Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
“What about Beck and Ci?” I need to find them.
Gillian shakes her head. “We have to make sure you’re safe before we go looking for your brothers. I assure you they would want it that way. Now get changed. We need to leave while the troops are preoccupied. It’s chaotic out there, Your Highness. We must be careful to not stand out.”
I look down at the clothes Gillian laid out for me. They’re very much like Gillian’s, though I don’t have Gillian’s womanly form. No one will question I’m a peasant boy once my hair is dealt with. I dress quickly, my hand skimming over my now perfectly smooth stomach.
We’re quiet as we steal from the palace. We reach a hill, hiding ourselves among the fleeing peasants, but I turn to look at the White Palace one more time. In the moonlight it looks like a ruin, a place that once stood but now crumbles, leaving only memories of the world it once represented.
“I can’t go back.” I won’t go home again. I won’t run through the palace or swim in the river. I will never again sneak into my mother’s bed when the thunder frightens me. I won’t play with my friends.
I have no home.
Gillian takes me by the shoulders, spinning me around. “Don’t you talk like that. You will go back.” She presses an object into my hand. It’s small and cold. “That’s yours. I found it next to your body. It’s the weapon that they tried to kill you with. Never let it go. When the time comes for vengeance, this knife will be in your hand. The world has changed. That does not mean your life is at an end. Dark times are only the end when true leaders refuse to fight. Your brothers are fighting now, and your time will come. Decide, Your Highness. What kind of a princess will you be? A Seelie princess who weeps and hopes someone will save her, or will you choose to avenge your people? This is not just about you. This is about your people and all who will fall to Torin’s sword. If you cannot find the strength to be more than a pretty face, then I have no use for you.”
I turn and look again with new eyes. I see what was taken from me. And one day I will take it back.
When Gillian moves, I follow. I was born in the White Palace, and I died there. I am a new version of myself. I am more than I was before, stronger, older, harder.
And alone.
When the darkness came, I was alone. My Dark Ones did not come for me. It’s time to put that dream away.
I walk from my home with only vengeance in my heart.
Chapter One
Lachlan
The dead things of the world love me. It’s the shame of my life that I can’t return the affection.
I look down at the small dog barking and jumping at my feet. I take a deep breath of the forest air and pray to the gods for patience. I walked into the woods behind the palace because I looked for Shim in all his other haunts. My brother isn’t at the tavern in the village. He isn’t in the kitchens. He isn’t sitting in our room staring out the window toward the west, the direction of the door to the Seelie plane. It’s where I often find Shim these days, a vacant look in his dark eyes.
I need to talk to my brother about the morning’s news, but I find myself alone with a dead dog. If Shim was here, he would more than likely laugh and pet the damn thing. Shim wouldn’t even notice that something took half the yipping dog’s side out. Likely a bear, or maybe a troll who was lucky enough to catch it, but not lucky enough to finish its meal.
“Go away.” I try to put some distance between me and the now-reanimated corpse of the former terrier. It simply yips and follows me.
I attempt to ignore the creature. It’s not the first dead thing to imprint on me. I’m coming into my power, and without my bondmate near, it tends to go a bit wild.
Bondmate. I close my eyes as the thought of her coats my senses. I don’t need to be near her to feel her. Gods, I’ve never been close to her, but she’s in my heart. I feel her every minute of every day. But what would I do if I had to stand in front of her? When Shim and I invade her dreams at night, I’m whole, my face as perfect as my brother’s. Will she turn away from me when she sees the real Lachlan McIver? I rather think she will. She’s a beauty, a pure Seelie princess, who will probably run from her beast of an Unseelie prince.