Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 37456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 187(@200wpm)___ 150(@250wpm)___ 125(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 187(@200wpm)___ 150(@250wpm)___ 125(@300wpm)
"W-who are you?" I demand instead, my voice trembling.
Her expression softens as she stares at me. "You know who I am, sweet girl," she murmurs gently. "You've always known."
"M-my m-mother," I choke out.
Pain flickers across her face as she nods, confirming what I've always suspected. What I'm no longer sure I want to be true. "Yes."
"You gave me up." The accusation burns on my tongue as a thousand scalding-hot questions bubble forth, demanding answers. How could she just leave me like she did? I was just a little girl, just a toddler, dropped off in a hospital parking lot with a note stuffed in my pocket.
Who does that? Why?
"I didn't have a choice. To keep you would have put you at greater risk. There's no time to explain." She grabs for my hands, but I take a quick step out of her reach. Regret fills her expression. For a moment, I think she might cry. "Simek and I always wanted you, Marion. We always loved you. Everything we did, we did to protect you. You're more important than you know. I wish I had time to explain, to help you remember, but they're coming."
"Remember what? Who is coming?" I demand, confusion swirling through me.
"The Forsaken."
The name tolls through me like a gong, reverberating with a dread that shakes me all the way to my foundation. I've never heard it before, I'm certain of that. And yet…and yet it feels familiar in a way that's utterly terrifying.
I want to ignore the feeling, tell myself that this woman is no one more than a sad, lonely woman seeing monsters where there are none. But I can't.
Because I feel the truth quaking in my soul. There are monsters. Vicious, evil creatures. And they want me.
"You must get to Eitr and find the Fae." She grasps my hands tightly, her eyes locked with mine. "Tell them that it's time for them to gather our daughters. The Valkyrie must not fall. The Forsaken must not get the Bifröst."
I stare at her blankly, trying to make sense of what she's saying to me. Fae. Valkyrie. Eitr. Bifröst. Each oddly familiar term feels like a key turning a tumbler in a lock I never realized existed inside me. I don't know what they mean, but I know them the same way I know my name and my face, as if they're part of me, dredged up from the deepest depths of my soul.
"What are you talking about?"
"The end of everything," she says, her eyes blazing with fierce light.
"I don't understand," I whisper, my voice cracking. I don't think I want to understand. Things like this aren't supposed to happen. When I was younger and I wished for my real parents to come and whisk me away to a magical land, this isn't what I meant.
"I know you don't, sweet girl. But there's no time to explain!" She cups my cheek, her expression a whirlpool of regret and resolve. "Simek and I have done everything we can to keep the five of you hidden, but our time has run out. The Forsaken know about you, Rissa, Abigail, Tori, and Kara. And they're coming for all of you."
Five names, spoken like a prayer. Five women at the heart of something I don't even understand.
"You must get to the—"
I cry out in terror as a cold chill rips through me, and a black hole suddenly appears behind her head, expanding rapidly from nothing. One minute, there's nothing there but my living room. The next, a rippling hole appears.
With it comes a shift in the air, a sense of gathering darkness that presses against the edges of awareness like a storm coalescing on the horizon.
They're here.
The realization crashes over me like a tidal wave, drowning out the chaotic roar in my mind. My mother's gaze locks with mine, a silent plea and a command all at once.
"Go," she whispers, her voice barely audible over the pounding of my heart. "Find the Fae. Find your sisters."
Sisters. The word reverberates through me, an echo of a bond I've never known but have always imagined for myself. One I've dreamed about a thousand times. I feel it now like a missing piece sliding into place.
I have sisters.
"Simek!" my mother cries, spinning on her heel. Light blazes to life in her hands, a bright, burning ball of it. "They're here!"
A man roars wordlessly from the back of the house. Heavy steps thunder across the kitchen floor.
The world around me fractures as the rippling black hole slams into place, shaking the entire house. Something shoots out of it, a tendril of black smoke, twisting and contorting like it's alive.
Men pour from the hole in a terrifying parade. At least, they're shaped like men, but there's something wrong with them. They're pale and sickly, misshapen and half-formed…and so familiar it's terrifying.