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)
“Why?”
The anguish on his face guts me. “Because Erith is her birth father and he’s wanted her dead since before she was born. The oracle prophesied long ago that she would be the one to kill him.”
Nausea surges in my throat. Another person whose life will be cut short because of me.
“We’re going to find her,” Kendrick says, his voice hard. “I refuse to give up, just like I’ve refused to give up searching for you.”
“If Erith took her, then you’ll need the sword to get her back. Or the portal that allows you into the Eloran Palace. Right?”
“None of the Seven would allow a prisoner to reside in their precious palace. They are too scared of their enemies to allow them that close. But we have a promising lead that Misha’s investigating now.”
My mind spins as I try to piece it all together. It’s like trying to read a book without half the pages. That’s what happens when you sleep for eight months. I wring my hands. “So your sister is missing, and my sister . . . she knows I had Felicity pretend to be me?” I can just imagine Brie’s panic the moment she found out the shifter wasn’t me and realized I was missing.
“She didn’t believe you had anything to do with it at first, but Felicity told her enough that she had to believe it.”
My stomach feels like it’s filling with stones as I imagine how hurt and betrayed Brie must’ve felt when she found out the truth. “And how do you know all this?”
His smile is small and sad. No sign of the dimples I love so much. No trace of happiness in his eyes. “Because your sister and King Misha tracked us down and asked for our help. So we’ve been searching, but with that damn ring in our way, it’s like chasing a ghost. There have been rumors of sightings but nothing we could confirm, and of course Abriella has had to pretend you were safely in the palace the whole time.”
Because if the people of her court knew she can’t even keep tabs on her own sister, it would make her look weak.
“Where have you been?” he asks.
“Sleeping,” I whisper, but when his panicked eyes meet mine I know he’s thinking the same thing I am. That maybe my consciousness was sleeping for the last eight months, but that doesn’t mean my body was. Not when Mordeus’s consciousness is linked to mine. Not when he’s used me to do his dirty work before this ring was even stuck to my finger.
“This is why you can’t leave.” The aching rasp in his voice is worse than the words he spoke when he was bleeding out and slipping away. “We can’t risk losing any more time.”
It would be so easy to stay. Walking away is embracing the loneliness of my mission. But if I stay, I’ll be distracted by Kendrick’s mission, and I can’t let myself do anything else until I take care of Mordeus. “I know you need me to kill Erith, and I’m sorry that your sister was captured because of me, but I can’t worry about that right now.” I step around him and toward the door.
“This isn’t about Erith. This is about you. And there are things . . .” He pauses as if he can’t find the words. “You need to understand what Mordeus has planned.”
I hesitate before turning back to him. “What do you mean?”
He swallows. “Before Felicity was taken, she told them your secret.” His eyes are so sad, and it’s like seeing him bleeding all over again. I want to fix it. “She told them what you traded for that ring. That your life ends on your eighteenth birthday.”
My stomach sinks, another stone added to the pile in my gut. “Oh.” Why does the idea of my sister—of Kendrick—knowing make the sacrifice suddenly seem so real?
“How do we undo it?” he asks, voice raw. “What do we have to do?”
I shake my head. “It’s done. We can’t undo anything.”
The pain that moves across his face makes me wish for a different life in a different world under a different set of stars. “You just want me to accept that I lose you in less than two weeks? No. I refuse. We will find a way to reverse it.”
“All that matters is that I end Mordeus before that day comes, and if I’m going to do that then I need your special Eloran sword. I couldn’t find it at Feegus Keep, but I haven’t—” I need to go back and find that commander to see if she knows where it is, and I need to do it before that goblin’s potion wears off and I’m lost to sleep again. I draw in a deep breath. “I’ve stayed too long. I’m wasting time. I shouldn’t even be here. I never should’ve stayed.”