Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1000(@200wpm)___ 800(@250wpm)___ 667(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1000(@200wpm)___ 800(@250wpm)___ 667(@300wpm)
I take my time joining him. “My mother had a birdbath much like this. She spent hours watching the warblers cool off in the hot summer months.” This one has a pool of water, too, but it’s twice the size and in its center sits an opaque white sphere.
“A gift from my temple.” Tuella is suddenly beside me, startling me with her soundless approach.
“I have seen a similar stone before.” It reminds me of the dull gem within the ring Zander gave to Romeria as a symbol of their betrothal, though much larger. I’ll admit, my curiosity is piqued. “I assume it is more than decoration in this case. What is its purpose?”
She rests her palm against it. “We call this a seeing stone.”
“Because you see things through it?”
Tuella smiles as if she was waiting for me to ask and then closes her eyes and mutters unintelligible words. When they reopen, her black irises and pupils have vanished, leaving an opaque white in their place. The tattooed script across her forehead glows.
“It is something, isn’t it?” King Cheral whispers, drawing my attention from the conjurer’s peculiar appearance to the pool of water that now reflects an image—of Islorian soldiers building bonfires and fixing tents. “This is Islor’s rift army.”
I gape at the view. “How is this possible?”
“Through the eyes of a kell. A tiny, unobtrusive bird that goes mostly unnoticed but sees all.”
I’m glued to the image reflected in the water as the kell swoops in, speeding past a dead nethertaur, to a group on horseback. I know them all. Elisaf is there, along with several legionaries, and—
“Stop! Go back!”
But the bird is moving on.
“It will take her a moment. It is not so simple,” King Cheral says, patting the air. “These kells can be wayward.”
The image in the small pool wavers before expanding. The bird is climbing, giving us a panoramic view—of the thousands of soldiers and countless corpses, both beast and Islorian, and the odd golden-crested armor that I do not recognize as Islorian. Far in the distance, on the Ybarisan side, waits another army. Queen Neilina brought her armies to attack on Hudem, after all. Did they battle?
I gasp as three great beasts of scales and wings appear, perched atop the bridge’s stone walls. “Fates, what are those?”
“Ancient creatures of another age, according to Tuella,” King Cheral whispers, as if not wanting to disturb her concentration. “It seems they are allied with your realm. They’ve even been seen shuttling Islorians from one place to the next.”
What else has Zander been hiding from me? From this vantage point, high up in the sky, I begin to grasp just how many Nulling creatures litter the ground. There were obviously far more hiding than we ever imagined. “What drew them out of Venhorn to attack?”
King Cheral peers up at me with a mixture of pity and amusement. “They did not come from the mountains. They came from that gaping crack in the ground.”
“That is impossible. That would mean the Nulling has been opened, which would mean …” My words drift. It would mean a key caster opened the nymphaeum door. Likely the same one who saved my life. “Have you seen this key caster? Do you know who she is?”
His smile is reserved. “We have. And we do.”
The bird finally loops back around and dives toward the company as it moves past the stone gate, onto the bridge. “Where are they going?”
“To the Ybarisan side, I presume.”
The kell follows, feigning interest in a horse while giving me a clear view of their faces—Zander and Romeria riding side by side. She is as beautiful as ever, dressed in the leathers of war, Jarek and Abarrane at their flank.
My chest tightens at the sight of my brother—and the many memories soured. “So they’ve allied with Queen Neilina. Zander has betrayed his realm and his people and—”
“Queen Neilina is dead.”
My eyes widen with shock. That news, I was not expecting. The Ybarisan ruler has been a bane to Islor for nearly five hundred years and believed impossible to kill, thanks to her wall of Shadows and elementals, and her ability to choke the air out of one’s lungs before they ever got too close. “How?”
“According to our sources, by her daughter’s own hand. Queen Romeria now rules Ybaris, and it would seem she and the exiled king work together.” His pause is lengthy. “She is your key caster.”
“What? No, that is impossible! She is Ybarisan, elven born.” I lean on the pedestal for support as I absorb his claim. Even as I deny it out loud, in the back of my mind, I think I’d already put together the pieces. Romeria herself had told me as much, hovering over my bleeding chest outside the Goat’s Knoll.
I don’t even know how to play draughts.
Ever since the night she was brought back to life by the High Priestess, there has been something inexplicable about her. Wendeline warned me that she was not the same Romeria who arrived here from Ybaris. That blasted, conniving priestess. How long did she know?