Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 59723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
He straightens and staggers past me. His torment echoes off walls of stone. He hurls rocks against the boulders over and over.
I let him release his frustrations and take care of Petros’s body, pulling him free, cleaning the wound, setting him inside the carriage to be taken back to his family. The sprawled lump I glimpsed earlier is, indeed, the driver, knocked out with a blow to the back of the head and presumably taken for dead.
I heal the damage and when he wakes to news of his master, he cries and begs to take the body home; I let them go and once the dust from their leaving has settled, I return to Quin’s side. Evening sun is quickly fading, but a glimmer of light is cast upon Quin’s face. The confidence he carries like a second skin has been shed, leaving behind slender, delicate lines that remind me he’s young. Not many years older than myself, and with an entire kingdom to protect. His pale complexion and solemn dark eyes are tinted with sadness.
Skriniaris Evander was right. He is struggling.
Every day pretending to be in control, pretending to have a plan, pretending it’ll all work out. He survives on make-believe.
How exhausted he must be. How scared.
He shuts his eyes and draws a deep breath. I want to help him expel it, along with all his worries, but I can’t. All I can do is . . .
I take his injured arm, pluck off the handkerchief, and press a stitching spell against his wound.
Quin’s gaze lingers on the rocks, his shoulders rigid, his breath uneven. The silence stretches between us, heavy with unacknowledged grief. I rub a calming hand down his arm.
He doesn’t turn, but I feel the tremor rolling through him, and I feel his immediate attempt to claw it back.
But it’s too powerful, too consuming.
He shudders again, and this time it tears out of him in a roar.
It splits the air—one guttural, pained roar. His breaths come out hard and jagged; three bursts that rake through him before he forces control back into place. He shuts his eyes, and by the time I catch the horse and tug it away from roadside weeds, his mask is back on. His eyes sharpen, detached and unreadable, but the slight tremor in his hand when he grips the reins tells the truth—this is a man carrying a burden too big for even his broad shoulders.
In silence, we ride back the way we came—straight for the canals.
We pass through the hidden gate and into the royal city, stopping before the checkpoint to steal behind a shifting boulder and into a dark, damp passage of rock that stretches narrowly ahead. Gritting his teeth in pain and exhaustion, Quin takes a long cane off a hook in the wall. Lanterns light the way—that, presumably, was the preparation Quin tasked his aklo with. I lift one from its hook to carry with us.
“I’m going to say it. A secret tunnel is . . . something.”
“You’ve a real knack for words.”
I flick his arm, halfway between a scowl and a laugh. “You want me to get philosophical?”
Quin’s cane snaps on the ground and stops. He glances sideways at me, shakes his head in disbelief, and resumes walking.
“This tunnel is . . . an allegory of your life. It’s cold, dark, damp, miserable, lonely, pitiful—”
“Get to your point.”
“It may feel like you’re trapped, like this is a pre-made tomb and you’ll die a miserable death in its dank, wormy embrace—”
Quin turns with a growl and feigns nipping me, only the space is narrow—I have nowhere to go and his teeth graze my ear. He pulls back, eyes narrowed on the path ahead, and I loop an arm through his, grinning.
“I could stop here.”
“I fail to see the philosophical value—”
“Let me finish—Ah. Devoured by worms.” Quin shoots me a warning look, but the barest curve of his lips suggests this is exactly the normalcy he needs. “The tunnel may feel this way, but it will surely end. At the end there will be light—everything you’ve worked towards, waiting for you.”
He grimaces and his shoulders sag; I continue, “It may feel impossible, like there’s only floundering in the dark, but if you look you’ll see lanterns lining the way. People on your side, giving their light.” I gesture to the lanterns one after the other. “Your brother. Your queen. Your son. Skriniaris Evander. Your aklos. Aklas.”
Quin’s cane and our footsteps are the only sounds for a few beats. Quin stares determinedly ahead.
He chose you.
I see Quin’s furrowed frown as he took in the conditions of Niki’s home.
I feel the weight of the king’s roar echoing around me.
I swallow a sudden flare of nerves, and mask it with a laugh. “And me of course. I’m the best kind of light. I’m . . . the one moving with you.”