Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 229266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1146(@200wpm)___ 917(@250wpm)___ 764(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 229266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1146(@200wpm)___ 917(@250wpm)___ 764(@300wpm)
And what kept hurting every time I thought about him was that he knew how badly I desired freedom. To have the ability to simply choose something—anything—for myself. Whether it be something as simple as walking where I wanted, unveiled, or speaking to whoever I wanted. To something as important as choosing who I shared my body with. He knew how much that meant to me, and he was trying to take it away. My heart twisted so painfully, it felt like someone had thrust a dagger deep into my chest.
What, if anything, could he feel for me?
My heart hurt deeply, as if I were grieving someone who had died. In a way, it was like that. I mourned the loss of Hawke, and it didn’t matter that he still lived and breathed. The Hawke I’d grown to trust, the man I’d shared my secrets with was gone. In his place was Prince Casteel Da’Neer, but I was still drawn to him. I still had that desire, need, and the…
That was why he was the most dangerous person in any kingdom. Because no part of me doubted that he planned to use me to free his brother, returning me to the same Ascended who had held him captive for five decades and who now held his sibling.
Pressure clamped down on my chest as I started pacing again, my thoughts shifting to Queen Ileana. My mother and the Queen had been close. So much so that when my mother chose my father over the Ascension, the Queen had allowed it. That was unheard of. Even rarer was how the Queen had cared for me after the Craven attack as if I were her own child. She had changed my bandages, sat with me when the nightmares of the attack came, and held me when all I wanted was to be hugged by my mother and father. She was the first to teach me not to be ashamed of the scars when others gasped and whispered behind their gloved hands. During those years, and before I was sent to Masadonia, she’d become more than a caregiver.
And according to Casteel, she had been the one who branded him with the Royal Crest.
I could easily remember her holding my hand as we traveled the Royal Gardens under the star-swept skies. Her patience and kindness had seemed never-ending, and yet the same hand that had held mine had sliced into Casteel’s skin. If what Casteel said was true, the same softly spoken voice that’d told me stories of my mother when she was a little girl, running through the same paths we’d walked, had also fed an entire kingdom nothing but blood-soaked lies. If Casteel were telling the truth, she’d used the people’s fear of the creatures she and others like her had created to control every single mortal.
And if it all was true, then had the Queen known the whole time that I was half-Atlantian?
Gods, that was almost too hard to process. But what of Ian? How could he have Ascended? Casteel had said that Ian had only been seen at night, and he believed that Ian had Ascended. Was it then like someone had suggested at the dinner? Was Ian my half-brother? I found it hard to believe that either of my parents would’ve had a child by someone else. Their love for each other was…well, it was the kind people only hoped to find for themselves.
Or I could be entirely naïve. Because if Ian wasn’t their child, where did they get him? On the side of the road or something?
Casteel would likely think that I was being foolish.
Not that I cared what he thought. What the Queen knew and whether or not Ian was my half-brother, didn’t matter. My gaze tracked its way back to the door.
I had to escape.
Even with the warning Casteel had left hanging in the hall, it was evident that his people still saw me as the figurehead for the Ascended. I didn’t think Landell had said any lies when he spoke how my ancestry wouldn’t matter to the Atlantian people. I doubted the new arrivals would want anything different than the others. It had sounded like Alastir believed I should be in a cell instead of roaming around.
As if I were allowed to do that.
And once he brought me to Atlantia, if that was truly what Casteel planned, I would be surrounded by them, and in an even more precarious position.
A small seedling of excitement took root in my stomach when I thought of Atlantia. I couldn’t help but want to see the kingdom. Probably because I’d hardly seen anything in my life. But to be able to look upon a place that wasn’t supposed to exist? That was something very few people would ever be able to do.