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)
“Ask what you really want to know.” His voice turns raspy, and I ignore the instinct to hand him his untouched glass of water from his uneaten breakfast tray. “Ask me when I turned, how I turned. Ask why only initiates bleed.”
I absorb that information and move right along.
“Do you have to be taught?” I repeat. Xaden did it on his own, but I need to know if we’re in danger from every random infantry cadet who didn’t have the guts to cross the parapet.
His breath rattles, and he drops his focus to the alloy. “Not if you’re already experienced with the flow of magic. Someone who has never wielded would require instruction, but a dragon rider or gryphon flier?” He shakes his head. “The source is there. We just have to choose to see it, to bypass the gatekeepers and take what’s rightfully ours.” He lifts his hand, but the chain brings him up short. “Power should be accessible to everyone strong enough to wield it, not just who they see fit. You conveniently see me as the villain, but you’re bonded to two.”
I blatantly ignore that insult. “Do you know their plan?”
He scoffs. “Does a first-year command the wings? No. We’re not as stupid as you assume. Information is need-to-know. What a waste of a question. One more.”
“Last question.” I push the alloy to the edge of its current stone. “How do you cure yourself once you channel from the source?”
“Cure?” He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “You talk like I’m diseased, when what I really am is free.” He wavers. “Well, free in part. We trade some of our autonomy in the exchange for unfettered access to power. Maybe you see it as a loss of our soul, but we aren’t burdened by conscience or weakened by emotional attachment. We advance based on our own capabilities, our own talents, and not at the whim of some creature. There’s no cure because magic does not negotiate, and we do not wish to be cured.”
The utter disdain for the question hits like a blow to the stomach, knocking the air from my lungs. At some point, will Xaden stop wanting to be cured? “I keep my bargains,” I manage to say before tossing the alloy his way.
He catches it with surprising quickness, closing his fist and then his eyes. “Yes,” he whispers, and I watch, transfixed, as his cheeks plump and fill with color. The cracks in his lips disappear, and there’s a bit more substance underneath his shirt. His eyes flash open and the veins pulse beside his eyes as he flings the alloy back at me.
I catch it, immediately registering its emptiness, then pocket the medallion and slip the orange peel into my armband before standing.
“Do come again,” he says, sitting back and raising his knees.
“About a week,” I reply with a nod as Imogen walks to my side. Our time is nearly up, but there’s one more question I need to ask. “Why me?” I add. “Surely they’ve offered you the same reward. So why answer my questions and not theirs?”
He narrows his eyes. “Did you scream for Riorson to save you when they locked you down here and broke your bones?”
“I’m sorry?” Blood drains from my face. He did not just ask me that.
Jack leans forward. “Did you cry for Riorson when they strapped you to the chair and watched your blood fill the cracks between the stones on its way to the drain? I only ask because I swear I can feel it when I lie on the floor—all your pain singing to me like a lullaby.”
I flinch.
“There.” Jack’s smile sharpens and chills with sickening excitement. “That look right there is why I chose to answer your questions, for the satisfaction of us both knowing that I can still cut you and I don’t have to lift a blade.”
I breathe in the scent that haunts my nightmares and glance around the cell, half expecting to realize this has all been a hallucination and I’m still locked into the chair, and half expecting to see Liam, but all I find are desiccated, gray stones, drained of any and all magic.
“Do you really think this is the only room where I’ve felt tormented? Pain isn’t new to me, Jack. She’s an old friend I spend most of my days with, so I don’t mind if she sings to you. Honestly doesn’t even look like the same chamber with how you’ve redecorated. It’s a little monochromatic for me.” I step to the side. “Imogen, I’m ready to go.”
“And what’s to keep me from telling your favorite scribe that you’ve been feeding the enemy?” Jack’s smile widens.
“Hard to talk about something you don’t remember.” Imogen steps into his space, and his grin slips.
Four minutes later, we emerge from the staircase and find Rhiannon, Ridoc, and Sawyer waiting in the tunnel.