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)
He waves his hand and the blossom sweeps to Valerian, who prods at the stem curiously only to have his finger sweep through glittery magic.
The prince tries to grab the blossom but it lifts just out of his reach.
“Who are you?” he says.
“Liandros!” someone calls out grumpily. “Stop shirking. Come here at once!” At approaching footsteps, Liandros hurriedly gets to his feet and his blossom bursts into a thousand sparkling specks that rain over the prince. “That’s me,” he whispers with a mischievous laugh.
The prince snaps out his hand and steals a handful of his cloak; he pauses—
“Liandros!”
Liandros jumps at the shout. “Sorry, I have to go. Come back again tomorrow!”
Prince Valerian stares after him and slowly stands, smiling softly as he dusts himself free of lingering sparkles.
The luminarium begins to fade and I quickly race once around, looking for Casimiria or the prince. I duck through the rune door just as the last of the colour leaches out and emerge onto the underground platform with its tepid scent of canal water. I bolt for the next rune door.
Again, the luminarium. Again, no sign of my missing souls. Again, a short scene between Valerian and Liandros. This time they’re sitting on the violet oak, Liandros spreading his magic into the tree to make it bloom with silver blossoms.
“Do you really want to become the grand luminist after your father?” Valerian murmurs, taking in the dazzling sight.
Liandros hums, smiling softly as he looks up at the radiating light from his magic. It streams toward the glass dome, illuminating it. “We have to make sure this pure light never wanes.” He swings from his branch to Valerian’s. “You know about the Dawn War, right?”
“We were outnumbered twenty to one; our soldiers pulled off a godly feat to save our land.”
“Luminists might not be trained in sentinian magic, or in combat, but our luminariums won us this war. We worked hard to infuse our violet oaks and then sacrificed hundreds of them to make talismans so our linea commanders had a near-unlimited source of magic.”
“There aren’t many trees left.”
“Even the tribute boxes sitting in place of those sacrificed trees hold immeasurable amounts of magic. As much as is given by our linea people. But you’re right. It’s less now than it was. I want to change that. I want to bring all the luminariums back to their former glory.”
“There are fewer linea to do that.”
Liandros bows his head with a sigh; Valerian reaches out with a trembling hand and pulls back just before stroking Liandros’s face.
The next rune door.
Liandros shows off his strengthening magic and Valerian sneaks wyverns into the luminarium crypt, showing off his control over the animals. Together, over their teenage years, they practice their magics in the underbelly of the luminarium.
I race through these memories, searching to no avail for Casimiria and Nicostratus, stealing cakes, dry teas, luminist incense. One door shows a memory I’ve seen before, through King Yngvarr’s dromveske, but this time the memory is Valerian’s. He’s trying to win an ounce of his brother’s respect by teasing the prins, submerging him and the mask he was whittling in leaves. I see Casimiria through his eyes too: a feisty, vibrant woman who captures his brother’s eye and, Valerian notices, his brother’s breath. The scene, though, ends differently for Valerian. I follow him back to the manor with the summoned prince, only to see him immediately dismissed by his father. Alone, he slouches his way back to his best friend.
Liandros is a bounce of curly hair as he spots Valerian and races across a smaller luminarium to greet him. “Thank you for inviting me here! It’s wonderful—what’s wrong?”
Valerian tells him about the tree, being told he wasn’t being smart, and Liandros pulls him into a hug. “That prins deserves it. He’s always scoffing at our beliefs. Yesterday I was just trying to enlighten him, and he waved his knife at me.”
Valerian stiffens at this and his jaw clenches noticeably. “How dare he!”
Liandros pulls out of the hug with a glittery smile.
“What?”
“I love how protective you are of me. . . . ”
Through the next rune door, Valerian watches from a distance Liandros playfully magicking blossoms onto the tree Valerian stripped of leaves. Prins Yngvarr passes by, bumping into a row of flowers, and they burst. Liandros calls out for him to apologise, and Prins Yngvarr stops, jumps up into the tree and shakes the branches until all the blossoms burst. Then he leaves a deflated Liandros behind.
Valerian rushes to his friend, leaping gracefully into the tree to perch beside him. Liandros leans into the prince’s opening arms and rests his head against his shoulder. “I’m always most comfortable here.”
Valerian flushes and he quietly breathes in Liandros’s curly hair—
Liandros looks up, catching him, and their gazes meet on sharp breaths. Before Valerian can pull away, Liandros lifts a hand to his cheek. Their eyes are whispering confessions, and Liandros leans in. It’s no ordinary kiss. It’s the clash of two lovelights, bursting out of them simultaneously. Their magics chase each other playfully, leaving blossoms on the trees once more in their wake, before barrelling into their chests with a force that has their kiss breaking.