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)
My fingers fly to the clasp. The grooves, its slight weight, the way touching it has me shivering, all feel familiar. Even the silver ribbon he once tied into my hair flutters around my shoulders.
My hand clamps over my shirt sleeve and I turn away to peek under the cuffs. My wrists. I’m still wearing his braids.
Everything on me exposes feelings. Holds stories of him . . . Something in me remembers how he wrapped this cloak around me. The gloves he slid onto my hands. The clasp—the whisper of his thumbs at my jaw.
I laugh through the pain and—“You really never gave me any boots.” It’s the only thing on me that’s my own.
Quin blinks.
“I mean . . .”
Thick silver hair and braids tumble around Quin’s shoulders as he leans in, and I notice the fastenings are not his but the plain ones I bought in Ragn. “Perhaps in this respect,” he murmurs, his foot settling to touch the tip of mine, “I’m most superstitious.”
I step shakily back.
He raises a gentle brow.
How will you ever survive if you can’t keep your feelings in check?
I steel myself and force my gaze to stay on his. “We need to stop. It’ll be too hard if we continue like this.”
His lips press together as he scans my face and locks onto my gaze more deeply. “Continue like what?”
I flush and grit my teeth. “You know very well.”
“I’ve yet to hear you say it.”
I’m hot and flustered and I shove his chest, pushing him away. At least, I’m supposed to be pushing him away, except I’m following; pushing with my hands balled around his shirt while stepping in closer.
His back hits a tree trunk, and he’s a long line of warmth down my flank. I feel his chest swell on a breath. It gives me butterflies, and I hate it.
“There’s nothing to say,” I mutter, squeezing my fists tight. “We’ll be strangers soon.”
He tips his face to the dappled light and closes his eyes. When he reopens them, his expression is raw and unreadable, but too quickly he slides his kingly mask into place. I’m almost knocked off balance when he pushes past me and strides towards the glade. He calls out, keeping his tone polite yet firm. “Follow.”
I do, at a distance, dancing around bursts of perfume from where Quin has disturbed the soulbloom. There’s friction between us now, a forced distance. It’s hard to breathe in, but I do. “Why this place?”
“Each dromveske holds a collection of memories in a space significant to the person. King Yngvarr must consider this place important—he retreats here between each memory.”
“What about time?”
“Runs slower inside the dromveske. There might be days of memories inside, played out seemingly in real time, but waking up, not more than a night should have passed. So long as we don’t get lost.”
Quin steps next to the first door and looks over at me. “When you’re ready.”
I press my open palm to the cold door and its worn runes. If I get lost in here, there’ll be no Haldr, no Caelus, no healer left to return. I’ll vanish inside the memories of this king who wants my head on a pike.
I swallow, glance once more at Quin, and at his reassuring nod, I push.
It’s as if I’ve returned to Frederica’s estate—as if it could be a year ago; as if I’d never left. The manor is teeming with aklos and aklas, there’s murmuring and laughter, even a familiar tremor underfoot—short and sharp, just enough for leaves to rustle and blossom petals to rain over the courtyard where Quin and I stand, unnoticed.
Dozens of eyes pass by with not a single blink in our direction. I feel solid though, as if I must have a presence.
“Colours are sharp,” Quin murmurs, staring at the space where I’d once hauled him away from his aunt and pressed flowering soulbloom to his lips. He snaps his head up and stares ahead, towards the archway leading to grassy fields and the black forest beyond. “He’s recalled this day in vivid detail.”
I turn, taking it all in, and pause at the rune door we came through. “Our way back out?”
“When the scene starts to fade, if the weather changes suddenly, get out as quickly as you can.”
I nod, and take in the surroundings again. Somewhere in these memories there must be a clue. Knowledge to help me get through to King Yngvarr.
Quin strides ahead, silver hair gleaming, his cloak flapping gently behind him.
We pass through the arch and immediately I spy a flicker of movement behind the tree at the top of the grassy hill—the same hill where I would, many years from this memory, erect a plaque for River. The tree is just as beautiful. I can scent the woodsy bark on the breeze.
I sniff again as we near it, and Quin speaks. “Everything is from King Yngvarr’s memory. We’ll smell the scents he remembers, hear the things he did, see events as he’s reconstructed them.”