Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
“Kivrin,” she gasped as she crawled on hands and knees to her father. “Are you alive?”
“I can’t feel my legs,” he said.
“They’re paralyzed. They … they stole my magic.”
His eyes were filled with terror at those words. “I’m so sorry, baby. You can survive this. You have to want to survive this.”
“Everyone is dead,” she said, her voice breaking on the words. “I want to go with them.”
“No,” Kivrin said with such force. “You have to live. You have to get to your mother.”
Kerrigan blinked in confusion. “You’ve lost too much blood. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Kivrin coughed hoarsely. “I know … I know what I’m saying. You have to go to her.”
Kerrigan could have laughed if she didn’t feel utter despair. “How can I do that? I have no magic. I don’t have a dragon. I have nothing.”
“Go through the portal,” he said, coughing up blood. “You have to get to the portal room and go to her.”
“The portal room?” Now, Kerrigan was even more confused. But at least thinking about this was keeping her from succumbing to the numbness spreading through her body.
“Yes. Go through the portal to Domara.”
“The lands of the gods?” Kerrigan gasped.
He nodded once. Pain in his eyes. “There’s so much more I want to tell you. But there’s no time.”
“Even if I could get there, the portal is closed,” she said. “There’s no way that I could get through it.”
“It will open … for you,” he gasped. “You are your mother’s daughter.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Descendant of He Who Reigns.”
“You told me never to say that,” she reminded him.
“Andromadix are no friend to you, but Keres will help you. You are the first heir. Tell her what happened. She will help you.”
“Dad, I don’t understand any of this.”
But his eyes rolled back into his head, and he passed out. Either from blood loss or pain that his body just couldn’t sustain. He was gone to her. There were no more answers. Just a road map.
Get to the portal.
Go to Domara.
Find her mom.
Except she was stuck in this arena. Far … far from the portal room. The one that had been in her vision, destroyed. She remembered it crumbling down. Was this another indicator that this was all hopeless? The blood flowing freely, the circle of thirteen, and the portal collapse. It must mean the end for her.
“Praise the Father!” people shouted from the stands.
People were applauding him. Applauding his destruction.
And he soaked it in. Even with only one arm, he stepped up to the podium and began to spew a victory speech. Kerrigan only half-listened as she chewed on the idea of what to do. She would never make it out of here. They wouldn’t let her walk out. But if she could get to the dragons and take down the magical artifact holding them in, then she could get to Tieran. She could escape on his back.
With renewed purpose, her eyes tracked the confines of Tieran’s cage. She didn’t know if he would wake when she brought the shield down, but it was her only hope. Fordham was done. Wynter was gone. Bastian had the Collector and the Ring of Endings. She couldn’t jump herself. She had no magic.
There.
She saw small objects set up at various points at the perimeter of the stadium. They must have been set there before they even arrived in the arena. Bastian had placed them there to take them out. The one nearest where Helly had escaped had been upended. That must be how she’d gotten out. Kerrigan didn’t know exactly how Helly had done it, but it had worked. The rest weren’t as lucky.
Kerrigan tracked the trajectory from where she lay next to Kivrin to the nearest weak point in the artifact. It was almost fifty yards. Under normal conditions, she could sprint there in no time. Right now … it felt an interminable distance. There was no way she could get there to free the dragons. Not without being spotted.
Still, she had to try.
Kerrigan waited until Bastian started up his asinine speech again. Then, with a deep breath, she got to her feet and ran. She felt sluggish at best. Slow at worst. She could barely get her feet under her. Let alone outrun others who were fresh. But still, she had to try. She had to do it. Get that down, get on Tieran, and fly into the mountain. Anything to escape.
But as she approached, a male stepped between her and her escape. He removed his Red Mask and leered at her. “No escape this time.”
“Trask,” she spat.
“You killed March.”
“He had it coming.”
“So do you.”
Trask, who was nothing but a third of his house, with no right to the throne and no hope of joining the Society, pulled out a wicked blade and held it point out to her. He was even holding it wrong. It was embarrassing.