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)
She means when Mordeus had me imprisoned in his dungeons. My chest aches. “I didn’t want you to know.”
“But I shouldn’t have been so naïve. I should’ve realized you were so haunted for a reason.”
“Tell me what you mean. How is Mordeus going to use me to rule the realm?”
“You already know,” she says. “You’ve known for a long time that he’s using you. That you do things during your blackouts you’d never choose to do if you were in control of yourself.”
“Yes, but what does this have to do with my supposed powers?”
“We don’t believe his plan was ever to be resurrected in his own body.”
The words knock me in the chest, stealing my breath. “That makes sense.” I squeeze my eyes shut, remembering the smell of rot and the way his flesh hung from his bones. “Because I found him. He’s a corpse. A breathing corpse. I couldn’t kill him because he’s already dead.”
Brie flinches, almost as if she’d hoped I’d argue. “We’ve been operating under the assumption that at some point, probably the moment you turn eighteen and . . .” She clears her throat and shakes her head, as if she can’t bring herself to finish that sentence. “At whatever moment his physical vessel fails, his spirit will have to take over your body completely.”
“I don’t know how. I don’t . . .” Numbness creeps over me, inch by inch, saving me from feeling too much. “I tried to kill him and I failed. If I can’t kill his body, how can I . . .” The idea of him inside me makes me want to crawl out of my skin. “How do I get rid of him? How do I make sure he can’t use this phoenix?”
“Right now, he’s using that rotting body to hold his consciousness because he can’t claim yours yet, not completely. Maybe he’s not ready. Maybe you’re not. Maybe the deal you made when you got that ring was part of the equation that brings him back and he can’t take you until the moment the years you handed over begin. We don’t know why, exactly, but we do know how much time we have left to figure this out. How much time we have to stop him.”
“Tell us everything that happened when you saw him,” Kendrick says. “You said you told the sword to take you to Mordeus and then used it to escape him. Where is it now?”
Slowly, I turn to him. “Erith has it.”
He schools his expression, but not before I see his face fall. “You saw Erith?”
“I told the sword to take me to Mordeus, and it dropped me into this place that looked so much like his dungeons, but it wasn’t. Erith was there. I tried to use the power of the ring on him, and it didn’t work. Erith said he’s the one who made the ring.”
Kendrick and Brie exchange a look. “They are working together,” Kendrick says.
“We just need to know why,” she says. “What does Erith stand to gain from all this?”
“He said he’d been waiting for me to bring him the sword. Told me to go home and that Mordeus wasn’t ready for me yet. And when I tried to kill him . . .” I turn toward the windows and lean my head against the glass as I let the memory replay in my mind. “I plunged my dagger into his chest and he didn’t even try to stop me. He didn’t react, didn’t bleed. Nothing happened until he pulled it back out.”
“Your blade is made of adamant and iron,” Brie says. “If you struck his heart . . .”
I wrap my arms around myself. “He said, ‘Isn’t it fun when prophecies come to pass? Make sure you tell your friend who fancies himself the king of Elora. He’s been waiting for the moment you’d put this blade in my chest.’ He pulled the blade free and there wasn’t even a mark where I’d stabbed him. Then he showed me our childhood bedroom and tried to convince me to rest there. I wanted to so badly, but it wasn’t real. It was an illusion made from my memories—someplace I wanted that was made to trap me.” I blow out a slow breath as I remember how hard it was to resist the call of that space.
“So how did you end up at our old house?” Brie asks.
“I was able to get the Sword of Fire back long enough to create a portal out of there. When I used it I must’ve been thinking of home, so that’s where the portal took me.” I make myself look at Kendrick when I say the rest. “At the last minute, he wielded his magic to take the sword back, and I couldn’t hold on. I lost it.”