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)
I pull my dagger from my boot and curl my hand around the hilt. Konner’s eyes flutter open and he meets my gaze over Erith’s shoulder. He nods almost imperceptibly. Do it.
I charge forward, ready to plunge my blade into his back, but before I can cross the threshold into the room I’m jerked backward and thrown against the opposite wall. My skull cracks against the doorframe. My dagger goes flying as I crumple to the floor.
“Look who finally came out to play,” a familiar voice says as I struggle back to my feet.
The room is spinning and my head throbs. I no sooner get my feet under me than they slip out again. Blood, I realize, leaning my head against the wall while I wait for the world to stop spinning. There’s blood all over the floor.
“Sorry, Lis. I can’t let you fulfill your destiny today. Or ever.” Shae stalks toward me, a sneer curling his lips. “Looks like this is the end of the road for you.”
“What are you going to do? Kill me?” I say, mustering all the courage that I don’t feel. “You can’t ascend to be one of the Seven if you’ve killed.”
“I can’t kill you, but there’s no rule about making you wish you were dead while I wait for my friends to come do the job for me.”
He grabs me by the front of my shirt and yanks me upright as he draws a dagger from his hip. He shoves me against the wall, leaning forward, his hot, foul breath against my face. “No one will miss you, Felicity. That’s what’s really sad.” He drags the tip of his blade down my cheek and a hot bead of blood rolls down to my chin. “You’ve tried so hard to win Kendrick’s love, the approval of his friends. But the truth is you could never give them the one thing they really wanted. Even now, when you’ve finally mustered a tiny bit of courage, you’re failing.”
“I thought I loved you,” I say, looking up into his eyes.
“How pathetic.” He’s so busy laughing, he doesn’t even see me move for his blade. The ease with which I take it from his hand only proves how greatly he underestimates me—has always underestimated me.
He’s the reason the man who raised me is dead. He’s the reason I’ve had to be on the run for so long. To be alone for so long. And if he has his way, he’ll be the reason I never walk out of this palace again.
I plunge the small blade into Shae’s chest.
The shock registers in his eyes a moment before he stumbles back, his hands going to his chest, to the wound the iron-and-adamant blade left gushing blood.
“Now I know better,” I whisper, shoving him against the wall, where he slides to the floor.
“Please,” the desperate plea sounds from the room where I found Erith. “Please, don’t.”
“Konner,” I breathe. I run back to the room and collide with something hard.
My already aching head snaps back and my ears ring. When I lift my gaze, I meet my birth father’s eyes. Wide and panicked. He’s a buck in the woods, staring down the archer’s arrow. But why is he so afraid when he’s armed? When he’s bigger and stronger and more powerful than me?
Time seems to stop when I look into the icy blue depths I’ve run from for so long, and I see the truth. He can’t hurt me. I’m not only the one who can kill him; whatever twisted magic got him here made it so he can’t harm the few who can harm him.
In that split second, I have him at my mercy and see what could’ve been—a life in the palace with the mother he killed, a sister, a bond with the brother I never had.
I see years of fear, of guilt and loneliness. All because of this male who put his power before everything and everyone else.
And then I see the family I was given. The friends I made along the way. The strength I’ve found in myself.
Letting him live should’ve never been an option, but I’ve always done everything I could to protect those I love, and that doesn’t end today.
I plunge my iron blade into his heart.
Erith’s eyes go wide. He grabs a handful of my hair and pulls, trying to drive me to the floor, but I’m immovable. This was my destiny all along. This moment needed to happen, and the world will be better for it.
I pull my blade free and plunge it into the side of Erith’s neck for good measure, stumbling back out of his grasp. He falls to the floor with a garbled gasp for air, blood trickling from his lips. “I deserved better than you, and I got it. But Konner deserved better than you too. And so did my sister.”