Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
I bend over and retch, my eyes flooding with tears. And then I straighten. “Who sent you.” Even though it’s obvious, I want to hear him say it. “What sent you!”
There is a long pause. “The Dark King. Your father. And not to kill you, but to bring you home to him.”
The ringing in my ears reminds me of when I’ve ridden Lavante and he’s been at a gallop, and I’ve turned my head to look for Merc, and the wind was so loud.
“You are a demon,” I hear myself say.
His voice grows bitter. “Not by choice—”
Abruptly, I remember something else. “Oh, crescent moon, you took my body—”
My stomach revolts again and I jack over to vomit properly. As I haven’t eaten all day, I throw up bile and some of the water I drank in a stream, an hour ago. The world spins and jerks and I put out a hand to steady myself. Except there’s nothing to grab on to but air, no trunk to catch my balance, no branch … no strong arm that will keep me upright.
Merc doesn’t come to help me now.
What a wise man—
Demon, I mean.
Yet even as my body struggles, my mind remains painfully sharp. “Oh, fates … there was no horse. You didn’t have a horse to stable when you walked into the Gauntlet because you didn’t need one. You came out … of the Fulcrum.”
I try to stand up fully, but the dry heaving won’t relent. My throat is on fire, and I struggle to breathe through the spasms of my entire body.
When there’s finally a pause, I look over at him and attempt to focus my straining, watery eyes. “And that’s why I can meet your stare. You’re already dead.”
As with the symbols, I had everything all wrong. The blindness to his mortal destiny was not that I was willing to die for him. It’s that his death has already occurred …
“And all of the things … about me.” I shook my head. “What I can see about death. The compass. The skills I possessed that I didn’t know I had—you were never really surprised, you never asked any questions … because you already knew, didn’t you. You probably know more than I do about who I am—”
“Listen to me now, Sorrel.” He starts to talk quickly, urgently. “However this all started, you need to know that nothing has changed about how I’ve come to feel for you. I want to protect you, and keep you safe from him—”
“You’ve lied to me this whole time, about everything! This was all a performance—” I curse and want to slap myself. “You faked crying at that field of dead crops, so I’d be fooled—”
“I did no such thing—”
“I can’t believe a word you say!”
“I didn’t lie about my past!” he yells back. “I was a farmer when my village up north was invaded. I submitted myself to the Dark King because I thought my sacrifice would save my family. It did not. First, he slaughtered the sisters I was supposed to protect, and then he violated my betrothed in front of me and killed her, too!” He clears his throat roughly. “When I stood over those spoiled crops, I was reminded of everything I lost, everything I had willingly given up in the hope that—”
“What did the Dark King promise you.” My voice is cold and dead. “What is he going to give you when you present me to him.”
As Merc looks away to the fields on the far side of the pond, I’m struck by the suffering on his face. But then I harden myself.
“He said he would give it all back to you, didn’t he. The life you had lost.”
I think about what Merc himself said, about how the evil gets into people and knows their deepest desires.
“Deliver me, and you get your past.” I shake my head. “And now, we’re here. Just a couple hundred lengths from the altar of the Fulcrum. You were never going to take me to the north to protect me, you were trying to get me to the altar to be sacrificed—his altar.”
I think of the stupid arrangement I made with Merc in the beginning, my body in exchange for his help getting to the Outpost. He’d have followed me there anyway—damn him, why did he not just force me?
“How it started…” He shakes his head. “Is not how it is now.”
“Ended, you mean. We are over—”
“Please, Sorrel, I can protect you. I can take you up north where he has not yet come. We can live—”
“Shut. Up.”
Merc falls silent, and I try not to notice the way the sunlight clings to his body, creating an aura as if he’s not what he is. Then again, he is probably willing the effect, just to seduce me.