Total pages in book: 201
Estimated words: 191006 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 955(@200wpm)___ 764(@250wpm)___ 637(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191006 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 955(@200wpm)___ 764(@250wpm)___ 637(@300wpm)
“No.” Zander shakes his head. “If she had divulged that information, we would have heard about it.”
“Either way, Neilina is the bigger threat to him than we are right now. If you want to prove that you are still loyal to Islor, tell him what we know. We can’t save it on our own. If she succeeds, there won’t be a throne for you to take back.”
My words seem to sink into Zander’s head. “That taillok … is it here?” he calls out to Kienen.
“Yes, Your Highness. With the men, outside the gate.”
Zander bites his bottom lip in thought. “We need Gesine.”
“Instead of scolding me, why don’t you be useful?”
“How about I tie you down? Is that useful enough for you?”
Jarek and I share a smirk as we stroll into the library to the sound of Gesine and Zorya bickering.
“I don’t have time for your games. We must find Lucretia’s book.”
Pan sees Jarek and me and trots toward us. “Hey, Romy. Thank fates you’re here.”
“What’s going on?” I ask.
He scratches at his head of curly brown hair. Sometimes I forget the mortal from Bellcross is only a few years younger than me. “Dunno. I just got here, but it sounds like they’re looking for somethin’ important, and Gesine seems really upset and Zorya wants her to rest after healing Drakon and …” He peers over his shoulder warily and drops his voice to a whisper. “I think Zorya might actually tie her down. She brought rope with her.”
With a sigh, I march to where the caster and the warrior argue, a stack of books between them. “This sounds like fun.”
If looks could kill, I’d be a corpse the moment Zorya’s single eye hits me. Pan wasn’t kidding—she has a cord of rope looped and dangling from her hip, like Indiana Jones.
“Lucretia? Who’s that?”
“The all-knowing key to everything, according to the witch,” Zorya mutters sarcastically, before stalking off down an aisle.
Gesine sags in her chair, her eyes red from exerting her healing powers. Zorya’s not wrong—she needs to rest, even for a few hours. “An oracle for the nymphs and immensely knowledgeable. I’ve stumbled across several books now that mention her. I didn’t think too much of it until I found this one that mentions you—”
“Me?” I lean in to study the page where she points, but it’s indecipherable, the foreign language a mess of strange letters.
“It says here that the oracle’s lessons will have the answers the Queen for All must seek.” She drags a fingertip over the line. “We must find this book, Romeria. But this place is too vast.” A tinge of hysteria laces her voice.
Guilt slides down my spine. Gesine has been killing herself in here day and night, looking for anything that might help me, and all she faces is grief and suspicion and accusations from every angle. “What are we looking for?”
“Her name, I suspect?” She points to a jumble of letters.
“Okay. Write it out and I’ll help look. Somewhere.” Where the hell do I begin?
“You do not have time for this,” Jarek says, suddenly behind me.
“I can make time. So can you, seeing as Gesine made time to heal Drakon.” I flash him a knowing glare.
His jaw clenches, but then he nods.
Pan leans in. “What’s that?” He points to an illustration on the opposite page—a smaller circle within a larger one, and nymph scrawl filling the space between the two.
“I would assume it has something to do with this. Why?”
“’Cause I’ve seen it.”
Her face fills with hope as she looks up at Pan. “Here? In a book?”
He shakes his head. “No, but in the castle.”
“Where, Pan?” I push.
He hesitates. “So, I know you told me to stay away from your throne and I’ve mostly listened, but I just happened to be going near it the other day. I didn’t sit on it this time, I swear—”
“Pan!” Gesine barks, a rare display of temper for his incessant babbling.
“Okay! Yeah, I’ve seen this symbol.” He holds up his hands in surrender. “Come, I’ll show you.”
The outdoor court that serves as Ulysede’s throne room is as breathtaking now as it was the first day we discovered it. The grand trees shelter the area with their weeping branches. Gnarly roots and rose vines crawl everywhere, coating the ground, the castle walls, the black stone of the pavilion, giving it an ancient and overgrown quality.
“Like I said, I was checking things out, but I did not sit down, and I noticed this.” Pan trots toward my throne—a treacherous seat of polished metals and white branches, its back ten feet tall—and squats in front of it. He pushes aside leafy vines that have crawled over the ground, forming a green natural carpet. “See? Here. This looks like it, right?”
Jarek drops to his knee and yanks at the vines, tearing them free. A large carved symbol in the stone matches the illustration in the book.