Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Nein. Just nein. He was lying. He must be lying. An attempt to prevent us from utilizing the rune.
Except he now had the very power we needed in his possession. Why give it to us if he truly feared someone could use it to end him forever? Because he didn’t.
I needed to speak to Sebastian.
“Do you know what it’s like to be the only one of your kind with a heart of stone?” He leaned forward as if sharing a secret. “It’s lonely. So. I will let Sebastian hollow himself out. And you, too, will let him.” His smile flashed again. “If you want to leave this manor.”
Well, well. Here was his trap. He hadn’t stolen the rune to keep it from Sebastian or stop us. He’d stolen it to make Sebastian come for it, and for me. To force him to use it while locked in this prison, under the primordial’s control.
“Actually,” Harpa said pleasantly, mimicking him, “you’ll be sending us on our way with what we came for.”
“I did swear you would leave this manor alive, whole, with the rune in your possession. And that is true. You will.” Jokull spread his arms, all generosity. Somewhere below us, water churned. “But I never said when I’d release you. Or that the weapon would not already be inside Sebastian.”
The doors sealed. I refused to give in to panic and tap my brand. I didn’t want Sebastian to risk his life getting here. Instead, I considered my options, and there was indeed a good one: using my connection to the dome.
Harpa might have a plan with an eighty-seven percent success rate, but mine clocked in at ninety-five.
“There,” Jokull said, satisfied. “Now we wait for the king.”
“Actually,” I replied in a mimic of him as well, “we do not have to wait.” I stood and strode to the prize of prizes.
He smiled. “Go ahead. Touch it.”
I plucked the stone from its pedestal. At the moment of contact, power slammed into me, stealing my breath and bowing my back. It overflowed, searching for an outlet. I didn’t protest as it surged along my bond to Sebastian. Didn’t cower when my dragon roared, as if I’d hooked her to a new battery. For one blissful second, I contained the strength of the whole universe. A taste of what could be.
Even as it faded, I knew. Ja, this power would kill Jokull. It would kill him dead dead. He just didn’t know it. I laughed, and perhaps I sounded a bit crazed. Not that I cared.
Sebastian’s mother had given it a broken heart. I would not. Mine was stronger than ever. Give more, get more. Wasn’t that how it worked?
Well then. Decision made. One of us would have to cave, and it wouldn’t be me. I would willingly, happily welcome the rune. For my husband. For our people. And Sebastian would have to let me.
If the rune operated as everyone claimed, I would live, married and bonded, a queen. But I would feel nothing for him, while he still felt everything for me. A cruelty, ja. But with it came what I wouldn’t have: hope for better.
Maybe Jokull now realized he’d made a mistake. The color had drained from his face, and I realized he’d felt the power, too. Perhaps for the first time, if Sebastian’s mom had been unable to contain its full breadth.
“What was that?” he demanded.
“That was your doom,” I pointed out with confidence. “Lady Harpa. If you’ll be so kind as to join me.”
“But there are still cupcakes,” she whined.
Deep breath in. “Bring them with you,” I said as politely as I was able. “And bid our host farewell.”
“Oh, very well.” Harpa stood and claimed the tray, asking the primordial, “You didn’t think this through, did you, primmy?”
Primmy?
Any hint of Jokull’s lazy amusement vanished. He tracked our every movement. “I will not let you go.”
The older woman smiled, oh so crafty as she approached my side. “As if you can stop us. Seems I plotted the same escape route as Bron, which means she thinks like me, which means there’s two of us, which means you never stood a chance.”
Slowly, menacingly, Jokull stood.
“While you thought to taunt us by having dinner here, you provided our escape. The runes I left behind.” Her grin turned sugar and spice. “You swore we’d leave alive, whole, and with the stone. You never said how. Bronwyn, darling, please do the honors.”
I’d never done this, never used a rune to travel through the dome, but my connection to Sebastian had somehow downloaded instructions straight into my brain.
Running my palm along the wall, the carved symbols bloomed under my fingers, glowing for me, opening, whispering. Blood-forged. Realm-bound. Survival entwined. Pulling. Pulling hard. I latched onto Harpa’s hand.
The dome filled my veins. My bones. And every carving in every stone in this ancient sea loved me as they loved my husband. I found the right mystical door just as Jokull exploded in our direction.