Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Again? I shake off the confusion and step forwards. “I’m careful—”
“Keeping you here is a curse of its own. Sooner or later, we won’t just be contending with financial ruin.”
I shake my head vehemently.
“You think I want to force you into marriage?” Father’s voice drops, the anger cracking. “It’s the only way to save this family. I cannot keep watching you chasing a dream that will kill you.”
“So you’re selling me,” I say, my voice shaking.
He sighs, running a hand over his face. “I’m trying to save you, Cael. From yourself. From the luminists. From . . . everything. You’ll have a comfortable life there.”
My throat stings.
Would I? I think about Megaera and that big house with its fiercely formal garden and high walls. I think about how many mornings I’d have to fake a smile.
I don’t want to ruin my family, but I can’t marry her. I dream of choosing for myself, and giving my lovelight freely. “Please.”
“I’ve spoken with the Temenos family. Megaera is willing to do the rites immediately. This evening.”
I stagger backwards, a mounting urgency quickening my breath. “Father, please, don’t. I can’t. I’d sooner you strike me from the family tree.”
Father crosses the room towards me with a sigh. “One day you’ll understand.”
I shake my head again. “What about what I want?”
“Cael . . .”
I whip around to the door, and sharp pain ripples across my back. My body stiffens under the spell, my knees buckle, and I collapse. Frozen, helpless, I can only scream in my head. At my father’s command, his aklos move forward. Father hesitates a moment, something flickering in his eyes, but he sharpens his posture. “Lock him in. Send someone to dress him.”
No! Stop! But my lips won’t move. I can only watch him, helpless, as I’m carried away.
Father stands in the doorway with a grimace of regret. “Sorry, Cael. It must be done.”
A half-dozen aklos flood into the chamber that’s become my prison, a flurry of movement out the corner of my eye. They’re carrying trays of bright garments and jewelled fastenings for my hair; I wish to leap from the bed where I lie and escape, but it takes all my effort just to move my little finger.
The aklos strip and redress me. A deep violet robe lined with floral silk, embroidered boots that buckle up over my stiff calves, and twenty-one bejewelled braids amongst my loose hair. Wedding attire.
When the last of them has gone, my muscles unlock in a sharp rush; I throw myself onto wobbly feet and race for the door. Too late. They’ve already bolted it. I drop my head against the wood and swallow a thick lump of frustration.
I know the family needs me, know my father is only desperate, but . . .
A sound from behind startles me and I whirl around to Akilah crawling out from under a clothed table. She flashes me a toothy grin. “Snuck in with the aklos. Here.”
She holds out a flask of herbal tea and after a sniff, I haul her into a hug. “You saved it.”
“You were working on it last night; I feared it might be the start of a medius spell. Aklos are searching your room, on your father’s orders.”
“Why is it so hard to help people?” I sigh and shake the stupid long sleeves of my wedding robe. “Why is it so hard to help myself?” I cast my eye around for other clothing but the aklos have taken everything.
I need to go, before Megaera arrives and I’m escorted—marched—to the luminarium.
I fly over to the other side of the room and check the windows. Locked. Locked. I bang my palms over the next one. Locked.
“I also brought this.” Akilah pulls a sharp knife from the folds of her skirts. “For your inevitable attempt at escape.”
She knows me too well. She would—she might be my akla, but she’s more like a sister to me. “I suppose a key would be asking too much?”
“They had to return it to your father.”
I laugh hollowly. “Of course.” I hold the knife in the murky light coming through the shutters. “This’ll have to do.”
I slide the blade around the edges of the window, feeling the resistance of a sealing spell. Father only ever uses legal simplex spells, which means with enough pressure . . .
Sweat drips down my temple as I work, each scrape of the blade a race against time. Akilah watches me, her voice light but probing. “You’re not just running from the wedding, are you? You’re running for him.”
Her words strike harder than Father’s attack earlier, and I freeze.
“He’s no one,” I mutter, focusing on the window.
Akilah steps closer. “You’ve been holding on to that no one for years, Cael. If he were truly no one, you’d stay. For your family.”
I shove the window with a grunt. “I don’t even know his name let alone his real face. He called himself Calix Solin; I called him Maskios; neither was real. I don’t know his name, I don’t know what he looks like, he disappeared from my life years ago. He’s nothing more than a shadow. An annoying shadow.”