Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
I lift myself slowly to my elbows. Quin is at the side of the bed, head rolled back against the mattress at my knee. His lashes kiss his cheeks, his lips are slightly parted, and his hair—another inch longer—frames his face. When he sleeps, not a line of concern tweaks his marble face. It almost makes me wish he slept all the time. In his dreams, at least, he can be free.
Time to get out of here.
I peel back the blanket and carefully pick myself off the bed. Sleeping like that will be hard on Quin with his wounds, and rising will be difficult. At least . . . I scan the room, and cross to a broom standing in the corner of the kitchen area. I remove the brush end and quietly set the long handle next to Quin. My foot touches something and I glance down at a glass vial.
I recall pulling it out of my bag and pinching one of its contents into my mouth. I grip the glass with a swallow. Not the one to induce sleep. An anti-anxiety potion.
I bite my lip, slip it into my bag, and tiptoe for the door.
Rain is coming down so hard it’s even seeping inside. There’s a big puddle at the door, and it seems to be swelling? Was that a leaf that washed in, or . . . I bend toward it, squinting—
“You’re leaving.”
His voice is rusty, but even so, I’m certain his words weren’t a question. My breathing hiccups and my shiver is lost in a lurch of fright as the puddle before me takes form.
I gasp. A wyvern? Here?
It leaps upwards and over my head, knocking off my curacowl, and I freeze as the veil flies off my face and the fabric plunks to the ground somewhere too far behind me.
Quin murmurs to the wyvern and stirs. A snap of wood against the floor has my heart pounding. I should run before I’m seen. A wyvern is in here. If stormblades catch a glimpse . . .
I slam my eyes shut.
But if Quin sees me, won’t I have to leave for good?
Air wakes over the nape of my neck.
I duck my head and tense, my hair only enough to curtain me from a few angles . . . I’m waiting for him to come into view, waiting . . .
He doesn’t. He stands at my back and my veil gently slides over my face as he settles the curacowl on my head. Does he suspect? Or am I imagining his gaze on my nape and the soft way his fingers brush over my hair?
I wait two hectic heartbeats and turn. He’s standing with the aid of the broomstick, a warm expression on his face even though he’s not smiling.
A flicker of wings behind him has me whispering urgently. “A wyvern?”
He leans in with a raised eyebrow and a spark in his eye. “Will you tell on me . . . Haldr?”
The way he . . .
He stares at me for a long beat, until I’m swallowing nerves. “Why is there one here?” I manage to choke out.
Quin seats himself at the table and the wyvern perches on the chessboard. I spy a familiar scar running down its side and lurch over. Quin casts me a curious look and halts me a foot before it. His arm is a warm band across my stomach and I quickly step back.
Quin murmurs, “I was surprised to find one over this side of the channel. Usually they stay in our kingdom, where there’s traces of magic in the waters. But this one crossed the sea, alone. As I was being hauled off the ship I fell—some of my wounds met the ocean and it must have sensed my blood. It appeared in the shallows. Stormblades were up ahead and on the ship behind, they were distracted with opening the cage. I had a moment; I commanded it to find my brother and bring me news.”
“It can scent royal blood? It would find the prince and you again?”
He nods and stares with amazement at the creature. “This wyvern, in Iskaldir, when it shouldn’t be. What luck; what hope.”
I stare from the wyvern nuzzling at something around its leg to Quin reaching out to help.
He and I. We are fated.
Ill fated, perhaps, but fated.
“You don’t seem afraid,” Quin says to me.
“This wyvern won’t hurt me.”
“What do you mean?”
I pinch myself. “I mean, I . . . heard you can control wyverns. I’m safe with you.”
Quin pulls off the leaf I’d seen in the puddle, but it’s not a leaf; it unfolds, thin and leathery. “Light me a candle?”
I grab one, and Quin holds the material over the flame. As it dries, words appear. A message.
Quin reads it twice, lips moving silently, forming the words. His brow furrows in concern, but his tight lips show his determination. He lowers himself into his chair. “He’s alright.”