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)
Me?
A second later, Gesine’s light globe sheds light on the wagon’s interior, just bright enough to allow shadows. Ianca’s eyes are closed, her wrinkled thumb rubbing back and forth over the white stone of my ring. She’s muttering under her breath, the words incomprehensible. She’s speaking another language.
I seek out Gesine.
She gives an almost imperceptible headshake, then puts her finger to her lips.
“Tempt the fates, you get what you get. Tempt the fates, this is what you get.” Ianca tsks. “What a poor, forlorn soul. Hanging in eternity, but only for a second. A cruel trick Malachi plays.” Her breathing is ragged, wheezy. “But that’s the only way his flaming-haired demon will come to him.”
My scalp tingles with familiarity. My father said something similar, and I’m sure he was talking about Sofie.
Ianca’s weathered face pinches as if pained. “Oh, he has found his skin and will prove a mighty and dreadful king. She will be his queen and have no choice in the matter. She doesn’t see it yet, but I do.”
I can’t help myself. “Who will be his queen?”
Ianca’s eyes open, revealing pale-silver irises that shine in the darkness. “Their laughter, it calls to you, doesn’t it?”
I falter, unnerved and unsure if she’s speaking to me. “Whose laughter?”
“You think you have choices, but you have none, child. None but one. I see it now, and it is so clear—”
The wagon door flies open with a noisy creak. Zander fills the entrance, his gaze dissecting the scene without saying a word.
“Such a powerful nymph.” Ianca releases my hand, the moment already faded from her thoughts.
Though far from faded in mine, my pulse racing.
She struggles to get up. “If only Ailill had one.”
“Had one what?” Zander frowns. “What does that mean? What does she mean?”
Gesine moves fast, guiding Ianca back to her bed. “Rest now. Go back to sleep.”
“No, she should explain herself,” Zander pushes.
“She cannot. That is plain to see,” Gesine snaps.
Ianca answers with a chortle. “Powerful, angry nymph.”
Gesine coaxes her to lie down, smoothing her hand over the seer’s forehead. In moments, she drifts off, Gesine’s mystery healing power effective.
Zander steps inside and pulls the door shut, demanding, “Shield.” The wagon’s ceiling is low, so he crouches, his severe gaze shifting between me to Gesine to Ianca’s still form, before settling back on me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I allow myself a calming breath, though Ianca’s words have rattled me. “And here I thought this morning’s wake-up was bad.”
“I’m sorry, I did not notice her slip away until I woke to her speaking,” Gesine says.
Zander smooths a comforting hand over my knee. “What happened? Did she say something important?”
“She was holding my ring as if she could read something from it. But she had it on her finger earlier and didn’t see anything.” I look to Gesine for an answer.
“Not at the time. I was dismayed, but something changed. She was obviously learning something from the caster’s affinities tied to it.”
“All I caught was nonsense. Did it mean anything to either of you?”
“There was much that wasn’t clear.” Gesine’s eyes are locked on a spot on the wagon’s floor, deep thought wrinkling her forehead. “‘Eternity, but only for a second.’ I have seen iterations of the same thing, and it has always meant one place. The Nulling. She was talking about someone who was trapped there for tempting Malachi.”
“It has to be Sofie’s husband.” But I already guessed as much. “And the flaming-haired demon—I’m pretty sure that’s Sofie.”
“So Sofie tempted Malachi, and the price was her husband.”
“Tempted him with what, though?”
“Whatever it was, it must not have worked out as planned, but that is always the case when you summon the fates.” Gesine bites her lip. “‘Centuries of suffering by his will.’ That’s what Ianca said.”
“Yeah, the key caster suffers.”
“You have surely suffered, but not for centuries.” Realization fills Gesine’s face with a soft gasp. “Of course. Malachi used one key caster to send another here.”
“You mean, Sofie is also a key caster?”
“An immortal one, like you, Romeria.”
My jaw hangs as I process this. Wendeline said I was the only one of my kind, as far as she knew, but that was in this world. “It would explain a lot. The odd way she spoke, as if she was from another era, the castle she lived in, and the comments about how long it’s been since she’s seen her husband, as if it had been decades.” Or more.
“She must have summoned Malachi to grant her that immortality, so she could avoid the change. And why risk a fate’s wrath, why choose to live an immortal life, if not for love? Which means her husband must have been immortal.”
“His name was Elijah. Is Elijah?” I picture the still form lying in what was essentially an open stone coffin, surrounded by statues of the fates. An altar to summon the god who banished him.