloak, pulling it up. As he fastened the row of buttons at my throat, the archers rushed forward, dropping behind the battlement walls.
Heart rate kicking up and breaths becoming too quick, I picked up a bow and an arrow out of the quiver—it was the kind I was familiar with—and stepped back so I wouldn’t be seen beyond the stone walls. Casteel remained where he stood, the only person visible to the approaching regiment. Instead of what marched forward, I stared at him, focused on the straight line of his spine and the proud lift of his chin. And as the silence gave way to the sound of dozens of boots and hooves falling upon the packed earth and the creak of wooden wheels turning, my senses stretched out to him. There was the bitter taste of fear, because he was no fool, but it was such a small amount because he was no coward.
“This kind of reminds me,” he noted, “of the night on the Rise in Masadonia. Except you’re not wearing slippers and a rather indecent nightgown. I don’t know if I should be relieved or disappointed.”
My heart slowed, and my breaths were no longer shallow. My spine straightened, and my chin lifted. “You should be grateful. You won’t be distracted tonight.”
He laughed softly. “Still a little disappointed.”
I smiled as my grip tightened on the bow.
There were no more words then as we watched the soldiers of Solis draw closer, shoving torches into the road and embankments. Their front lines were mortal soldiers, carrying heavy broadswords and wearing plates of leather. Horses pulled three catapults, and beyond them were the archers and mounted soldiers in metal armor, wearing black mantles. Knights. They were maybe two dozen or so of them. Not many, but enough to be a problem.
The knights parted as a windowless, crimson carriage rolled forward between two of the wooden catapults. There was something in them. I squinted. Sacks? It wasn’t gunpowder or other projectiles. Instead of relief, unease blossomed.
Soldiers parted, making way for the carriage that bore the Royal Crest. Several of the knights rode forward, surrounding the conveyance as the wheels stopped, protecting whoever was inside.
It had to be a Royal.
The door opened, and someone stepped out—someone so heavily cloaked that when they moved around the door, I could not tell if it was a man or a woman who walked forward, flanked by knights. Whoever it was, took their sweet old time, stopping once they stood in front of the soldiers. Gloved hands rose, shoving back the hood.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered under my breath.
Duchess Teerman stood before the Rise, her face as pale and pretty as I remembered, but she wore no finery in her brown hair tonight. It was pulled back from her face in a simple twist as she stared up at the Rise.
And it was then when I truly feared what I would discover when I saw Ian with my own eyes. Duchess Teerman had been kind—well, she had never been particularly cruel to me. She’d been as cold and unreachable as most Ascended were, but when I killed Lord Mazeen, she had told me not to waste a moment more thinking of him. I believed that perhaps she too had been a victim of the Duke’s perversities. Maybe she had been, but the fact that she was here could only mean one thing.
She was the enemy.
Would that make Ian one, too?
Her berry-red lips curved into a tight, humorless smile. “Hawke Flynn,” she said, her voice too familiar as I quietly nocked an arrow. “Or is there another name you prefer?”
“It doesn’t matter what name you call me,” he answered, sounding about as bored as Kieran did during, well, everything.
“It would be rude if I called you by a false name,” she replied, clasping her hands together. The soldiers and knights remained silent and still behind her. “I don’t want to be rude.”