Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
“Sometimes, I do,” I counter.
She shakes her head. “We can handle this.”
“Are you really—” I start, my eyebrows rising as she tenses.
A moment later, Tairn roars, and I flinch.
The wingspur appears in front of Rhiannon.
My mouth drops as she shoves it away, and the hooked piece of claw topples to the ground. “How did you just do that?”
“I practice.” Rhiannon grins and drags the back of her hand across her forehead, wiping away a sheen of sweat. “Though it’s the biggest thing I’ve ever retrieved.”
“Thank you.” I grab her into a quick hug, then look up at Tairn’s wound. “I can’t see much in the dark. We need to get you back to the valley.”
His head swivels toward us, and Feirge turns, too. “It is too late for that. We have minutes.”
Wingbeats fill the air, and I spot three wyvern on approach, a blur of more in the distance.
Rhiannon and I lock eyes for one telling second, and then we both run. She sprints toward Feirge, and I bolt underneath Tairn, racing toward his foreleg.
“Fly back, now!” I order Andarna.
“They’d be defenseless,” she argues, and my heart drops when I emerge under Tairn’s chest.
Dozens of white-haired temple attendants and their high priestess wait at the top of the steps behind Andarna, their attention focused on the night sky. “Get inside!” I shout. Some shelter is better than no shelter, right?
“So we can burn inside?” the high priestess asks, her voice eerily calm as the wingbeats grow louder.
Shit. There’s no time to argue, and I can’t abandon them. Andarna’s right—if we take to the skies, we leave them defenseless, and Tairn is already wounded.
But I don’t need to be mounted to wield.
“Tell Feirge to go,” I say down the bond, then run up the rain-slick marble steps for a higher vantage point, palming the conduit. “I’d ask you to go with her, but I know better.”
“And yet you still mentioned it.” Tairn slowly turns to face the incoming wyvern with Andarna and lifts his tail high. “Be warned. Should Theophanie appear, I will choose your life over the attendants’.”
Should Theophanie appear, we’re all fucked. If any venin report to the others that they’ve gotten this close to Aretia’s gates without being halted by wards, they’ll skip over the undrained territory of Krovla and come for our hatching ground.
We can’t afford to let a single wyvern escape.
“Will you at least consider taking cover?” I ask the high priestess when I reach the landing.
“We will not.” Her gaze assesses me in two seconds, then lingers on the silver half of my braid. “Do you use lye and the juice of the Manwasa flower on your hair as we do?”
My eyebrows hit my hairline. Does she realize how much danger we’re in? Now can’t be the right time to have this conversation. “It just grows like this.”
“Does it?” Her tattooed forehead crinkles. “You have journeyed far to come to our aid.” The priestess draws the shortsword sheathed at her hip. “Either Dunne protects us, or we meet Malek as her worthy servants.”
“Dunne isn’t going to appear and take up arms,” I argue, even though I know it’s pointless, then turn to stand at her side. Tairn has prowled to the left, giving me a clear view of the three approaching wyvern, while Feirge stands ready to fly to the right of the steps.
“Of course not.” The priestess scoffs, and the wind picks up. “She sent you.”
“Well, she’s never been revered for her judgment.” I add temple attendants to the growing list of thought processes I’ll never comprehend, and open my Archives door just enough to test. Power fills my veins like hot water poured over a sunburn, and I breathe in slowly, accepting the pain and setting my new baseline. “Why hasn’t Feirge launched?”
“The squad leader will not leave you,” Andarna replies.
Damn it. I lift my right hand—
“Let’s not do that,” a familiar voice says from my left.
My head snaps in that direction, and dread anchors my feet to the temple floor. I unsheathe both my daggers.
Theophanie.
Tairn’s head swivels, his growl rattling what’s left of the spilled coals, and attendants gasp all around us.
“Launch before she drains you,” I beg Tairn and Andarna, but true to their nature, they stay put.
“Lift a blade or a hand to wield, and I’ll kill you all. Come with me, and I’ll let the rest live,” Theophanie says from the base of the steps, her dark-purple tunic contrasting the pallor of her skin. The red veins beside her eyes pulse in time with a heartbeat as she offers a weary smile that’s all the more unsettling for its exhausted satisfaction. She cocks her head to the side. “Let’s not fight, Violet. Doesn’t all this violence tire you? Come with me. I’ll give you what you want most.”
“You have no idea what I want most.” My stomach curdles, and the high priestess sidesteps me.