Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 105132 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105132 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
For years Dravic had believed Ernach betrayed the crown. He had believed his grandfather’s judgment was righteous and unquestionable. Now, for the first time, he wondered if the truth had been hidden from him.
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!”
An anguished scream cut through the silence and froze everyone briefly.
Adira felt it. The sound did not reach her ears, but something within her reacted to it. Her attention shifted toward the door, her green eyes fixed on it as if she sensed what waited beyond.
Fiora noticed but drew no attention to it.
Dravic was already moving, the urgency in the scream drawing his attention away from everything else. He went to Adira and hurried her out of the chair and against his side as he headed to the door.
The moment they stepped outside, they saw that the village had erupted into panic.
A woman stumbled through the gathering crowd, clutching a small girl against her chest. Blood matted the child’s dark hair and streaked down the side of her face, staining her mother’s garment.
“Nay! Nay!” the woman sobbed. “Please!”
Ernach’s face tightened with worry. “That’s Doria, Vachel’s daughter. Barely six years.”
Villagers rushed toward her.
Vachel broke through the crowd and gathered his daughter into his arms, his wife staying close to his side.
“What happened?” he demanded, his voice breaking.
His wife struggled to speak through her tears. “She… she climbed one of the snow mounds.” A sob caught in her throat. “I told her not to. She slipped…” She shook her head helplessly. “There was a sharp rock hidden beneath the snow. Her head struck it.”
Vachel looked down at his daughter cradled against him. Without another word, he turned and hurried toward a small stone cottage at the edge of the village.
“The healer,” someone whispered.
The villagers followed.
Some prayed while others wept.
Behind them came the hushed whispers no parent should ever hear.
“The blow was too hard.”
“Too much blood.”
“The poor lass.”
Dravic watched them disappear into the cottage before turning to Ernach. “Surely their magic can heal her.”
Ernach slowly shook his head. “It is not that simple.”
“I was told the people of Driochmor possess magic unlike any other,” Dravic said, considering he might have been told more tales than truths.
“Driochmor is a place of magic, not miracles. Magic can mend much,” Ernach said. “It can ease pain, strengthen what has grown weak, and sometimes help the body heal itself. But it cannot command life to remain when the body can no longer hold it.”
Dravic’s brow narrowed. “What of the healer who can do that?”
“The one who defies death?” Ernach shook his head. “I know the tale, not the truth.”
“Tell me more about magic,” Dravic all but ordered.
Ernach shook his head slowly. “I am not the one to ask. You need to ask those born of it. But tell me, my king, do you not wonder what precipitated your grandfather’s hatred for magic, when the Driochmorians had been so faithful to him?”
“I am looking for answers not more questions,” Dravic snapped sharply.
“You forget where you are,” Ernach cautioned.
Dravic took a quick step toward Ernach, his hand falling away from Adira’s.
“I know exactly where I am, in Scotara, the kingdom I rule over. And I rule over every single part of it. There is not a section, not a mountain, not a river, not a forest, not a morsel of land that does not fall under my rule. So, I would remind you not to forget who I am.”
“An arsehole like your grandfather,” Fiora said, her small arms planted firmly across her chest, just waiting for him to challenge her.
Adira watched the sharp exchange of expressions and gestures, having no idea what had caused such sudden anger, but it troubled her. She felt an overwhelming urge to go into the forest and seek some peace, if only for a short time.
She glanced at the king. He was well into a disagreement with the old man and the fairy, and they were not that far from the old man’s cottage, the forest just a few steps behind it.
Did she dare steal a few moments in the forest as she once had? The urge was far too great to ignore. She slipped quietly away, the three so engrossed in whatever it was they debated that not one of them noticed her leave.
Drawn by an urge she neither understood nor could resist, Adira paid no heed to her surroundings, something Feena had taught her never to do, and wisely so. Without being able to hear or speak, she had learned to watch everyone and everything around her.
But not this time, she had too little time to even give it thought.
Horses’ hooves pounded the snow-covered ground as a group of Hunters thundered toward the village. They entered at such a dangerous pace that women snatched their bairns from the roadway, men leaped aside, and more than one elder was pulled to safety only moments before the riders swept past.