Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
I vowed to learn from that, spent days in my grandfather’s cabin poring over crude healing methods. Now, I pull out my needles and thread.
This wyvern will not die today.
My fingers are numb, wet, and it takes three tries to thread the needle. I speak softly as I work, wrapping its claws in a torn handkerchief. “Just until I’m done. I’ve numbed your scales. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much.”
I’ve practiced stitching on leather, but never on living flesh. With magic, I never felt the visceral sensations of healing a wound. Now, the wyvern’s laboured breaths tremble under my palms, its scales silk under my fingers, its blood warm and slick.
I steel myself against the shiver that runs through me as the needle pierces its skin. Strength and steadiness. No room for anything else.
The wyvern whines, and I tighten the thread, carefully knitting the gash together.
The clash of steel grows louder. The battle is closing in. I have to hurry or be caught in the crossfire. I have nothing to shield myself from blades, arrows, axes.
I knot the last stitch, but I’m not done. I chew on an elderleaf, spit out the bitter pulp, and dab it over the wound.
An axe whistles through the trees and buries itself in a branch too close to my head. I duck lower. “Your wings are fine. Rest. Don’t fly until you’ve healed.”
Pounding footsteps. The ground trembles.
I want to run. My stomach drops to my knees.
The wyvern will be trampled if I leave it here.
I scan the woods, eyes darting. There—a hollow at the base of a tree.
Heart pounding with the rising battle, I gently shift the dragonette onto my spare shirt and tuck it into the hollow. As I scramble to repack my things, I spot the last of my food—berries I collected yesterday.
What good is saving it if it starves?
I pile the berries beside the wyvern, knot my belongings, and sling the pack over my shoulder.
More metal whistles nearby. I don’t wait to see what kind. Doubling over, I scramble through the underbrush, thorns tearing at my cloak, one slicing a line under my temple. Blood trickles down my jaw.
I scurry down a small bank.
Wrong way.
Leather-clad soldiers with axes and round shields—Iskaldir’s stormblades, on Lumin turf.
I back slowly into the shadows—
And bump into something warm, solid.
Someone.
Someone who freezes against my back.
I whirl around; the figure spins with a flutter of dark cloak. Our gazes lock—
“Megaera?” I gasp, staring at the woman before me. She arches a brow, her lips silently forming my name.
In an instant, our hands cover each other’s mouths, eyes wide with surprise and a silent warning: stay quiet, stay careful. One wrong move, and we’re dead. Or worse, captured.
A stormblade’s crow rings out, and Megaera and I press back to back. She gestures toward the sound, and I nod, pointing west where the merchant paths are guarded by sentinels—a safer route to the coast.
We carefully inch our way out of the battle, and as soon as the clash of metal fades, we tumble onto a broader path. I lurch away from her.
Her elegant, sharp features turn toward me, eyes locking onto mine with a shrewd intensity. Her voice curls through the damp air, edged with a soft, shivery laugh. “You trusted me through the woods.”
I look away, focusing on the darkening path ahead, the towering black outlines of ancient oaks. “My choices were limited. You were the safest option.”
“Where’s your sidekick?”
“He’s our king.”
“He’s alive, which is the only respect I’ll give him.” Her gaze sweeps over my drenched cloak, my pitiful belongings. She sneers. “He cast you away.”
Live. Love. Leave.
The final words of his note, his last command. Words he’s spoken before, but this time in his kingly scrawl. An edict.
My grip tightens on the fabric cutting into my shoulder. “Why are you headed south?”
Megaera’s lips press into a thin line. “Turns out I value this cheap life of mine.” She forces a smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Didn’t you enjoy me begging you to save me?”
I’d hesitated to save her. She was a venomous presence in my life, lashing out and hurting those I cared about.
But then, hadn’t I set her on that path?
My negligence, my arrogance as a healer, had killed her father—the only family she had left.
Didn’t she have a right to grieve, to be a mess of emotions, to make mistakes?
Hadn’t I?
I close my eyes briefly, the shadow-laced path tightening the knot in my stomach. “Is the regent after your life for letting us escape?”
“He’d try to silence me even if I hadn’t. Perhaps with more determination. A price I thought I could accept. Then.”
The rain stops, but the scent lingers, sharpens as we step through puddles, until a cool breeze overwhelms it with the salt of the coast. A rustle in the distance has us padding quietly, ears pricking for signs of danger. Branches sway under a cloudy sky. An owl hoots. Something slithers.