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 shove his body to the side with my boot and crawl over him to get to Konner. “Are you okay?” He looks so pale in the flickering candlelight.
“You did it,” he says, voice weak. “May the gods bless you for all your days.”
He’s bleeding all over, covered in evidence of the torture he endured. “I couldn’t risk him hurting Leia.” I need to find a healer and get him outside these palace walls, where they can use magic to mend him.
“I will thank you forever from the Twilight,” he rasps. “I owe you everything.”
“What? Konner, no.” I pat his chest and sides, as if I could stop the death that’s creeping into his voice if I find the wound. But there’s too much blood and I can’t tell which spot is fatal. “You stay with me. You have a little girl to raise, remember? That’s what all of this is for—so you can watch her grow up. She can hold your hand when she takes her first steps, and laugh with you over stupid jokes, and cry on your shoulder the first time her heart is broken.”
He grunts softly. “You’ll have to stand in for me. Make sure she knows how much I loved her—love her—how I would’ve battled every monster in every realm to protect her.” He coughs and blood leaks from his lips. “If she’s like us, make sure she understands how to use the gift. Don’t let her use it against people she loves.”
“Please.” I curl my body over him and cling to his hand as his blood saturates my clothes. “Don’t do this. Tell her yourself. I just got you. You can’t leave me.”
“Leia is safe. Nothing matters more than that.”
My vision blurs and tears plop onto his cheeks. “You asked me what it was like in that alternate world you put me in.” I swallow a sob. “It was wonderful. You were my very best friend. You knew me better than anyone, and I never felt alone.”
“You never were,” he says. His hand goes limp in mine.
Chapter Forty-Four
Jasalyn
“There you are!” Kendrick pulls me into his arms and out of a panic-induced stupor. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
He has? I don’t know how long we’ve been separated. Minutes? Hours? I was searching for my sister but—I look around the dimly lit hallway—I don’t remember how I got here or where I was before this. I recognize this corridor as belonging to the main level of the palace, between the ballroom and the throne room. Sounds of fighting and destruction come from outside. “Where are the others?”
“Everyone’s gathering in the throne room.” He ushers me toward a bit of flickering light at the end of the hall.
“Is Brie there? I’ve been looking for her.”
“I don’t know, but she might be.” He stops right outside the throne room doors and turns me to face him. “Listen, I don’t know if you can feel it, but Konner had some silencers cast their magic across the palace.”
“Silencers?” I still feel off. Like I’m not quite one with my body.
“They block magic. It was the only way to quickly close all the portals Erith had opened. That means that when it’s time, you’re going to have to get outside these walls so your magic can work.”
“Time for what?”
His throat bobs. “Time to activate your phoenix—so you can rise before the clock strikes midnight and your birthday gives Mordeus the power to take you himself.”
But I still don’t know how. I glance toward a set of windows that have been blocked by a wooden headboard, dampening the sounds of chaos beyond the wall.
“I’ll go with you,” he says, pulling me through the throne room doors and into a candlelit space. “I will make sure no one can touch you. When you burn, when you go through that rebirth and shed that bastard’s control once and for all, I will protect you. I can do that.”
“And who will protect you?” I ask. Walking feels strange. Like stepping on solid ground after walking around on a boat for hours.
“I’ll handle it,” he says.
“And if I still can’t figure out how to call on my inner fire and make myself burn to ash? What then? Because I don’t know how to do this. I can’t.”
He grips my shoulders and I see hope in his eyes right alongside his fear. “I’ve been thinking about this, and I realized something about your power. Something we haven’t considered yet.”
This is important, and I watch his lips move and will myself to listen, but I’m feeling dizzy. Maybe because I haven’t eaten anything today. Maybe at the idea of Kendrick protecting me while surrounded by our enemies.
“Are you listening to me?” Kendrick says, but the room is going blurry and I’m having trouble focusing. “Think about the Sword of Fire. That flame wasn’t yours.”