Total pages in book: 295
Estimated words: 282090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1410(@200wpm)___ 1128(@250wpm)___ 940(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 282090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1410(@200wpm)___ 1128(@250wpm)___ 940(@300wpm)
—PAGE NINETY-ONE, THE BOOK OF BRENNAN
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Faster. I have to run faster. Fear holds my throat shut as a tidal wave of death chases me across the sunburned field to where Tairn waits, his back turned.
Wind roars around me, stealing every other sound, even my own heartbeat. Tairn’s going to die, and he doesn’t even see it coming for him.
Gold flickers near the tip of his wing.
Gods, no. Andarna. She’s here. She shouldn’t be here.
The wave nips at my heels, transforming the ground beneath my feet into an ashen, desiccated wasteland.
“There is nowhere to run, rider.” A hooded figure steps into my path out of nowhere, raising one arm.
I’m yanked off my feet by an unseen force and lifted into the air, completely immobilized. The wave of death halts and the wind falls silent, as if he’s stopped time.
He shifts his staff to the other hand, then pulls back the thick maroon hood of his floor-length robes with gnarled fingers, revealing the white of his scalp under his slicked-back, thinning hair. Shadows mark the gaunt hollows of his cheekbones on an eerily youthful face, and his lips are cracked and dry, just like the land behind me, but it’s his red-rimmed eyes, the distended veins spiderwebbing across his temples and cheeks, that have me fighting to open my mouth, straining to scream.
Venin.
“So disappointing,” he lectures, as if he’s my Sage and not the teacher of the dark wielder I killed on Tairn’s back. “All of that power at your fingertips, and yet you insist on fleeing over and over, using the same failed tactics, and expecting what?” He tilts his head to the side. “To escape?”
My ribs tighten around my lungs as terror takes hold, and I force a garbled sound through my throat, but it does nothing to warn Tairn and Andarna.
“There is no escaping me, rider,” he whispers, his fingers ghosting over my cheek but not quite touching. “Fight me and die, or join me and live beyond the ages, but you will never escape me, not when I’ve waited centuries for someone with your power.”
“Fuck you.” It comes out as a whisper, but I mean it with every bone in my body.
“Death it is.” He looks so…disappointed as he lowers his hand.
Wind howls as I fall to the ground. A scream tears through my body as a wave of agony rolls over my skin and bones, leaching the very essence of my energy until—
I wake, my heart pounding, my skin clammy, my fingers wrapped around my black-hilted dagger.
Just a dream. Just a dream. Just a dream.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I ask Xaden on Saturday as he leads me down the stairs from my dorm room.
“To Basgiath’s forge,” he says as we emerge from the academic wing into the empty courtyard. It’s finally the time of year when the temperature outside matches inside. Autumn is settling in.
My chest tightens as I realize he’s taking me to see where they steal the weapons—and what that means. He’s letting me in.
“Thank you for trusting me.” The words don’t do the feeling justice.
“You’re welcome.” He looks down at me, his expression shifting. “Will I earn a little trust back now?”
I nod, tearing my gaze away from his before I do something reckless like let those three little words he wants spill out just because we’re having a moment. But I can share with him a secret of mine as well. “I found a text that said the First Six didn’t just establish the wards but personally carved the first wardstone.”
“We knew that.”
“Partially.” We cross down to the tunnels to the flight field, and I nod at one of our first-years. Channing? Chapman? Charan? Shit, it’s something like that. I’ll learn it in a couple of weeks—after Threshing. “The text said first wardstone,
which means if they carved the one here, there’s a good chance they carved the one in Aretia. I’m on the right track.”
“Good point.” He jerks open the door to the tunnels, and I walk inside.
“I know what I need to look for, but I’m not sure where it would even exist.”
“Which is?” He asks as we move toward the stairs.
My pulse is thrumming with excitement to finally see the forge, get a look at the luminary that the revolution needs so badly, too.
“I need a firsthand account from one of the six. My father talked about seeing one once, so I know they exist. Question is if they’ve been translated and redacted into uselessness.” We turn into the staircase and both stop abruptly.
Major Varrish blocks our path. “Ah, nice to see you, Lieutenant Riorson.” His smile is just as greasy as ever.
Fear squeezes my heart. Xaden is carrying enough contraband to see him executed two dozen times.
“Wish I could say the same,” Xaden retorts.
“Found her!” Varrish calls up the stairs. “Shouldn’t you be headed over to the main campus, Riorson? Surely that’s where officers lodge when visiting.” His gaze flicks my way.