Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 119158 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 596(@200wpm)___ 477(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119158 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 596(@200wpm)___ 477(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
“Agreed.”
I was getting ready to suggest that we share a bath and then try to grab a few hours of sleep. But before I could speak, I watched the smile fade from Nylian’s lips and his brow furrow with a thought.
“What’s wrong? What did you just think of?”
“The coin,” he whispered, as if he were afraid of the monstrous thing hearing him.
My heart skipped a beat. I’d forgotten all about the damn thing. In all the chaos of saving Orian, getting Jasper settled with the wizards, and just going with the flow of hectic palace life, it had slipped my mind.
This was it. The happily ever after. All the problems were solved, and the story was over. If my job was to get Nylian to this point, that coin should have zapped me back to my old world and my old apartment. Or worse, my old dead body.
But I was here in bed with my fiancé.
Nylian swallowed hard and sat up. “Do you still have it? Did you ever give it to one of the royal wizards?”
I planted my hands on the mattress and pushed until I was sitting up as well, the blankets falling down to my lap. “I haven’t actually touched it since Ulmenor, but I felt it in the bottom of my bag when we were in Blackscar. After we got here, I just stuffed my bag in a drawer.”
We both looked over at the elegant white dresser with gold filigree on the far side of the room. In the very bottom drawer was that bag, along with some of the worn and ragged clothes I’d used during our long journey.
“May I see it?” Nylian inquired.
It seemed only fair, even if the thing made me nervous. The coin had brought us together. Maybe it wasn’t as evil as the Riverhold wizard claimed.
After sucking in a fortifying breath, I wrapped a blanket about myself and climbed out of bed, causing Nylian to snicker at my makeshift toga. Okay, so I was still a little shy, plus the air had grown colder with the steady approach of winter.
I kneeled and pulled open the drawer. It took some digging for me to locate the dirty bag, but I knew something was off as soon as I lifted it from the drawer. It was too light. My hand plunged into the bag, going directly for the hidden pocket, but it was empty.
“The coin’s gone!” I gasped.
Nylian was out of the bed in a flash and kneeling beside me. He grabbed the bag from my fingers and felt around in every pocket, turning the entire thing inside out.
“Someone stole it! How? Who knew about it?”
I shook my head, trying to replay all the millions of seconds that had passed since I’d last touched the sleek gold coin. “Just the four of us, I think. Well, and the wizard from Riverhold, but it couldn’t have been him. I don’t think we ever talked about it in front of Master Binx.” I lifted my gaze to Nylian’s puzzled expression. “It couldn’t have been Jasper or Adeline. I…I don’t think it was stolen.”
Nylian sat on the floor beside me, seeming oblivious to his nudity or the coldness of the tile floor on his bare bottom. “What do you mean? What happened to it?”
I shrugged. “Maybe it moved on to its next person to terrorize.” Nylian frowned and started to shake his head, but I grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Think about it. The damn thing just appeared in the gutter one day as I was walking by. My world doesn’t have wizards, so how the hell did it get in my path? I could have been meant to pick it up or it could have been luck. No idea. The point is that it’s gone, and I’m still here.” I leaned in and pressed my lips to his. “I will always be here with you.”
He kissed me back, his smile growing wider with every tender peck. “Here. Forever. Mine.”
“Forever yours,” I agreed.
The elf pulled away and cocked his head. “Shame I never got to see it. What did it look like?”
“It was a shiny gold coin about this big,” I said, holding up one hand with my thumb and index finger spaced about two inches apart. “I don’t remember any writing on it, but there was a bird with its wings spread. Sort of like a raven.”
Nylian caught my hand and turned it so that the signet ring I wore caught the flickering lamplight. “Like this raven?”
I huffed a laugh as I looked at the bird emblazoned on the onyx stone. “Yeah, a lot like that, actually.”
“And the other side?”
“A dragon.”
Nylian cackled and jumped to his feet. I stared at him until he extended his hand to me. I took it and let him pull me up as well.