Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
He grinned.
“So, marriage and Firenze and a son,” he decreed.
“I would not wear a pink dress,” she stated firmly.
“It would not look good with your hair.” His head dipped close and his tone dipped low. “The purple of Nadirii. Or the green of Firenze.”
“Maybe,” she muttered.
If it was a tunic and leg casings.
Though, she would consider a fancy tunic.
He was grinning again.
And then he wasn’t when his head shot up and turned, as if he was listening.
But she heard it then too.
They were both out of their shelter, back to back, Chu had his sword in hand, and she had her fingers about the hilt of the weapon on her belt.
They turned in a circle, keeping the other at their backs, and scanning the area.
“Which way did you hear it?” she whispered.
“North,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed.
“I’m high. You’re low. You’re on tracks, warrior,” he ordered, turned and then he moved up the hill behind their shelter.
Stealthily, gazing about and opening her senses, she moved in the direction where she heard the noise.
It had been soft. Needles rustling.
She thought this sound came through an approach.
Thus, she often cast her eyes to the ground to check for tracks.
But she saw nothing.
She’d searched a relatively thorough area before she heard, “Zsst.”
Her head turned and she moved up the incline to Chu.
“Nothing,” she said. “Maybe an animal?”
He pointed.
She turned in the direction he indicated and only saw some evergreens.
“I don’t—”
“The trees, Rena.”
She looked closer.
Disturbed needles.
Bent boughs.
“Gnomes,” she said.
“Hmm,” he hummed.
She looked to him. “How did they get bloody gnomes on their side? The gnomes hate Airen as it was, almost as much as the Nadirii.”
Chu simply continued regarding the disturbed trees.
“Chu?” she called.
“Before I left my birth country, I had just started training in the Mystics.”
“Sorry?” she asked.
“Not the continent.” He looked to her. “The arts.”
Oh.
The Mystics.
Her gaze slid back to the trees as a chill slithered up her spine.
“I can harness my momentum to propel me to do a number of things many cannot. But I did not train long enough to ascend to the art of weightlessness.”
She again gave him her attention. “Do you think they have Mystics?”
“I think a gnome would disturb the needles, but he would not break boughs.”
Serena fully turned to study the area.
The vantage was good for their cover.
“They were spying on us,” she deduced.
“Yes.”
“We need to go into Dunlyn.”
“Yes.”
She gave him her eyes. “Disguises?”
“Pull up the hood of your cloak,” he ordered. “I shall take my chances. You are not changing us here.”
She nodded.
“Let us go,” he murmured.
She nodded again and led.
Chu followed.
144
The Deep
Queen Silence
Aboard The Finnie, Seil Sea
OFF THE COAST OF AIREN
I stood at the railing of the handsome galleon, staring down into the waters, a bitter, stiff wind blowing my hair about my face.
The waters were somewhat choppy.
Ha-Lah, Aramus, Jorie, Frey and Finnie were just down the deck from me.
And my husband stood before me.
The vein in his temple was pulsing.
“This is natural for me,” I said soothingly.
“It is cold,” he replied.
“And Ha-Lah and Jorie have assured us that I will not feel that,” I reminded him.
“A being can die swiftly in this cold,” he said, as if I had not spoken.
“A being could, if they were not mermaid.”
He cast his gaze down to the water.
I lifted my hand and pressed it to his cheek.
He gave his beautiful eyes to me.
“I will be fine,” I promised.
“I find suddenly I would wish for a wife who was less dauntless and bold,” he muttered.
I started giggling.
He, too, put his hands to my face, both of them, before his head descended, and he took my mouth in relentless kiss.
I was clinging to him when it ended.
“Now go,” he murmured. “Before I commandeer this ship and take us back to Sky Bay.”
I nodded, his hands still on my face moving as I did.
Mars removed them but wrapped his fingers around one of mine and led me down to the others.
Jorie watched me the entirety of this short journey.
“You are ready, little sister?” he asked when we arrived.
I nodded to him too.
His gaze went to Mars’s.
“I will be with her every length,” he stated. “And Ha-Lah will be with us.”
“Do not keep her down there long,” Mars grunted.
For a moment, Jorie didn’t say anything.
Until finally, he spoke and did this solemnly.
“My brother, you can trust me.”
They locked eyes, and I waited.
I was glad it didn’t take my husband long before he jerked up his chin, gave my fingers a squeeze and let me go.
“Right. Ladies, for your convenience,” Frey murmured.
He then unlatched and swung open a gate in the railing which was where they put the gangplank.
Ha-Lah and I moved the few feet to that as Jorie called from behind us, “Do not turn around.”
Regardless of his words, I began to do that, but Ha-Lah grabbed my arm and whispered, “He’s disrobing.”