Total pages in book: 295
Estimated words: 282090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1410(@200wpm)___ 1128(@250wpm)___ 940(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 282090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1410(@200wpm)___ 1128(@250wpm)___ 940(@300wpm)
But the impact is enough to change the angle of my fall, and stone rushes up at my face for no longer than a heartbeat before my stomach collides with the edge of the turret, stealing what breath I have on impact.
My weight drags me the rest of the way backward, and I dig in with my fingernails and hold as my lower half kicks against the crevices in the stonework beneath me, looking for a foothold.
This can’t be happening, but it is.
“It’s nothing personal,” the soldier says, crawling forward onto the three-foot-deep wall.
I gasp for breath and cough at the first full inhale. There has to be a foothold below. There just does. This isn’t how I die.
My feet search and I can feel the ridges, but there’s nothing substantial enough to support my weight.
“It’s just money,” he whispers from his knees and reaches for my hands.
Oh gods, he’s going to—
“No!” Power floods my veins, but there’s nothing to do with a strike this close.
“Just money,” he repeats, lifting my hands from the stone.
Xaden. Sgaeyl. Tairn. This will kill us all.
The soldier lets go.
I scream, the sound so shrill it tears my throat, and I slide, scraping my forearms raw as gravity drags me down, the top of the turret fading from view, but my fingers grab hold of the tiny lip at the edge…and cling.
My heart lurches into my throat as my feet scramble.
No foothold.
Barely any handhold, and my shoulders start to wail as I dangle.
“Just let go,” the soldier urges, crawling forward again. “It will be over before you—” His eyes bulge and he gurgles, grabbing for his throat and the dagger whose tip protrudes a few inches below his chin.
Someone has shoved their knife in through his spine.
Everyone thinks most Riders cadets die from dragon fire. Truth be told, it’s usually gravity that gets us.
—PAGE FORTY-SEVEN, THE BOOK OF BRENNAN
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I slip another precious inch as the soldier is yanked backward, then thrown forward, over my head, disappearing into the darkness.
It’s Eya. It has to be. Maybe the wound isn’t—
Blond hair and icy-blue eyes appear above me, and my heart plummets with the assassin’s body. Jack Barlowe.
“Sorrengail?” He lunges forward, grasping my wrists with an unbreakable grip.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell Tairn and prepare myself for the weightless moment that will be my last.
“I’ve got you!” Jack shouts, holding my wrists tight as he throws himself backward and hauls me up and over the edge.
My ribs hit stone, and he lets one hand go, then grabs my leathers and pulls, heaving me the rest of the way onto the tower wall.
I don’t waste time, scrambling forward to safety. As soon as my boots land inside the turret, he backs up a few steps, his chest rising and falling quickly with exertion as he gives me space, dodging the fallen body to the left as fire rages to the right.
“You saved me?” I scurry backward, leaving my hands at my sides and close to my daggers.
“I didn’t know it was you,” he admits, falling back against the tower wall and catching his breath. “But yeah.”
“You could have let me fall, but you pulled me up,” I say, like I’m trying to convince myself.
“Do you want to climb back up there and we’ll do it again that way?” he offers, gesturing to the wall.
“No!”
Wingbeats sound overhead, and we both look up as Tairn soars by. He would have been too late, and we both know it. The relief coursing through my body isn’t just mine; it’s his, too.
“Look.” Jack shakes his head and peers over at Eya’s lifeless form. “I was on the dorm’s watch for First Wing and ran when I heard the screams. And…well… riders don’t die at the hands of infantry.”
“I killed you. You have every right to throw me off the tower.” I reach behind me one hand at a time and collect two of my daggers, sheathing them slowly, bracing myself for anything.
“Yeah.” He rubs his hand through his short blond hair. “Well, that death was kind of a second chance for me. You don’t know who you really are until you face down Malek. So, the way I see this is I just gave you a second chance, too. We’re even.” He nods once, then walks away, exiting into the tower.
I move slowly around the edge of the turret, stopping to roll over the body of the first assassin I killed and remove my daggers, cleaning them on his uniform before sheathing them at my thighs. The fire slowly sputters in the barrel, and I lean against the hard stone wall before letting my back hit every ridge on the way down as I slide to sit.
I stare at the tips of Eya’s boots—they’re all I can see from this angle—and let my head fall back against the wall. Then I breathe and wait for the adrenaline to pass, for the shock to wear off, for the trembling in my aching hands to cease.