Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
“The future.” Ahav stroked his jaw. “The otherworld.”
I let any pretense of bravado or practiced calm fade, hoping he’d see the sincerity behind my words. “Twenty years from now, Ian will control a portal between the two worlds. He will send me back to mine, but I will arrive just before my birth. It is there that Sandrine gives me a journal you wrote to your unborn daughter, Moriah.”
Surprise tightened his mouth. There and gone, his next expression giving nothing away. But his eyes… A computer firing at full capacity worked behind them. He was stripping and comparing and probing my words, I could tell.
“If Ian is as bad as you say,” he grated, “why keep him alive?”
“Some monsters are more useful alive than dead.” Instinct said: Let the mystery work for you.
He worked his jaw. “Show me the journal,” he commanded.
I nodded and made to cross to the bed, when a sharp pain ripped through my head. A cry escaped. In a split second, the world morphed into an endless void. A split second after that, a wealth of colors bled together, forming pictures. Exactly what had happened inside the war-room, before I’d watched a madman stab my pregnant mother.
Flash. I run through a village filled with rushing, screaming people.
Flash. Ian holds a glowing emerald, laughs, and drives a blade into my belly.
Flash. Morris falls beneath monstra fire and Andrea rises, the smoky haze concealing her face now fading.
Flash. In the padded room, the shadow woman leans close to my bed and whispers, “I’ve found her. It’s almost time.”
As the visions died, my knees buckled. Down I toppled. Blood poured from my nose.
Jasher shot forward, pulling his chain taut to reach me. He stopped mere inches from contact as the king caught me. Our first brush of contact. I wrapped my fingers around his wrist, clinging as I tried to speak. Only choking sounds left me.
Ahav eased me to the floor. “What did you see?” he demanded.
Words spilled out, unstoppable. “Flames. Death. Pain. Ian…evil. The original. He is the clonemaker.”
“The maker.” A harsh breath escaped the king, the sound thick with dismay, anger, and disbelief. “That…that cannot be. Ian is close to my age. He didn’t live in Morris’s time, when the original monstra came.”
“I’m telling you the truth,” I said, pleading my case though he was closing off before my eyes. “The original monstra might not have been his, but the second generation are.”
Growing fury radiated from Ahav. “Are you willing to face him with these accusations in the Ring of Truth?”
The gravity of his tone ignited uneasiness.
“No,” Jasher snarled, with his own burst of fury. “She refuses. Tell him you refuse.”
I didn’t understand his vehemence, but I couldn’t allow it to sway me. “Yes. I’m happy to face Ian in the Ring of Truth.”
Jasher punched the stone wall, and I jolted. Cracks spread, dust pluming the air.
Ahav released me and stood. “Very well. The trial will be held at dawn.”
16
PROMISES MADE, PROMISES KEPT
The trial will be held at dawn.
The words echoed inside my skull, a tolling bell. The warning in the king’s tone, coupled with Jasher’s reaction, conveyed a very clear message: whatever the Ring of Truth was, I wouldn’t like it. But I didn’t back down. I hadn’t lied.
“Guardian. Commanders,” Ahav called, his voice a dagger unsheathed. He didn’t move, but I felt the ripple of his power.
When Ian strode into the room with three others only a heartbeat later, I almost growled. They’d been waiting outside the entire time, and I hadn’t sensed them.
I was on my feet in an instant. Ignore the unsteady ground and shaking legs. Fragments of the visions shimmered in my head, bleeding into the present. Faces, fire, ruin. Clues.
Ian had stabbed me. But first, he’d laughed while holding a glowing emerald. Could it contain the Ember?
An idea to ponder. Later. I glared at him. He watched Jasher, who watched me, lids slitted.
Why had he urged me to avoid the Ring? How much would he hate me for this examination?
I folded my arms around myself as the commanders circled him. Their voices were low, clinical, like butchers inspecting a fresh slab of meat.
“The trajectory of its wings is greater than expected.”
“Those scales. Small in number but as impenetrable as the other beasts.”
“The incendiary gland seems unstable, but potent.”
“I told you I didn’t consent to this,” I snapped at the king.
“And I told you it would happen regardless,” Ahav replied, not the least bit moved.
“Let them look,” Jasher called, an emperor amused by peasants. “Like what you see?”
Kevin spoke up again. “I support your choices. Even the bad ones.”
The king and commanders looked around, confused. Neither Jasher nor I explained.
“Show us your wings,” Ian said, and the commanders stepped back.
A dangerous stillness rippled through my Tinman, followed by a low, lethal laugh. “Anything for you, guardian,” he purred. Part of me suspected he meant those words and only pretended to mock. That he was bound to Ian and must obey. Hadn’t he hinted as much?