Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
“Next time, I will let her drink as much as she pleases. To have you any way she chooses,” he goes on. “I will allow that because I will it. I choose your partners, Cenere. And if I tell you that you will not cavort with other members of my court, with my sons, you will not.”
He crushes my other hand, and I sob.
“Be ready for this evening. I’m announcing our engagement to the court.” He turns away. “I’m finished with you.”
“Don’t leave me here!” I scream. There is a flash of white.
“Cenere!” Luthian is beside me in a moment. “Don’t leave you where? What’s happened? What did he do to you?”
“He... He...” I’m in the great hall of Luthian’s house, naked and crouched in a puddle of water. I blink in confusion. “I was in a... I was...”
Firo appears over Luthian’s shoulder. “She’s bleeding.”
“I see that she’s bleeding,” Luthian snaps, and conjures a wide strip of bandage from the air. He presses it to my neck. “This isn’t her only injury. She’s covered in bruises.”
I look down at my arms and legs. The marks aren’t bruises, but rings left behind from the creature’s tentacles.
“Heal her,” Firo says, and conjures a blanket to wrap around me.
“What has he done to you?” Luthian demands.
“There was a... some kind of monster. I don’t know where we were.” The pain in my neck is gone when Luthian takes the bandage away, and the blood upon it pulls from the surface, suspended as droplets that disappear into the air.
“I know this monster,” Firo says grimly. “I’ve heard it spoken of at court.”
“I know it, too.” Luthian’s eyes are hard and far away.
“A Cephalopire,” Firo says quietly. “He uses it to punish his enemies.”
“Not just his enemies.” Luthian drifts in some horrible thought that I cannot discern but snaps quickly back to the present. “Did he tell you why he did this?”
My limbs are cold, and I tremble. “I’m to be his queen. And he doesn’t want his queen to...display herself. He was angry about the mermaids, about his sons...”
Luthian curses under his breath and takes me into his arms, almost crushing me with his fierce protectiveness.
It’s only then that I can feel truly afraid. “I only did what you told me I should do. I thought—”
“I know.” He kisses my forehead. “I’m so sorry. I should never have brought you here.”
But that was our bargain. I knew this would be dangerous. Perhaps, not this dangerous, but I did not enter this arrangement thoughtlessly.
Who could have imagined such a horrible possibility?
“Do you see now, ambassador?” Luthian asks, his voice sharp with recrimination. “Do you agree now that something must be done?”
I lift my eyes. Firo stands helplessly beside us, his face awash in regret.
“I see now,” he says. “Arcus must die.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A sylph messenger arrives with a formal, sealed letter only moments later. It’s for Luthian.
He snatches it and orders the being away from his door.
I sit beside the fire, wrapped in a blanket, unwilling to do anything more. Though Luthian has healed me, there are wounds that cannot be tended to with magic. My body can be made whole, but my spirit is exhausted.
Firo stays by my side, and I’m glad for his presence. I hate that he’s captured Luthian’s heart, but I’m glad for his friendship, nevertheless. I have a strong feeling that I’ll need to rely on him more than ever in the coming days.
“What is it?” Firo asks as we watch Luthian scan the page.
“A royal summons. I’m to meet with Arcus to discuss my payment for my crimes against the court, and the terms of my permanent return.” He folds the letter and pushes it into his jacket pocket.
“Payment for your crimes?” A hysterical sob rises in my throat at the thought of Luthian in the grips of that terrible creature. I must force it back to ask, “He doesn’t mean that you’ll... that thing...”
Luthian shakes his head. “No. I don’t think so. But I’ve survived that once before.”
My stomach turns. Luthian endured the same humiliation and torture as I did? No wonder he looked so haunted when I told him what Arcus had done. My heart aches for my guardian and I long to embrace him, but I can’t find the strength of will to make my limbs move.
“He’s going to tell Luthian that he’s separating the two of you. So that Arcus can take you as his queen,” Firo says, glancing up at Luthian. “There has been talk of little else, today.”
Luthian grimaces. “So soon?”
I nod. “He’s going to announce the engagement tonight.”
“Which means that this is the last time the three of us will all be together,” Firo points out. “He’ll remove you from Luthian’s quarters immediately upon the announcement. And I don’t expect him to allow the two of you to have contact.”