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)
Basgiath? Another rider here? How many are there? Exactly how big is this revolution?
Questions fire off in my head faster than I can find my tongue. “Wait. You’re a lieutenant colonel? And who is Aisereigh?” I ask. Yeah, because that is the most important inquiry to make.
“I had to change my last name for obvious reasons.” He glances at me and unfolds the missive, breaking a blue wax seal. “And you’d be amazed at how fast you get promoted when everyone above you continues to die,” he says, then reads the letter and curses, shoving it into his pocket. “I have to go meet with the Assembly now, but finish your biscuits and I’ll meet you in the hall in half an hour and take you to your dragons.” All traces of the dimple, of the laughing older brother are gone, and in their place is a man I barely recognize, an officer I don’t know. Brennan may as well be a stranger.
Without waiting for me to respond, he scrapes his chair back and strides out of the kitchen.
Sipping my milk, I stare at the empty space my brother left across from me, chair still pulled out from the table as though he might return at any moment. I swallow the remaining biscuit stuck in the back of my throat and lift my chin, determined not to ever sit and wait on my brother to return again.
I push up from the table and head after him, out of the kitchen and down the long hall. He must have been in a hurry, because I can’t see him anywhere.
The intricate carpet muffles my footsteps along the wide, high-arched hallway as I come to— Whoa. The sweeping, polished double staircases with their detailed banisters rise three—no, four—more floors above me.
I’d been too focused on my brother to pay attention earlier, but now I blatantly gawk at the architecture of the enormous space. Each landing is slightly offset from the one below, as though the staircase climbs toward the very mountain this fortress is carved into. The morning light streams in from dozens of small windows that provide the only decoration on the five-story wall above the massive double doors of the fortress’s entrance. They seem to form a pattern, but I’m too close to see the whole of it.
There’s no perspective, which pretty much feels like a metaphor for my entire life right now.
Two guards watch every step I take but make no move to stop me when I pass by. At least that means I’m not a prisoner.
I continue to stride through the main hall of the house, eventually picking up the sound of voices from a room across the way, where one of two large, ornate doors is pitched open. As I approach, I immediately recognize Brennan’s voice, and my chest tightens at the familiar timbre.
“That’s not going to work.” Brennan’s deep voice echoes. “Next suggestion.”
I make it through the massive foyer, ignoring what look to be two other wings off to the left and right. This place is astounding. Half palace, half home, but entirely a fortress. The thick stone walls are what saved it from its supposed demise six years ago. From what I’ve read, Riorson House has never been breached by any army, even during the three sieges that I know of.
Stone doesn’t burn. That’s what Xaden told me. The city—now reduced to a town—has been silently, covertly rebuilding for years right under General Melgren’s nose. The relics, magical marks the children of the executed rebellion officers carry, somehow mask them from Melgren’s signet when they’re in groups of three or more. He can’t see the outcome of any battle they’re present for, so he’s never been able to “see” them organizing to fight here.
There are certain aspects of Riorson House, from its defensible position carved into the mountainside to its cobblestone floors and steel-enforced double doors in the entryway, that remind me of Basgiath, the war college I’ve called home since my mother was stationed there as its commanding general. But that’s where the similarities end. There’s actual art on the walls here, not just busts of war heroes displayed on stands, and I’m pretty sure that’s an authentic Poromish tapestry hanging across the hall from where Bodhi and Imogen stand in the open doorway.
Imogen puts her finger to her lips, then motions at me to join in the empty place between her and Bodhi. I take it, noticing Imogen’s half-shaved hair has been recently dyed a brighter pink while I’ve been resting. Clearly she’s comfortable here. Bodhi, too. The only signs that either has been in a battle are the sling cradling Bodhi’s fractured arm and a split in Imogen’s lip.
“Someone has to state the obvious,” an older man with an eyepatch and a hawkish nose says from the far end of a table that consumes the length of the two-story room. Tufts of thinning gray hair frame the deep lines in his lightly tanned, weathered skin, his jowls hanging down like a wildebeest. He leans back in his chair, placing a thick hand on his rounded belly.