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)
Gravity claims me, and I fall, passing my feet and slamming into the ground on my hands and knees.
“I told you once that you’d turn for love,” he says, holding his arms out. “And so you shall.”
“You don’t know shit about me.” I stumble for my feet and fall again, landing on my knees as Sgaeyl roars in pure fury overhead.
“I know more than you think.” He lowers his staff and leans on it like a walking stick.
“Because you’re a Sage?” I spit, grounding my feet on that hillside in Tyrrendor and reaching for my power.
“A Sage?” He laughs. “I am a general.”
Fire races down my arms and shadows stream from beneath me, wrapping around the arrogant asshole’s torso. Satisfaction courses through me in a high better than churram. “Generals die the same as soldiers.” I fight with my own arms to get them to move, but they don’t obey, having gone into muscle failure long before he hefted me into the sky.
“Do they?” He laughs again, wrapped in darkness. “Come on, shadow wielder. Turn. It’s the only way to save her.”
“Fuck you.” I throw myself down the bond and feel Violet slipping, burning, intending to… My shadows slip, but the general doesn’t move.
She’s going to sacrifice herself to save me.
She intends to die.
My heart vaults into my throat, and I taste it again, the same as it was when I sat by her bedside after Resson—fear.
“You know what will happen when you fail?” the general taunts, flicking at the weak bands of shadow that curl around his throat. “I’ll step over your dead body and find her. Then I’ll wrap my hands around her delicate little neck—”
Fury surges in my veins, the blast of adrenaline enough to solidify the bands of shadow and yank them tight, but no matter how hard I tug, he won’t move.
“—and drain her.”
I slam one hand onto the ground and clench my other fist, my arm shaking with the effort it takes to hold him there as I delve to the depths of Sgaeyl’s power and let the fire consume me.
“Hold him!” she demands.
But I can’t.
He’s too strong, and I have nothing left. But I’ll be damned if Violet suffers the consequences. He won’t get his hands on her. Not today. Not ever. The slush beneath my palm melts, and I feel… There’s something beneath me.
A steady flow of unmistakable…power.
“You cannot!” Sgaeyl shrieks. “I chose you!”
But Violet chose me, too.
I reach.
My heart stammers and I gasp for air, jolting upright in bed. I check the back of my neck, but it’s dry. No dripping sweat. No aching muscles. No exhaustion.
Just Violet, sleeping beside me, her cheek resting on the pillow, her breaths deep and even thanks to the exhaustion that’s left bruises under her eyes, her arm bent as though reaching out for me even in her dreams.
I watch her long enough to calm my racing heart, my gaze skimming over every part of her I can see from the silvery lines of her hard-won scars to the silvery half of her hair on the pillow. She’s so fucking beautiful I can barely breathe. And I almost lost her.
My fingertips trail over the smooth, soft skin of her cheek, spotting the tracks her tears left. She lost her mother today, and while I won’t mourn the loss of Lilith Sorrengail, I can’t stand the pain Violet’s suffering.
And yet I’m about to be the biggest cause of it.
“I love you,” I whisper, just because I can, and then I climb from the bed as quietly as possible and dress quickly in the moonlight.
Silently, I leave the room, then make my way down the hall and to the staircase, surrounding myself in the warmth of my shadows as I descend floor by floor to the tunnels of Basgiath.
I don’t bother reaching for Sgaeyl. She’s been eerily silent since the battle ended.
The doors to the bridge open at my command, as do the ones on the far side when I reach them, keeping myself wrapped in darkness as I pass the overflowing clinic where we’d spent hours waiting for Sawyer to come out of surgery earlier.
I sidestep two drunken infantry cadets and keep walking down the tunnel, only turning when I reach the guarded staircase that leads to my target. The guard cracks a yawn, and I slip by unnoticed thanks to the increase in my signet… or whatever this is.
The last time I walked these stairs, I’d just murdered everyone who stood between me and Violet. It’s ironic that’s the cell I end up standing in front of now, peering through the barred window at Jack-fucking-Barlowe.
“You look good,” the second-year says, sitting up on the reconstructed bunk and smiling. “You here to dose me? Pretty sure I’m not due until tomorrow morning.”
“What’s the cure?” I fold my arms across my chest.