Total pages in book: 248
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
Then I saw it.
A nymph crouched in the center of the road, shoulders hunched and so small it had blended into the road itself.
It rose slowly, and I, honest to gods, really wanted to see one of these things before they changed because this creature truly was a thing of nightmares. Skin like bark, twisted and knobbed. Talons for fingers and toes. Facial features cracked and distorted. Skull hairless with a crown of jagged, exposed bone.
“I want to hear you scream,” the nymph hissed in a guttural, wet voice. “I want to see you bleed like a stream.” It lurched into motion, racing toward us.
Nektas withdrew a blade from the sleeve of his cloak. He threw the dagger, striking the creature between the eyes. Thrown back, the nymph howled, thrashing as it grabbed for the blade embedded in its head.
The air filled with hisses from both sides of the road. I cursed, swinging myself down as Nektas did the same. They were a blur, seeming to bleed out from the uneven basin, the trees, and the rocks.
“I’ll get this side,” Nektas advised, striding forward, swinging the shadowstone blade across the throat of the nymph on the road, removing its head. The creature shattered into glittering silver dust. “You got the other?”
I braced myself. “I was considering letting them do whatever, but I suppose so.”
He smirked from within the shadows of his hood as he turned to the right side of the road.
The nymphs converged on us. One was ahead of the others. “Need. Greed. Bleed,” it seethed, leaping.
Stepping forward, I swung the sword straight across as it landed, sweeping the blade through the nymph’s neck. As the creature broke apart, I spun, catching a second nymph. It too exploded.
Two crossed the road at once. “Hate,” one rasped.
“Fate,” another gurgled.
I twisted, kicking the first nymph in the knee. The creature’s leg cracked, splitting up the center. “Ew,” I whispered, driving the sword through the other’s neck and then the first’s as it hobbled toward me.
Glancing at the other side of the road, I saw Nektas methodically cutting through the nymphs. My head whipped as I darted to the side, narrowly avoiding a nymph’s claws.
“Dead. Bled. Red.” The nymph whirled.
“Do they always talk like this?” I yelled as I drew the blade across its neck. There appeared only to be a few left.
Nektas tossed a nymph as he slammed his sword through another. “If you consider rhyming nonsense to be talking, yes.”
The hum of embers in my chest was a whisper in my blood as I swung. A dry hand clawed at the air, inches from my face as I spun. Cursing, I jerked back and turned, thrusting the sword back. The blade struck the nymph’s chest. Dust puffed out, shimmery and thick. I drew the sword up, across its neck—
A horse neighed nervously, causing my heart to plummet. A nymph rushed the horses. “Fear is my spear,” it hissed. “Pain is your gain.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.” I shot after the nymph. “Oh, no, you don’t. You are not going to touch them.”
I clasped the nymph’s shoulder, the skin rough and dry beneath mine, just as it swiped out at Gala. I knew I wouldn’t be fast enough with the sword. The nymph would get its claws in the horse. Fury entrenched itself deep, stirring up the embers. Several things happened at once.
The embers vibrated wildly in my chest, heat flooded my veins, and silvery-white light crowded the corners of my vision as power built, ramping up inside me and charging the air. I gasped as eather sparked across my hand. I jerked back, but it was too late. The essence flowed over the nymph and seeped through the husk of its flesh. Light filled all the hundreds of tiny cracks all over its body, lighting it up from the inside and then from the outside. Eather poured from its open mouth and eyes.
The nymph exploded.
A wave of power blew back, so intense the burst of eather knocked me on my ass when it rolled into me.
“Holy shit,” I whispered, lifting the sword as a shadow fell over me. Nektas stared down at me. “I thought you said eather didn’t do anything to them?”
“It shouldn’t,” he said. “Only the Primal of Life can wield the kind of eather that can kill a nymph.” Nektas jerked his hood back. “It’s the same kind of power that can kill another Primal.”
Nektas said very little the remainder of the journey back to the palace, and that left me a bit uneasy.
I wasn’t a Primal, so I couldn’t understand how I could have the kind of eather in me that could kill another Primal. Or how the embers could be that strong.
And I had hit Nyktos with that eather. I could’ve…
Gods, I couldn’t even let myself finish that line of thought—a sure indicator of how much I’d changed. What I needed to do was work on controlling the embers until Nyktos removed them.