Total pages in book: 215
Estimated words: 206625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1033(@200wpm)___ 827(@250wpm)___ 689(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 206625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1033(@200wpm)___ 827(@250wpm)___ 689(@300wpm)
A twinge of pain shoots up through my shoulder as I slip my right arm out of the sling and begin to climb by moonlight and memory. The pain quickly fades to an ache, just like it has every evening while Rhiannon has been kicking my ass on the mat. Hopefully tomorrow Nolon will let me out of the annoying sling for good.
The fonilee vine looks deceptively like ivy as it winds up the trunk, but I’ve scaled this particular tree enough times to know this is the one. I’ve just never had to climb the damn thing in a cloak before. It’s a pain in my ass. The fabric catches on almost every branch as I move upward, slowly and steadily, climbing past the wide branch where I used to spend hours reading.
“Shit!” My foot slips on the bark and my heart stutters for a heartbeat while my feet find better holds. This would be so much easier during the day, but I can’t risk being caught.
Bark scrapes my palms as I climb higher. The tips of the vine leaves are white at this height, barely visible in the mottled moonlight through the canopy, but I grin as I find exactly what I’ve been searching for.
“There you are.” The purple berries are a gorgeous, unripe lavender. Perfect. Digging my fingernails into the branch above me, I manage to keep from wobbling long enough to retrieve an empty vial in my satchel and uncork it with my teeth. Then I pluck just enough berries off the vine to fill the glass and shove the stopper back in. Between these, the mushrooms I’ve already hunted tonight, and the other items I’ve collected, I should be able to make it through the next month of challenges.
I’m almost down the tree, only a handful of branches to go, when I spot movement beneath me and pause. Hopefully it’s just a deer.
But it’s not.
Two figures in black cloaks—apparently tonight’s disguise of choice—walk under the protection of the tree. The smaller one leans back against the lowest limb, removing her hood to reveal a half-shaved head of pink hair I know all too well.
Imogen, the squadmate who nearly ripped off my arm ten days ago.
My stomach tightens, then knots as the second rider slips off his own hood.
Xaden Riorson.
Oh shit.
There’s maybe fifteen feet between us and nothing—and no one—out here to stop him from killing me. Fear clenches my throat and holds tight as I white-knuckle the branches around me, debating the merits of holding my breath so he can’t hear me versus falling out of the tree if I faint from lack of oxygen.
They begin speaking, but I can’t hear what they’re saying, not with the river rushing by. Relief fills my lungs. If I can’t hear them, they can’t hear me, either, as long as I sit tight. But all it takes is for him to look up, and I’ll be toast, literally if he decides to feed me to that Blue Daggertail of his. The moonlight I was thankful for a few minutes ago has now become my biggest liability.
Slowly, carefully, quietly, I move out of the patchy moonlight to the next branch over, cloaking myself in shadow. What is he doing out here with Imogen? Are they lovers? Friends? It’s absolutely none of my business, and yet I can’t help but wonder if she’s the kind of woman he goes for—one whose beauty is only outmatched by her brutality. They fucking deserve each other.
Xaden turns away from the river, as though he’s looking for someone, and sure enough, more riders arrive, gathering under the tree. They’re all dressed in black cloaks as they shake hands. And they all have rebellion relics.
My eyes widen as I count. There are almost two dozen of them, a few third-years and a couple of seconds, but the rest are all firsts. I know the rules. Marked ones can’t gather in groups larger than three. They’re committing a capital offense simply by being together. It’s obviously a meeting of some sort, and I feel like a cat clinging to the leaf-tipped limbs of this tree while the wolves circle below.
Their gathering could be completely harmless, right? Maybe they’re homesick, like when the cadets from the Morraine province all spend a Saturday at the nearby lake just because it reminds them of the ocean they miss so much.
Or maybe marked ones are plotting to burn Basgiath to the ground and finish what their parents started.
I can sit up here and ignore them, but my complacency—my fear—could get people killed if they’re down there scheming. Telling Dain is the right thing to do, but I can’t even hear what they’re saying.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Nausea churns in my stomach. I have to get closer.
Keeping myself on the opposite side of the trunk and sticking to the shadows that wrap around me, I climb down another branch with sloth-like speed, holding my breath as I test each branch with a fraction of my weight before lowering myself. Their voices are still muffled by the river, but I can hear the loudest of them, a tall, dark-haired man with pale skin, whose shoulders take up twice the space of any first-year, standing opposite Xaden’s position and wearing the rank of a third-year.