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)
“Thank you.” Wind gusts across the side of my face as his wings beat harder than I’ve ever seen, and Teine’s limp body slowly rises from the field. His shadow engulfs me as he flies overhead, carrying Teine toward the safety of the cliffs.
“Bold strategy,” Bodhi notes, watching them depart. “Sending our biggest dragon away is definitely not going to bite us in the ass.”
“He’ll be back.” I look up to the sky and slowly rotate to better survey the space, but there’s no sign of Theophanie or the wyvern she prefers. My heart starts to pound. I’m not fond of being the prey.
Breathing out slowly, I deny the impulse to check the city skyline for Xaden. This doesn’t work if I can’t focus here, now. I force myself to cut off all thoughts of the others and step into the headspace where I am no longer a sister, a friend, or a lover. I exist only as a rider, a weapon.
“You want to wait to start hunting our silver-haired friend?” Bodhi says as Cuir stalks toward us, wyvern blood dripping from the tip of his swordtail.
“We don’t have to hunt.” I strap my conduit to my wrist, then reach over my shoulder and flip the cap open on my quiver. “As long as I’m here, she’ll come.” And I’ll get the chance to kill her before she attacks anyone else I love.
“Waiting feels…anticlimactic.” He puts his back to mine.
“Always does.” Simultaneously torturous, too, like the moment in flight when Tairn’s muscles shift beneath me and I know I’m about to lose my stomach in a dive, or those long minutes on the ridgeline above Basgiath, waiting for the horde to arrive. “You think this will work?”
“Has to. Magic requires balance, right?”
“It’s the oldest rule there is.” Theophanie walks out from behind the carcass of a wyvern. “But once a century or so we get a chance to skew the scales in our favor, and I will prove myself to him this time.”
We whip toward her, shoulder to shoulder, and I reach for Tairn’s power, but barely a trickle answers the call.
Shit. Tairn’s out of range. It’s not going to be a quick jaunt to haul Teine the many miles to the wards and up ten thousand feet, either. But Mira’s safe, and that’s what matters. Bodhi and I can keep ourselves alive.
“Where the fuck did she come from?” Bodhi whispers, drawing his sword.
“She’s fast,” I reply just as softly, remembering how she disappeared from the brig at Basgiath.
“There’re only a few of us who are faster,” Theophanie replies, walking along the carcass of the wyvern, grazing the ridges at its back as she saunters toward us. “Older, too.”
My lips part. She heard us from twenty feet away.
“Pity you had to kill them.” She clucks her tongue. “They take forever to generate. Are you ready to tip the balance, Violet?”
Having two lightning wielders on any side wouldn’t just tip a balance; it would destroy it.
The same as shadows.
Cuir lowers his head and growls at Bodhi’s right.
“I’m ready to kill you.” I reach for a dagger out of reflex and throw so hard my shoulder pops but thankfully doesn’t subluxate.
Theophanie waves her gnarled fingers, and the blade falls aside before it reaches the halfway mark. “Disappointing. Have you learned nothing since the last time you tried that? No need to be embarrassed, though. We’ll work on it. I’ll be happy to mentor you.”
My eyes flare. Was this the path the priestess foresaw for me? Not their mentorship but Theophanie’s?
“Fuck,” Bodhi mutters. “That’s another problem.”
Probably makes the arrows at my back useless, too. Awesome. I’ll have to get up close and personal to kill her.
“Odd choice of companion, seeing that you reek of his kin.” The veins beside her eyes pulse and she appraises Bodhi, her pace completely unhurried as she strolls toward the head of the dead wyvern. “Tell me, do you not grow tired of being a less-powerful version of your cousin?”
“I’m not the one out here trying to prove myself,” Bodhi counters, his head tilting in the same way Xaden’s does when sizing up an opponent.
No sword. No staff. She’s unarmed with the exception of a row of blades at her hip. I search her stride for weakness and find none. She’s faster, too, which means I’ll get one shot.
“Witty.” Her smile cracks another line in her lips. “You’re almost done waiting. He’ll be gone soon. The crown will be yours.”
Come on, get closer.
“We don’t have a crown.” Bodhi switches his sword to his left hand, freeing his right. “You don’t know me well enough to try and fuck with my head. I’m doing exactly what I’ve always wanted—protecting my cousin, my province.”
“And her.” She pauses just in front of the wyvern’s bloody snout and cuts her gaze to mine. “A weapon like you will only submit to someone stronger, so come, let’s get this farce over with so you can begin your real journey. He’s waiting.” Glee lights her smile.