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)
He was already looking past me, at the reef, at the water, at the work. “Prepare,” he ordered his men. “Jon sent a contingent of shifters here. The worst of the worst. They are hiding. Show them no mercy.”
I wrapped my arms around my middle, tears streaming down my cheeks.
When shifters exploded from the ground and through the reefs–ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred–I stood there, unable to force myself to move. What had I done?
What had I done?
I’d let Sebastian become this… this monster. He cared about nothing except destroying Jokull. Every promise Sebastian had made about the rune had come true.
Permanent, he’d said. Unchangeable.
I’d… I’d lost him. I’d lost my husband and my friend. My best friend. My lover. My everything. I’d just given him away.
A hard thud popped my mental bubble, and the world came back into view. Battle raged all around. Shifters with unhinged jaws and row after row of fangs. Shoulders that heaved and then kept heaving, plates of gray-white cartilage cutting through skin. Arms doubling. Doubling again. Torsos that grew a mass of limbs. Six of them, eight, each tapering to hooked points that punched into rock and held, letting them pour over the reefs, faster than anything their size had any right to move.
Gunnar slew anyone who neared me.
Sebastian fought twenty feet away, cutting a lane through the horde. He didn’t look back. Didn’t care what happened to anyone. But he was magnificent. No berserker rage lived in his movements. Nor any of the terrible, beautiful violence I’d seen him wield beneath the sea when the mers came for us. Only efficiency. His tentacles, now glowing, slicing through those impossible bodies as easily as breathing.
But. And oh, was there a but. When one of his own went down beside him, gut open, reaching up for help, Sebastian stepped on him. Because he needed the angle, and the angle was there, and the man was not the objective. So unlike the king who’d once comforted a citizen after the death of their child.
I rushed toward the soldier, but I wasn’t fast enough to save him as shifters trampled on his body. And then, almost as quickly as it started, the battle ended.
The few remaining survivors ran, terrified of Sebastian. I saw them go, scrambling over debris.
“Stay,” the king commanded, allowing none of his men to give chase, his voice hollow and without timbre. “They are not the primordial.”
The last lingering effects of the convergence ended, too, the sky healing, tides unlocking and sliding apart. Krakenströnd stood. Victory had never felt like so much loss.
He began calling out orders, preparing for war. One of those orders made me feel as if I were being stabbed with an invisible blade. “Gunnar, escort the princess home to Ashmorra, as planned.”
I jerked back. Princess. No longer queen.
Gunnar headed in my direction, but I backed up right into Harpa.
She motioned for the soldier to halt, and he obeyed. Side by side, we watched the king walk through the wreckage of his enemies with no expression on his face. After a very long time, she said, “You did the right thing.”
“Did I?” I croaked.
She gave me a terse nod. “Oh, já. Now the real fun begins. He’ll hunt Jokull. And you…” She gripped my wrist and squeezed twice. Danger. Leave. “You’ll find a way to win Sebastian back. Because you must. Now go. Hide. Goodbye, Queen Bronwyn. Until we meet again.”
She waved Gunnar on, and he resumed his journey my way, stoney-faced. Too late. I took her words to heart, unleashed my smokewings, and flew off.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
When a kraken decides to keep you, escape is no longer an option.
–An Incomplete Guide to Kraken Survival
One hand remained locked around my coin necklace as I flew past the palace grounds, remembering the words Sebastian had spoken to me only a day ago. Mistakes can be fixed, if I’m willing to fix them.
“Fix the mistake, fix the mistake,” I chanted to myself. The palace grounds gave way to the city, and the city gave way to a forest. My wings screamed, but I couldn’t land yet. Not until I found what I needed.
I hunted a wall, a stone, a seam. Anything with a rune. But the dome no longer spoke to me. In fact, nothing did. But still I scanned, hunting light. Except the runes had gone dark as well. Hmm. Except, maybe, that one carved into a tree trunk, in the center of a clearing.
I dove fast, muscles protesting when I crash-landed on a carpet of crushed shells. But there, gouged into the bark, waited a message.
He gave me this before the ceremony and asked me to give it to you if anything went wrong.
Love,
Granny
Tears welled again. He’d taken measures to ensure my safety.
A faint pulse beat beneath the message. He’d given me a rune. Half-buried, no bigger than my palm, glowing faintly. Heart thundering, I traced my finger over the lines etched into the bark. Ja! Its power reached for me.