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)
And now I’m twenty-seven.
I can still feel Shim’s hold on his cock. He gripped it with the confidence of long use. I can practically see him winking at me flirtatiously.
We’re coming, Bron.
That voice in my head is accompanied by the candle at my bedside flaring to life. But I blew it out.
Mad. It’s the only explanation.
I force myself to take another drink and then try the bread. If I have any chance at running, I’ll need some strength. After taking another small sip and chewing through some of the bread, I turn to the window.
Something is happening. I stand on my small cot, straining to see out the window above me. Grasping the bars that cover the window, I go up on my tiptoes and can barely see the courtyard outside. Guards work, hauling logs into the clearing. They’re directed by the sheriff to place them in a circle surrounding a giant pole.
The maypole. Bastards. Yesterday it was decorated with colorful ribbons, the center of the children’s joy. Today it will be the center of the bonfire that will take my life. They’ll bring me to the pole, and the executioner will tie me down and they will set me on fire.
I stare out, recognizing a few of the guards. They laughed and danced with me at the festivals, and now they will be the ones who light my body on fire, the final payment for defying the pretender.
There’s the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. Loud and lumbering. Not Niall. I slip back down to the bed. I was so afraid the night before, for Ove, for myself. Now there’s a horrible nothingness as the window in the door opens, and the mayor’s puffy face shows through the opening.
“Traitorous bitch.”
Yes, I’ll likely hear a whole lot of that. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
His face twists, contorting into a mask of fury. “I’ll tell you something you don’t know. I’ve placed wards around the village. No magic is going to save you.”
I didn’t expect it to. It’s standard procedure to ward the jail against all magic. The sheriff certainly doesn’t want prisoners to be able to escape death by way of witchcraft. I wouldn’t be surprised if Micha has the whole damn village warded after yesterday. “I didn’t expect it to. I don’t truly understand what happened yesterday. I know you won’t believe it, but I don’t care. I didn’t mean to torch your guard.”
“He died, you know.”
I’m surprised to not feel a thing. It was the guard or Ove, and Ove didn’t do anything wrong. In that moment, I would have killed anyone who tried to hurt the innocent youngling. I would do it again. I will never be able to sit by and watch. If I didn’t feel that power surge, I would have attempted to stop the guard in some other way. I couldn’t sit idly by and watch as someone was killed for no reason.
But that’s what you’ve been doing for thirteen years, Princess Bronwyn.
“You don’t even care. I never knew you at all. Know this—I’ll find that brownie and I’ll throw her on a fire, too.” Micha huffs as though he expected something more. Some groveling perhaps or offers of my body in exchange for a bit of mercy.
That isn’t going to happen. I’m not stupid. After what happened yesterday, there will be no mercy for me. I’m happy someone had thought to hide Ove away. “What do you want, Micha?”
“You should call me by my rightful name, you ungrateful bitch.”
Why won’t he go away? Shouldn’t the hours before my inevitably horrific death be quiet and peaceful? I might try to go to sleep and see Shim and Lach again. Maybe, if there’s a place beyond this one, maybe they will be real.
Selfish. So selfish. You want to die so you don’t have to fight.
The voice inside my head is getting obnoxious. Well, the voice that seems steeped in guilt. I apparently have a whole bunch of voices inside my head. “If you aren’t going to tell me what you want, then feel free to go away.”
“I want you to tell me where your bitch sister went to.”
That has me sitting up and fast. I’m definitely still capable of feeling something. Goddess, the last thing I want is to get Gillian killed. “She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
His eyes narrow to slits, making his irises look like endless dark. “I doubt that. She’s already managed to kill three of my best guards.”
Gillian? “I don’t believe it.”
“It was her or her friends. Tell me where she is and I’ll make your death painless. I can have the healer brew a tea to ease the way. You won’t feel the fire. You won’t feel anything. All you have to do is tell me where Gillian is. Isolde, you don’t want more deaths, do you?”