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)
Remme curses. “How is this happening?” He glances to the door. “Who’s in there?”
“Erith,” Kendrick says. “He got into the palace by taking the form of General Hargova and has locked himself in the queen’s office.”
“Why?” Remme asks, scanning the area again and again, as if waiting for more of Mordeus’s forces to attack.
“The Grimoricon is in there,” I tell him.
Brie nods. “He’s the one opening the portals.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Felicity
Misha shoves me in a closet and steps in behind me, pulling the door shut as screams fill the corridor outside the sitting room.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
“Intruders,” he says.
“But how? There are wards all around the palace gates. How did they get in?”
Misha curses. “Portals. There are portals opening all over the palace.” I don’t have to ask to know he’s mentally communicating with someone to get that information. “Erith is in the palace. He’s locked himself in Brie’s office with the Grimoricon to allow the fighters in.”
He turns to face me. I can barely make out his features in the darkness of the closet. “Will you stay here? Hide until I can send someone to protect you.”
I shake my head. “What? Not without you. Where are you going?”
“I have a gift for portals. What can be opened can be closed.”
“A gift that has been failing you,” I cry.
“I know,” he whispers. “But I have to try or they’ll keep coming. I’ll find my sister. She and I work best together.”
Another wave of screams comes from the other side of the wall.
I curl my hands around his biceps and squeeze. “Please don’t go. Please stay here. You just said Erith is in the palace somewhere. He wants your court. He wants you dead.”
Misha cups my face in his hands and lowers his mouth to mine, kissing me hard. “Stay safe. I won’t be able to focus the way I need to if I’m worried about you.”
“Misha.” A sob rips from my chest. “Please.”
“Abriella’s entire defense strategy revolved around keeping them out of the palace. If they keep coming, none of us will survive.” He reaches behind him for the doorknob. “Please stay safe.” He slips out and shuts the door behind him.
Sinking to the floor, I put my face in my hands. Please stay safe. Please come back to me.
I can’t listen to the horrible sounds outside this closet. Can’t think about what could be happening to him. I cup my hands over my ears and feel tears streak my cheeks as time crawls forward.
I force myself to stay still. To keep myself safe for Misha’s sake.
I jerk awake and knock my head into the wall. I must’ve dreamed because I’m in my true form. My dress is suddenly much too small and I can barely breathe.
Reaching behind me, I quickly release the laces of my corset and unloop the top button of my skirt. But it’s not enough. Something feels off in the air, like breathing in a space that’s running out of oxygen.
I’ve been in here too long. Has it been hours? My muscles ache from crouching in this tight space. I can’t just sit here anymore. Erith is the reason all this is happening, and I’m the only one who can kill him. I can’t stand by and let him ruin lives any longer.
I crack open the door and peek out into the sitting room. The windows are dark, the lanterns on the wall flicker and cast shadows across the room, but I don’t see anyone here.
Slowly and quietly, I slip from the closet and creep toward the hallway door. It’s gone eerily silent compared to before Misha hid me in the closet. All the shouts sound distant. Because the fighting’s moved to a different part of the palace or because everyone in this wing is dead?
I can’t let myself think about it.
Even out here the air still feels wrong.
Then I realize what it is. This is how it felt when Misha rescued me from that cell and Konner’s silencer friend blocked our magic.
The storm continues at a low rumble outside the palace walls. I turn in the direction the queen ran when she found out the general wasn’t the general at all. Most of the lanterns out here have been extinguished, and I nearly fall on my face when I stumble over something on the floor.
A body. A friend? I can’t let myself look. I wish I could cast light in front of me, but I know without trying that it wouldn’t work. I feel the suppression of my magic like a blanket thrown over my face when I’m trying to catch my breath. Maybe it’s for the best that I can’t. I don’t want to call attention to myself.
I slowly move forward, one hand along the wall, feet shuffling to find anything on the floor before it trips me.