Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 136009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Danae threw herself into Kerrigan’s arms. “Be careful. Come back to us.”
Then in a blink, she was gone.
“Our time runs short, as it always does. You should practice this again. We’ll meet up on the next full moon, and if you have not won your war by then, we can discuss it more. Try it somewhere wide open, without people. I don’t want you to blow up a mountain or something.”
“Can I do that?” Kerrigan asked with wide eyes.
“Try not to,” Cleora said with a laugh before hugging Kerrigan and waving goodbye to Zina.
“She’s a delight,” Zina said as she sank back into her conjured chair. “Just one more minute in the sun. Herasi is too cold this time of year.”
Kerrigan let Zina soak in the sun before she dropped the connection and returned to her body. Fordham sat before her. His eyes jerked open the moment she began to move.
“You’re back. You were gone all night,” he said.
She yawned. “Yeah, it feels like it.”
“Did you learn anything?”
Kerrigan told him the bizarre story about He Who Reigns and his brother, Fairgate. Fordham listened, rapt and incredulous.
“Every time I hear more things about that place, it sounds utterly unbelievable. We’ve been there, and that still sounds unlikely.”
“I know,” Kerrigan admitted. “I was hoping for something more concrete.”
Zina yawned and stretched. “You know where I’d start if I were looking?”
“The base of a mountain?”
She waved her hand away. “Clearly Irena found it at the base of a mountain long ago and used it. Who knows where it went from there? The tale is old and useless for our purposes. But it eliminated a lot of possibilities for me and solidified some of my father’s research.”
“What part?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, waving her hand. “You know after the Great War, magical artifacts were rounded up. Many were destroyed. Many were put in a treasure trove and deemed acceptable for use, like honeycombs to store extra magic. That sort of thing. But the ones that were too dangerous or couldn’t be destroyed or they didn’t know what it did, those were stored in the Society vault, in the belly of Draco Mountain.”
“Okay.” Kerrigan had known this. Bastian had gotten access to a cache of artifacts to teach Kerrigan and eventually other Society members how to counter them. Now he had full access to that vault and whatever horrors were within.
“So I was part of those expeditions for a time. We rounded up a ton of artifacts. Treasure hunters, we called ourselves. I saw inside that vault, and it’s much bigger than you think it is. It’s a ballroom or two or three full of junk. If I had a scary metal crown artifact and no one knew what it did because the dragons never told anyone it had created the binding in the first place, that’s where I’d put it.”
“Yeah, but it’s in the Society. I can’t portal in there. Even if I could, I’ve never been in the vault,” Kerrigan told her.
Zina reached into her pockets and plucked out a creamy white envelope with the Society seal on the back. It was open when Zina passed it to Kerrigan, and she read it.
“A Society Ball?” Kerrigan glanced up at her. “This sounds like a trap.”
“Easy cover at least,” Zina said with a wink.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Ball
“Stop moving,” Viviana told Kerrigan for the third time. Her eyes flickered between the portrait of Anya’s niece and Kerrigan’s face.
“Sorry,” she said, stilling under her ministrations.
It was one thing to have Viviana on Ordrax’s back, which was still odd, but it was another to have Viviana working glamours on Kerrigan’s face. When Ordrax had suggested it, Viviana had looked offended that he had given up the secrets from her mother’s family. Apparently she had been perfecting glamours since she was a child to make herself look more beautiful. It was one of the ways that she had become queen in the first place.
And now they were using the talent to alter Kerrigan’s and Fordham’s appearance for the ball.
“You look wild,” Clover said with a shake of her head.
It was good to see her friend again. It had been too long since they were together. Even here, it felt strange that they were in the Van Horn manor home and not in the Dregs. But Anya and Alura Van Horn were Kerrigan’s escorts for the evening.
“Yeah, it’s weird,” Kerrigan agreed.
If she hadn’t been watching her face transform before her eyes, she might not have believed that Viviana was turning her into Anya’s young niece. Her eyes were no longer a vivid green but brown. She had a rounder face, sans freckles. Her nose had been elongated and lifted at the tip. Her mouth was smaller, lips thinner, chin sunken back. Her jawline had flattened. Her hair was now an unrecognizable brown and straight as a board.