Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 517(@200wpm)___ 413(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 517(@200wpm)___ 413(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
“Elara…” one breathed.
“Thank the fates…” said another.
“She lives,” whispered a third, hand pressed to her chest.
When Maelis finally drew back, she looked Elara over with a healer’s practiced eye. “Your eyes tell me you carry a heavy burden. What happened? What did they do to you?”
Elara shook her head gently. “It’s a long tale, and one best told when you’re safely home. But I survived, and… a Hunter helped me.”
Maelis blinked. “A Hunter helped you?”
Elara offered a small smile. “Aye. The world has taken a strange turn.”
A dry chuckle slipped from Maelis. “Strange indeed.” Her gaze softened. “But you look well enough. And me, well, don’t study me too closely. Caerith serves food with as much flavor as wet bark. I swear their cooks boil everything until misery sets in.”
A ripple of laughter spread through the healers, warm and much needed.
Maelis leaned closer, dropping her voice. “Word spreads, you know. That a healer is the reason we are being sent home. That someone does the king a favor.” Her eyes narrowed with gentle accusation. “Tell me, lass… was it you?”
Elara lowered her voice. “It was fate,” she said, and then, more honestly, “Aye… I had a part in it.”
Maelis’s lined face softened further, pride threading through her relief, and she pulled Elara into a brief, fierce hug.
“You saved more than you know,” she whispered.
As the older woman held her, a vision tore through Elara with sudden force—sunlight spilling across Birkfell’s cottages, Maelis stepping down from this very cart into the arms of weeping friends, whispers of thanks carried on the wind. Safe. Protected. Home.
“Elara?” Maelis asked when she felt her tense.
Elara steadied herself. “You will reach Birkfell safely. I saw it.”
Before Maelis could speak, a harsh male voice cut sharply through the gathering warmth.
“What was that?”
A king’s warrior strode toward them, tall and broad-shouldered, his blond hair unkempt, his boots striking hard against the packed earth. Suspicion flared in his eyes as he looked from Maelis to Elara, then fixed entirely on Elara with growing malice.
It was the warrior she had bumped into.
“You saw it?” he repeated. “What did you see? You did no more than hug the old hag.” His eyes turned wide. “A vision? You had a vision?”
Maelis went to step in front of Elara, but she placed her arm in front of her, preventing the older woman from moving.
The warrior sniffed sharply, his lip curling as though he had scented rot. “I knew something was amiss with her. She smells of the forbidden land. I should have trusted my instincts.”
Elara recoiled at the accusation, and gasps rippled through the healers.
Maelis would have none of it. She pushed Elara’s arm aside and stepped forward, her head held high. “How dare you speak such filth! Have you no decency?”
The warrior sneered and shoved Maelis aside with a force that sent her stumbling.
Cries rose at once.
“Stop!”
“Leave her be!”
“Have you lost your wits?”
The warrior seized Elara’s arm in a bruising grip as she reached to help Maelis and yanked her toward him.
Another chorus of screams rose from the healers.
Elara struggled to free herself, her heart pounding, and realizing the futility of her efforts, she screamed, “DAR!”
His hand struck her across the face with brutal force, snapping her head to the side as pain burst as a vision took hold.
The world dissolved. Light flared and suddenly the dark figure appeared before her, reaching out, shaking her finger, warning her to stay away.
“ELARA!”
Dar’s voice tore through the haze like a thunderclap.
The warrior’s grip fell off her as she fell to her knees, the vision fading, leaving a mist behind and out of that mist charged Dar. His fury ignited the air around him as he slammed his fist into the warrior’s jaw with such force the man dropped instantly, collapsing in an unmoving heap.
Gasps echoed through the courtyard. Maelis hurried to Elara, tears streaming down her cheeks, but Dar reached her first, his arm going around her waist to ease her to her feet and tuck her close against him, all the while fighting to control his rage.
Before a word was spoken… the king appeared.
King Dravic swept into the courtyard, his presence chilling the air. His icy-blue gaze went from the fallen warrior to Dar’s rage he had yet to hide, and the red welt on Elara’s cheek.
“DAR,” he thundered, the single word echoing like a blow, “you dare strike one of my warriors?”
“Your warrior struck my wife,” Dar said, not hiding his anger. “What should trouble you more is how a Hunter was able to take one of your elite warriors down so easily.”
Silence fell, deep and dangerous.
“Wake him,” the king shouted, pointing at the unconscious warrior.
Two guards hurried forward, hauling the unconscious warrior upright while a third splashed a bucket of cold water in his face.
He sputtered awake with a violent start, blinking through the stream of water as he struggled to grasp where he was. When he realized the king stood before him, his face drained of all color.