Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Not just me.
“How can you ask about me and not expose us both?”
“I instructed my men to tell the Keepers that I’ve been reading about the Aza, and there are references to the serpent that gravely concern me.”
It’s a smart way to approach this, but I’m not sure it won’t alert the Keepers to my presence here in Elysium. Several of the Eagles were at the courthouse and at least one tried to kill me. Word of me and Micah coming together has to be out. “Why are you risking yourself for me?”
“Sweetheart, as long as you fight, I’ll fight with you, and you just showed me you’re willing to fight. Did you feel the wolf?”
“Yes. Yes, I did. But, Micah, I do not want to take you down with me.”
He pushes to his feet and offers me his hand, and I don’t hesitate to accept, expecting our connection in the touch, almost craving it. He pulls me to my feet, and once we’re toe-to-toe, he says, “Then don’t, Ember.”
The Sacred Book of Nephilim
When you want to know if death is near, don’t look down.
Look up.
Chapter thirty-six
Micah insists on knowledge before battle. “A warrior’s skills come from their mind first and their body second.”
In other words, he refuses my well-thought-out and dogmatic argument to head straight to the forest to start my intensive training. I’m therefore sanctioned to the library to read for the afternoon.
With utter frustration, I retrieve the books from my room and reclaim my reading nook in the library. Once I’m settled into a cozy chair with a steaming cup of coffee next to me, I begin my research. About an hour into my work, Micah appears in the seat in front of me, and I yelp with shock, my heart racing. “You need an alarm, Micah. You scared the crap out of me.”
He laughs deep in his chest, one of those rumbly, sexy eruptions of his that play a number on my nerve endings—and not some gentle symphony, either. I’m not the type to get all wrapped up in a man, but my body screams “rock star” every time he’s near, and my lips tingle at the very idea of him kissing me again.
He motions to the book I’m holding. “What have you learned?”
“It’s hard to get through. I find the need to reread and analyze every paragraph. Some of it feels as if it could have two meanings. Like the two rulers of Nephilim who collide as one. What does that even mean?”
“There are references in other books to Saint Michael, and that’s not a positive thing. Michael’s the Archangel of War.”
“Does that connect to me?”
“Yes. The rulers of Nephilim will collide when the Aza comes of age.” A book appears in his hand. “Page two hundred.” He sets it on the small table in front of me next to my coffee. “There are other references to the queen as well, but as you know, she’s no longer with us.”
“Maybe the king remarries?”
“It feels like that would have already happened for the text to reference her.”
Because I’m now twenty-seven, he means. He thinks whatever is going to happen will be rapid fire.
“And all of this guesswork is exactly why I couldn’t tell you what’s in the books,” he adds. “I’ve spent hundreds of years reading the same passages on repeat, and I’m still not certain what is right or wrong.”
Yes, but some information is better than none, I think, but he’s a stubborn man set in his reasoning. “Can I walk around the library?”
“This is your home now, Ember. You can do anything you like.”
There’s a pinch in my chest that threatens to become a cut bleeding out. How do I even know what is real anymore? “This is not my home.”
“I hope you’ll change your mind about that.” There’s a hint of something I can only call disappointment in his voice that I don’t understand. Why does he want me to accept this place? Because here I can do no harm?
This idea bubbles up inside, acid in my belly, but before I can express that feeling in words, Micah says, “Call me if you need me. You know the path.”
He stands, and before I can stop him, he disappears.
I—I don’t understand what just happened.
You know the path, I repeat in my mind, where I’ll find him if I choose to reach for him. It’s a connection I’ve never shared with anyone else. I don’t even know if it’s possible for me to communicate in such a way with anyone else. And maybe that’s his point. I need to know. I shake off the encounter, or try to, and open the book again, and this time I do read it once again to absorb what is inside.
Hours later, I’ve taken in an insane amount of information, and I decide knowledge really is power. Micah wasn’t wrong on that point, but the more I learn, the more I see trouble, and I’m that trouble. Only that feels too obvious and in our faces. What if this isn’t really about me at all?