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)
Power snaps, whipping through me and departing all in the same heartbeat. Lightning strikes and I yank it downward from the sky with my finger, taking aim. Heat singes my fingertip, but I hold the bolt as long as tolerable, then set it free.
Straight into the wyvern’s back.
The creature plummets and Sgaeyl roars, blasting its corpse with a stream of fire as it falls past her. She pitches back to follow as Tairn banks left, taking us from the path that leads along the river and heading due west.
We fly like that for another few minutes, just long enough to be sure we’re safe, then land to take our respective seats and launch again.
Tairn leads us low, through the shadows of the mountains and up the ridgelines. Two and a half hours later, we cross the wards a hundred miles south of Samara.
We make it back to the fortress with three hours left to spare of our twelve-hour limit.
“I can’t believe you let him die,” Lieutenant Pugh mutters as we walk under the portcullis at Samara.
Xaden turns on him and pins him to the wall with the weight of his forearm. “Beinhaven was a scared cadet who thought he was venin. What the fuck is your excuse? Where were you when that wyvern skewered her?”
“We were patrolling north.” The man’s complexion favors a tomato as he forces out the words, but neither Mira nor I intercede.
“You were needed above the village.” Xaden removes his arm, and the lieutenant slides down the wall.
Henson and Foley help Pugh stand, then walk away from us into the courtyard, and Mira holds up her hand once their backs are to us, so we stay right where we’re at.
“I got there first,” she says, turning to face us and dragging a long chain from the inner pocket of her flight jacket.
A thumb-size stone I’m guessing was once the color of a citrine now rests in its setting, cracked, hazy, and smoke-hued.
“Shit.” My shoulders dip. “If Courtlyn doesn’t accept that, this all will have been for nothing.”
“That’s not why I’m glad I got there first.” Mira hands me the necklace, then reaches into her pocket again, drawing out a folded piece of parchment. “This is.”
Clutching the necklace in one hand, I take the parchment in the other, noting that it’s addressed to Lightning Wielder.
“It was sitting next to the necklace,” Mira says as I open it, and Xaden tenses at my side.
Violet,
Just a reminder that while I want you to come of your own free will, I’m capable of taking you whenever I wish. Why do you not ask me for the answers you so desperately seek?
—T
“Theophanie.” My stomach hollows.
Either she knows I’m looking for Andarna’s kind…
Or she knows I’m looking for a cure.
Xaden stiffens to the point of statuary. “She knew we’d be there.”
Well shit, there’s that, too.
Perhaps the point of this is not to deny rebellion, but to only go to war with those you trust implicitly.
—Subjugated: The Second Uprising of the Krovlan People by Lieutenant Colonel Asher Sorrengail
CHAPTER TWENTY
Upon our return, I spend a few days reading every single book on Deverelli Jesinia can find to prepare for my progress briefing with the Senarium. Between those, classes, the tomes Queen Maraya sends at my request, modifying my saddle, and the hours I spend wielding on the snow-capped peaks above Basgiath, I fall into bed exhausted every single night.
By the time Friday arrives, I’ve devoured The Dark Side of Magic, Red Regalia, The Scourge of our Times, and the nightmare-inducing A Study in the Anatomy of the Enemy, none of which brings me the answers I need for Xaden.
Neither does Jack. He’s all too happy to tell me about asim progression, how channeling from the earth happens as easily as breathing beyond the wards, but he won’t give up the name of his Sage or give me anything other than trivial information about them. And he’s sure as Malek not telling me how Theophanie knew we’d go for the citrine or what answers I’m searching for.
But once I finally make my way through my dad’s manuscript for the third time and scour the research that behemoth requires, I have an inkling of a thought of where he might have been headed in his hypothesis. I keep it to myself, partially because I’m scared to be wrong but mostly because I’m terrified I’m right. When Varrish mentioned last year that he thought the research dealt with feathertails, I never imagined it would lead in this direction.
“I want to go,” Ridoc says as we walk down the plush red carpet of the administration building, headed for the great hall.
I search for the right words and try to quell the vat of nausea that is my stomach. Presenting to Halden is bad enough, but I skipped breakfast knowing the entire Senarium waits for me, most likely to assign a new commander.