Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 145704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
“No, I’m not.”
“Then what are you?”
Maybe Zander’s right, and it’s time to start letting him in. Letting them all in. “At heart, I’m human. It’s how I was born and raised. But this body is elven, and the affinities tied to it are caster, and I’m only just learning how to use them.”
“Princess Romeria was raised in Argon as an immortal heir to the Ybarisan throne.”
“She was.”
He inhales deeply, as if breathing in my admission, my choice of words not lost on him. “Is this something Mordain did?”
I shake my head. “They don’t even know I exist.” Yet. “This was all Queen Neilina, who forced Ianca to summon Aoife—”
He curses and slides off the rock. “I don’t think I want to hear any more.”
“That’s fine, but at least let me say this.” I pause to make sure he isn’t marching away from me. “I didn’t ask for any of it. I didn’t want any of it. I was living my life when I got pulled in, but now I’m stuck here, and all I want to do is help these people and fix what’s happening in Islor. And as much as you or Atticus may think killing me is the answer, it’s not. It’s already too late for that, and I can help, I know I can.” I just don’t know how yet.
My candid words are met with silence.
“Jarek?”
“They’re here.”
My pulse races. “Where?” I squint into the darkness but can’t see anything.
Until I can.
Ten stealthy dark forms move forward in a line. I can barely make them out, save for the glowing silver ropes that dangle at their sides.
“What are those?” I ask, but I think I already know because I’ve seen rope like that—at the bottom of a river, wrapped around Annika.
“That is raw merth.” Jarek curses. “Where the fuck did they get it? And so much of it?”
It clicks. “From the Ybarisans.” Of course. Ybaris is the only place it grows.
And every last one of these deadly legionaries will buckle under its crippling effects.
“Get back behind the line,” Jarek growls, sliding out a second blade from the sheath at his hip.
“Come with me!” I beg. “You can’t fight them all off if they have merth!”
“Not with you here, I can’t. Go!” he roars, stalking forward into the night, his blades at the ready.
“Romeria!” Zander bellows.
A second later, panicked shouts rise from the other side of camp.
40
Romeria
My lungs burn as I cross the invisible border. The camp has erupted in chaos, legionaries running to meet attackers from all sides while shouting at the mortals to remain hidden within the protection of the wagons.
“Stay here!” Zander orders and charges out before I can respond. Flames ignite along the camp’s perimeter, forming six-foot walls of fire that connect at the bonfires in each corner, keeping the mortals and me inside and everyone else out.
Beyond the fire lines, countless steel clangs and shouts sound, but I can’t see anything.
“Romeria!” Gesine, still in her beige dress, scales up the side of our wagon.
I scramble to follow, and together we survey the scene from our new vantage point.
My terror swells. Is this what they were expecting?
The flaming walls create a box of protection around the camp similar to the circle I used in Norcaster, while its glow casts a wide expanse of light, allowing us to see far beyond.
We watch as the Legion fights the enemy, blades and bodies moving with expert strokes and lightning-quick reflexes.
The saplings all have stark white hair.
The one who threw Annika into the river had the same. I couldn’t make out his face then, despite the brilliant moonlight shining from above. But I can see their faces now, and I understand what Elisaf meant when he said they couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. They look like the elven, but unappealing versions, their foreheads bulging, brows prominent, cheeks sunken in.
“Why are there so many?” At least three for every one of our warriors, and they’re all around us.
“We cannot let them overpower us at any cost.”
If it were blade against blade, I wouldn’t be so worried, but already, several legionaries lay motionless on the ground, the silver cords curled around their limbs, rendering them immobile. And suffering. Like a thousand razor blades slicing across skin, Annika had said.
“Are the saplings immune to the merth?”
“Essentially, yes.” Gesine’s irises begin to glow as she draws on her affinities. “We must aid our warriors however we can.”
I call on my affinities, and they answer instantly, stretching into my fingertips, waiting.
Zorya battles two males, a blade in each of her hands, matching every blow with ferocious strikes, driving them away before they can get too close. The recent loss of an eye seemingly has not affected her skill. One sapling lunges, and she spins out of his reach before snapping back and deflecting the other’s sword. A quick maneuver gives her a window to drop to her knee and ram her blade into her second opponent’s stomach. He buckles, and after tearing her sword out, she steps into position for another lethal swing.