Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 132625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
But it’s gone. The vision and the oracle—that feeling of presence faded as quickly as it appeared.
Big hands grab me beneath my arms and I’m yanked from the water, pulled out of the watery tunnel and onto the rocky plateau. The sky blurs in and out of focus above me as Kendrick stares down at me, panic lining his blue eyes.
I open my mouth, but my lungs refuse to take air.
“Breathe!” he commands, shoving me onto my side. “Please, Jasalyn! Breathe!” He squeezes me hard around my rib cage, and I gag and sputter as water lurches out of my lungs.
I stay on my side and curl into a ball as I force myself to take one breath after another.
“That’s it,” Kendrick says. He rubs my back, his touch soothing and gentle. “Easy now. Slow and steady breaths.”
Only when my breathing has evened out does he pull me up and against his chest. He strokes my hair. “You scared me. You were down there too long. I couldn’t get to you, and then suddenly I could, but you were kicking and flailing—fighting me while I tried to pull you out of there.”
I bury my face in his chest. Just one more moment, I tell myself. I’ll let myself find comfort in his presence for just one more moment.
I breathe him in, and I don’t want to move. I don’t want to give him up. I don’t want to give any of this up. But I have nothing to offer Erith. All I can do now is protect my sister.
I count to three and make myself let him go.
“What did she say? Did she tell you where we can find the witch?”
I shake my head, confused. It feels like days have passed since I was searching for the witch, since my first priority was finding her. “Erith,” I say. The ground feels like it’s tilting left to right beneath me, so I drop to a crouch, hands in the dirt, close my eyes, and focus on the rocky earth beneath my knees and palms.
“What about Erith?”
“He’s an Echo,” I whisper. “He was the witch. And the oracle said I have nothing to offer that he wants.”
Kendrick’s jaw hardens. “We’ll find another way, then. A new deal isn’t the only path. We can find a way to trick him out of it. We can—”
“We have to get home.” I need this numbness to pass so I can act, but right now it’s the only thing keeping me from breaking down. “Mordeus’s legions are going to storm the Midnight Palace and crucify my sister.”
“She showed you that?” Kendrick stoops to his haunches, studying me. “We can change what’s to come. We’ll go back and warn your sister. We’ll help her strengthen her wards and then we’ll find a way to get you out of this deal with Erith.”
I blink up at him. “Erith wants the Wild Fae territory. He wants to rule over fae, not just humans. Misha is in trouble too.”
He mutters a curse. “We’ll warn him, and we’ll warn the queen.”
My sister. Every time I close my eyes I see her on that gate, blood spilling from her lips.
Kendrick offers me a hand to help me stand and I take it.
As his gaze shifts to the steep path I traversed to get here, I realize what he’s thinking—that we’ll have to find our way to a ley line that can get us back to the closest portal.
I grip his forearm. “Kendrick, we don’t have time. We have to trust my goblin.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust him, Slayer. It’s that anything he knows, they all know.”
“How long to get back to the shadow court if we don’t use goblins?”
He draws in a shaky breath. “Half a day’s hike to the nearest ley line that can get us close to an open portal to the Unseelie Court. From there, we’ll have to find our way back to the Midnight Palace.” He shakes his head. “Late tonight at best.”
“We can’t afford to lose that much time.”
He scratches his beard and releases a breath. “You’re right. I don’t like giving them anything, but I know you’re right. I don’t want to lose that time either.”
“What if we get as far from the oracle as we quickly can? That way they don’t know for sure that we saw her.”
He stares down the mountainside and I can practically see him tracing potential routes in his mind. “There’s a ley line maybe ten minutes down this path. It won’t get us anywhere near a portal to Faerie, but we’ll be far away from the oracle when we call for your goblin.”
“Good. Let’s do that.” I move to crouch back onto the ground so I can lower myself off the plateau and back onto the path, but Kendrick catches my arm and pulls me back up.