Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
“I can do it myself,” I grumbled and moved quickly. Reaching the edge of the rock, I used the hand axe, and after two tries, there was a small hole that I made big enough to dip my hands into, once I was on my knees. For a moment I thought, this is going to freeze my entire face off. That’s how cold it was. I had a wart on my finger once years ago, and the doctor froze it off my hand. This was worse. Or felt worse since I was still a bit stoned. The good news was, I was seeing everyone as they were again, not like their faces were melting. What I did confirm about the water was that if for some reason we had to cross the ice, and then fell into the water, we would all be dead in under five minutes. Vampyr strength or not, my companions would succumb to the freezing temperature just as I would.
Standing up, clutching my coat around me, I shuddered at the thought of dying from cold. It was still better than being devoured by a shark, that would take longer, but neither thought was comforting.
“Feel any better?” Keres asked me.
“Maybe a bit.”
“Where are we?” Carice asked, sounding terribly forlorn.
Walking over close, I put my arm around her and pulled her tight against me. “We’re going to be all right. We simply have to stay together, and no one do any martyr bullshit.”
“I don’t know what that means. Do you know what you’re saying or—oh, Keres,” Carice rushed out. “He’s bleeding again, and he’s not—why isn’t it stopping?”
Keres was there in seconds. “I suspect it’s that drug at work again,” she said, then turned to Cirillo. “I need a piece of ice.”
He returned in moments, and she took the small baseball-sized piece from him, placed it in the silk handkerchief Carice passed her, and pressed it to my collarbone.
“Ah, see, ice,” she said with a smile. “Blood can’t run with the cold.”
“May I say, I’m really proud of you all for sleeping in your boots and jackets so no one is freezing down here.”
“I am freezing down here,” Carice let me know.
I squeezed her to me again, my arm still around her.
“I like you much more when you’re drugged,” she informed me.
“I like you better when I’m drugged too,” I assured her.
“Heaven help us,” Cirillo groaned. “Come now, we need to get back to the main floor, or when Varic arrives, Balon can lie and say we were never here.”
“No,” I said with a yawn. “Varic will find us. He knows our smells, especially mine.”
“I don’t know whether to be comforted or horrified,” Cirillo said, scowling.
“Be comforted,” Carice offered with a smile, and I realized, as I had the first time I’d seen her, that she really was very attractive, with her big sea-blue eyes, voluminous red curls, and peaches-and-cream complexion that was normally flawless but now sported some cuts and bruises. “Varic will save us. Well, all of you. I’ve yet to know what he will decide.”
“Perhaps he will banish you and Alrek together,” I offered. “That could be fun.”
She looked at me like I was insane. “You do realize Alrek speaks only of building. He’s an architect and can weave any conversation back to that which he finds interesting.”
“He’s an architect?”
She nodded. “More of a structural engineer.”
“And Lady Eudora’s children are archaeologists.”
“Yes. My Chryos is a mathematician. Did you know that?”
“I did not.”
“Even though, in my opinion, he is enjoying far too long a vacation in Bali, he is quite learned and holds many degrees in the human world.”
I was drugged, but my brain was still running.
“Many of the king’s children are debauched and useless. There is no arguing that fact. But others, like Alrek and Chryos, like Iorwerth, who is a scholar and teaches many of the younger children to read and write, and later, grasp physics, are filled with thousands of years of knowledge.”
“I thank you for telling me.”
She gave me a slight smile as we all heard a door, or something else, being banged upon.
“Come now!” Cirillo yelled, and we all followed him, running down the rock ledge between the wall with sconces and the water. We came upon the hutches Zev remembered, in the water, built on stilts. There were pools of fish, the fish farming I’d guessed at, and as we ran on, I saw how many there were.
“Here,” Cirillo called out as I saw an arch with stairs leading up.
Turning, we saw the guards coming after us, torches in hand.
“Perhaps I should run on and you all go up,” Cirillo rushed out. “We could divide them and—”
“This is what my consort meant by martyr bullshit earlier,” Keres explained to Carice.
“Ah,” she said, nodding. “In the movies, they always seem to want to split apart, and I never see the good of that.”