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 push up achily to my knees and frown at the scent hitting my nose. The luminarium should be filled with the spicy scents of incense, not—I cough and hurriedly slap a handkerchief over my nose—
“Not another one,” comes a grim voice from behind me and I spin on my knees into a ring of descending smoke. Through the clear centre I see a scruffy face puffing on a pipe. I startle into a baffled laugh and rise. “Lucius!”
Lucius rips the pipe out of his mouth. “Caelus?”
“There’s not much time. What are you doing here?”
“We’re all in here.”
“All?”
He moves sharply toward the back of the luminarium and I follow, to the uneasy sight of all the islanders lying unconscious around the walls, their feet pointing towards the violet oak and their heads resting on . . . luminist robes?
I catch sight of Akilah and beside her the little girl. They too look lifeless, pale with the faintest green sheen at their throats . . . If their souls are like this, they’ll never return . . . I grab Akilah’s wrist and read her slow, sluggish pulse. “Siren poisoning?”
Lucius sighs. “We all fell inside at once. I recognised the scent of poison coming from the incense burners and covered my nose. Prince Nicostratus was the only other to stop inhaling in time. The rest collapsed within moments, even though the prince flew up there and smothered the source. Good you covered up; it still lingers.”
“Where is he now?” I say, alertly scanning all the bodies. I bolt to my feet. “Where’s Casimiria?”
“She was put in here days before the rest of us. One thing I can tell you, this dromveske has been made specifically for her. Her name is inscribed into each rune door. Which one she’s now behind—or stuck in—I don’t know. But the prince tried going after her.”
I frown and glance again at Akilah and the little girl. “You’ve been giving them serpentweed. To keep them alive.”
“Luckily the regent’s mind is detailed. There are luminist teas and scented sacks in storage.”
Enough to find the herbs to keep the souls from withering to nothing, but not enough to bring them to life. “We need lullaby ash and nightshade essence.” I say and he agrees in surprise. “But to find them . . .”
I look down at the attire my soul clad me in this time. It’s the same as when I entered the dromveske with Quin. All things he’s given me, but no pouch of life-saving potions—I suppose that would’ve been too convenient.
I grimace. “I need to find Casimiria and the prince. I’ll search for the plants.”
Lucius guides me down a set of spiralling stairs that start behind the violet oak and end in the middle of a damp underground platform. The platform is ringed on the outside by canal water and tunnels, and on the inside by a dozen rune doors. Lantern light strung down the spiralling staircase casts a cold glow over them, and shines on another door tucked under the last round of stairs—the rune patterns . . . this door is the way out.
“You could have left this place,” I murmur.
“I’m a healer. I will save every life in here before my own.”
I swallow and my eyes prickle. “I used to think you were negligent. I remember my abhorrence at those fake spells.” I look at him and the pipe puff that barely masks his worried frown. “You taught me so much. If it weren’t for you, countless lives would be lost.”
I bow and he hurriedly stops me, his hand on my arm trembling subtly.
“I see why you mean the world to your brother,” I say, and . . . “He certainly takes after you.”
Around his pipe, he sighs fondly. “Little Florentius. It’d be nice to see him again.”
I ball my fist and stride across the damp platform to a dark blue door with golden symbols carved around the stone frame. With one emphatic nod at Lucius, I push open the door and enter . . . the luminarium all over again.
I’m standing before the violet oak, a slightly smaller version of it, and from beyond it comes a small sob.
Through gaps between branches, I spy two youths. A gangly boy in rich clothing, sniffing into his bent knees, and another with tight reddish-brown curls, who is approaching cautiously, his head cocked. “Boy,” he murmurs. “Why are you crying?”
The boy lifts his head and I see the sharp angles of Prince Valerian Aetherion—thinner and smooth faced, and not even fifteen years old. He slaps away his tears. “What are you looking at?”
The redheaded youth cups his hands, hiding something as his fingers begin to glitter with seeping magic. “Want to see something special?” Slowly, he parts his hands. A silver bud floats upwards and blossoms into a brilliant flower.