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)
We ate at a narrow table in a dining room that’d once served the people of Spessa’s End but now was empty except for Quentyn, who had brought the eggs, crispy bacon, and biscuits out to us when we arrived. He chatted with Kieran, his energy from the night before seeming just as high. I tried to focus on the conversation, aware of how different this was from the last time Kieran and I had shared food. Quentyn didn’t ignore me or treat me with barely contained dislike. If he knew I had once been the Maiden, he didn’t care. And that was, well…it would’ve been something to revel in if I didn’t keep looking around to see if Casteel appeared, or if my mind wasn’t so wrapped up in what Kieran had said.
I couldn’t focus on the fact that Casteel may care for me. I couldn’t even dwell on the revelation that I’d moved past the stage of caring for him quite some time ago. There was no amount of time or space for me to even come to terms with any of that and what it meant.
What I turned over and over in my mind was the reality that Casteel needed to feed, and if what Kieran had said was true, I needed to convince him to do so from someone else or…I needed to feed him.
But there really wasn’t an option between the two. Naill and Delano knew I was half-Atlantian, and if the others, whoever else was here, didn’t know, they would learn soon enough. Casteel feeding from someone else wouldn’t exactly convince anyone of our intent to marry, would it?
It would have to be me.
My stomach dipped as the bite of bacon scratched its way down my throat. Would I be okay with that? I thought of what it had been like when he’d bitten me before, and I picked up the glass of water, nearly downing the entirety of it. It wouldn’t exactly be a hardship. It would be…
Gods, it would be intense.
Nothing like when Lord Chaney had bitten me. Nothing like a Craven’s bite.
“The one thing I’m not looking forward to is traveling back through the mountains,” Quentyn said, drawing me out of my thoughts. I’d discovered when I first saw him in the bright lamplight that he was fair-haired, not blond-white like Delano, but more…golden. He was young, slim as a reed and already taller than me. There was a delicacy to his features, one that drew the eye and held it, and I imagined the beauty in the lines of his face would only increase as he got older. His eyes were a vibrant shade of amber, just like Casteel’s, but curved upward at the outer corners in a way that made his eyes seem like he was always smiling.
“Yeah, I’m not looking forward to that part of the trip either,” Kieran agreed.
“Are you talking about the Skotos Mountains?” I asked, glancing toward the doors for what probably had to be the hundredth time since Kieran and I had sat down.
Quentyn nodded as he looked over at me. When he first saw me, his gaze had snagged on the left side of my face, but that was all. He hadn’t continued to stare. He hadn’t quickly looked away in embarrassment, either. He saw them and seemed to move on from them, and I appreciated that. “The mist, man. The mist. During the day, it thins out a bit, but at night? You can barely see a few feet in front of you.”
I remembered what Kieran had said about the long mountain range. “And that’s…Atlantian magic?”
“Yes. It’s designed to ward off travelers, making them think there are Craven in the mountains, but there are none,” Kieran said, eyeing my plate. “You going to eat the rest of that bacon?”
“No.” I nudged my plate toward him. “How does Atlantian magic work?”
“That’s a complicated question with an even more convoluted answer.” Kieran picked up a slice of bacon from my plate. “And I know you’re gearing up for a hundred more questions.”
I totally was.
“But the easiest answer is that the magic is tied to the gods,” he said.
Well, that only caused me to have more questions and made me think of the Blood Forest tree, the omen, that had appeared out of thin air in New Haven.
“And besides, the mist isn’t just a mist,” Kieran added between mouthfuls of bacon. “Is it, Quentyn?”
“No.” The young man’s eyes widened. “It’s more like an…alarm system.”
“It responds to travelers, even Atlantians, and the way it responds is different for everyone. Larger groups seem to trigger it.” Quentyn’s fingers tapped nonstop on the table. “That’s why we split up into groups no larger than three.”
All of that sounded…concerning. “And traveling through the mountains is the only way?”
“It is, but don’t worry too much.” Quentyn smiled. “We didn’t have too much of a problem when we came through it before.”