Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 112416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
It was too late, though. Her body was as cold as ice, and even the blood seeping into his clothes was thick and cold, holding no hint that she’d ever lived.
“Shey?”
His head snapped up and turned. That was Rayne’s voice. He would recognize it anywhere.
“Shey?” Rayne called again. The sound was desperate and fearful, but also growing softer as if he were moving away from him. Thunder rumbled, louder now than it had been. The wind and rain lashed at the palace and hammered on the windows as if the storm were demanding entrance.
Shey swallowed a fresh sob and stared at his sister’s dead body. “I’m sorry I was too late.” He lifted his shaking right hand and closed her eyes, smearing blood across her eyelids and cheeks, before laying her on the floor. There was nothing he could do for her, but maybe he could still save Rayne and their mother. Maybe they were together in the throne room, and Rayne was protecting her from these unknown attackers. That had to be it.
As he pushed to his feet, he searched the immediate area. His eyes lit upon a sword. No, his sword stabbed into the chest of one of the servants. Why was his sword here?
It didn’t matter. It couldn’t. Nothing made sense. All he knew was that he had to find his mother and Rayne.
Wrapping his hand around the hilt, he jerked the sword free and charged up the last of the stairs to the pair of tall white double doors that led into the grand throne room. His mother didn’t spend her time sitting on the throne each day, listening to supplicants. Like him, it was all boring meetings in stuffy rooms with long tables, and boring meetings while eating meals. The throne room was for pomp and circumstance.
Yet, as he shoved the doors open, his breath left him. Inside, he found even more dead bodies. Each one had been brutally murdered, just like all the people on the staircase. Blood pooled in dark lakes across the marble floor and splashed on the walls. All the chandeliers had fallen, and the lights were ripped from the walls. The only light in the enormous room poured murky and grim through the enormous windows. Lightning flashed, casting everything in a stark, gut-wrenching display.
He raced across the room, but his footsteps slowed as he reached the center of the room. His mother sat on the throne in her typical black dress—the same color she’d worn for years following the death of his father. In the center of her chest, a sword protruded, pinning her torso to the back of the chair. Her head lolled to the side and her mouth hung open in death. He continued even though there was nothing he could do, only to find that it was his sword buried in her chest.
But…wasn’t he…
He looked down to find the sword that he was sure he’d pulled from another body was no longer in his hand. How…
How had she come to be stabbed by his own sword?
Panic and despair swamped him, threatening to send him to his knees a second time. Nothing made sense. Why was his family dead? Who was killing them?
With each question that formed in his brain, the lightning flashed and the thunder slammed from the heavens, causing the entire world to shudder.
“Shey?”
Rayne. It was Rayne.
“Shey!”
The terrified shout sent Shey running yet again, racing out of the throne room, desperate to put this horrific scene behind him and save at least one person before it was too late.
“Rayne!” he shouted. “Rayne, where are you?”
“Shey!”
Closer. He was closer. The voice was closer this time. He left the throne room through a side door and darted along a narrow corridor, lit intermittently by old oil lamps. Even though glass surrounded the tiny flames, they flickered and danced wildly as if in a strong wind. Shadows lunged and writhed along the pale-gray stone walls. He thought this might have been a servants’ passageway, but he wasn’t sure. He hadn’t sneaked through these halls since he was a kid, trying to evade his tutors and bath time.
Yet after a couple of random turns, he found Rayne standing at the end of the corridor, looking beautiful and alive. His light brown hair was short and mussed, as if he’d been running his fingers through it. The light glinted off his glasses and shone in his jade-green eyes.
But his trimmed circle beard was missing, leaving his pale, smooth cheeks bare. As Shey drew closer, he realized that this wasn’t the Rayne he’d last seen less than a year ago, but the Rayne of his youth. Those decadent, playful years when Shey attended university and ran wild, avoiding all his duties so he could show off for the overly serious student from Erya.