Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 152616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 610(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 610(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
My nose wrinkled. I had no idea how they . . . they fed on us when there were none around. At least from what I could tell. I supposed it was something we weren’t supposed to know, and I also guessed I was probably better off not understanding.
As I brushed Iris’s mane, the part of me that was a worrier took over— the part that had learned to expect the bad and fear the worst in all situations. What would happen if the unrest in the west made its way into the Midlands— to Archwood? My stomach knotted with dread.
Before Archwood, all the different towns Grady and I had lived in blurred into one nightmare. Finding coin whatever way we could. Taking any job that would hire people our age and resorting to thievery when we couldn’t find work. No real plans for the future. How could there be when every minute of every day was spent on surviving— on all those “not”s? Not starving. Not getting caught. Not becoming a victim to any number of predators. Not getting sick. Not giving up— and gods, that was the hardest when there was no real hope of anything more, because inevitably, we ended the same as we had begun.
Running.
Running away.
Grady and I had fled Union City the night the Hyhborn appeared in the orphanage, stowing away on one of the stagecoaches headed out of the Lowlands. I’d been convinced that we’d escaped. And it was kind of funny in a sad, somewhat disturbing way to think back on how scared I’d been that night— so afraid that the Hyhborn would discover that I was different and take me. Hurt me. Or even kill me. To this day, I didn’t know why I’d been so afraid of that. Hyhborn had no interest in lice-infested orphans. Not even one whose intuition alerted them to another’s intentions or allowed them to see the future.
But after that night, all we’d done was run and run, and if Archwood were to fall, we would return to that life once more, and I . . . My hand trembled. That terrified me more than anything— even more than spiders and other creepy, crawly things. Even thinking of it made me feel as if my lungs were decompressing and I was on the verge of losing the ability to breathe.
I would do anything to make sure that didn’t happen. That neither Grady nor I had to go back to surviving all those “not”s.
But as I moved on to Iris’s tail, an all-too-familiar itchy, suffocating feeling of loneliness settled over me like a coarse blanket. There were far more important things to be worried about at the moment, but there were few feelings worse than loneliness. Or maybe there actually weren’t any, and loneliness was the worst, because it was pervasive, hard to shake, even when you weren’t alone, and it worked overtime to convince you that contentment and joy were possible.
But that was a lie.
When you truly spent most of your time alone? When you had to? And not because you wanted to? There was no joy to be found. That was my future. For however long that might be. But the future wouldn’t be any different— whether I was here or elsewhere.
That loneliness would remain.
The darkness of my thoughts haunted me as I used a brush on Iris’s coat. I blew out an aggravated breath. I needed to think of something else—
Listen.
My body suddenly froze. Frowning, I turned and scanned the shadowed aisle of the stables, hearing only the sounds of the other horses and Gerold’s faint snores. My hand tightened on the brush as an acute sense of awareness washed over me. It wasn’t a chill of unease. This was different. The pressure between my shoulders was something else entirely. An intuition that I followed, wherever it led. Or more accurately, it was a demand.
Curious, I walked out of the stall, letting my intuition guide me. I’d learned long ago that I’d get little rest if I actually managed to ignore it, which I was rarely capable of doing.
I walked toward the back of the barn, where the doors were cracked, my steps quiet. Just as I went to push the door open, I heard voices.
“Did you get him?” The muffled words traveled through the wood. The voice sounded familiar. “And you’re sure he’s not one from Primvera you mistook?”
My breath caught. If the “he” they spoke of could’ve been mistaken as someone from Primvera, then they spoke of a Hyhborn and likely a Deminyen, as they didn’t live in lowborn cities but resided in their Courts.
“Because how do you think I knew what he was in the first place? I saw him and I remembered what he was supposed to look like,” another voice answered, and this one I recognized immediately due to his unique, gravelly tone. A guard who went by Mickie, but I knew his actual name was Matthew Laske, and he was . . . well, bad news. He was one of the guards who eagerly aided Hymel when it came to collecting rent. “He’s the one Muriel had us waiting for. I’m sure, Finn.”