Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
“The palace?” I shake my head. He’s always thought me braver than I am, from the first time he taught me to climb a tree and I got stuck fifteen feet off the ground. Now, once again, he’s asking too much. “No way.”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not. I can’t do that.”
“You always underestimate yourself,” he says, glancing over his shoulder and toward the busy street beyond. “I’ve left you alone for three years, let you deny your destiny, let you abandon your realm. Now it’s time to step up. You know her. You have, what”—he waves the book between us—“a dozen memories by now?”
I fold my arms. “You’re going to get me killed. You’re asking me to take her form and then live with her sister. Her handmaids. All the people who know her best.”
“A day at most with her sister and then you’ll be sent to stay with King Misha. The queen wants the princess away from the shadow court for a while.”
Pretending to be the princess would be much simpler in the Wild Fae territory, where I wouldn’t be surrounded by the people who know the princess so intimately. But why would the queen send her away when she’s been so protective of her up to now? “Because of the faceless plague?”
Hale shrugs, but I’m sure he knows more than he’s saying. Hale always knows more than he lets on. He also cares for me more than he lets on, and I know he wouldn’t ask without good reason.
“It’s too dangerous. If they found me out—”
“I have faith in you.” These words, spoken with absolute sincerity, make me more homesick than I’ve felt in months. They make me miss the relationship Hale and I had before he lost faith in me.
“This is your out, Felicity,” he says softly, as if he can see my thoughts on my face. “This is our way back home for good.”
My chest aches. I’m not the only one who’s desperate to go back to Elora. Hale was fifteen when he dedicated his life to bringing down the Elora Seven and returning the realm to the rightful monarchy. While I can’t return to Elora so long as I’m hunted, my brother won’t let himself go so long as his quest is unfulfilled.
“How?” I ask, voice cracking. “How does Jasalyn figure into this?”
“I visited the oracle.”
My stomach flips, then plummets. The Oracle of Light is sacred and revered, and I hate her with every fiber of my being. Knowing your destiny can be more of a curse than a gift. “Not everything the oracle foretells is so simple,” I say to my hands. But if she showed me Jasalyn as a way to save Hale and showed Hale Jasalyn as a way to save the realm . . .
I shove away the temptation of hope before I can pull its poison into my lungs.
“Regardless of what you think of the oracle, you might want to know what she showed me this time,” he says. He’s quiet for a few long moments, probably waiting for me to meet his eyes, but I can’t. “The princess, Felicity. She showed me the princess slaying your father.” He tilts his head and hoists the journal in the air. “But maybe you already suspected she’d play a role, and that’s what’s behind your little research project.”
I draw a ragged breath, suddenly lightheaded with the possibility of a better future. Dangerous.
“You told me years ago that you won’t kill Erith,” Hale says, and I flinch.
“It’s not that simple.”
“Listen to me, Lis. I’ve found an alternative. I was shown the alternative. Will you help us take it or not?”
My heart is racing. My birth father has grown too powerful, and the consequence of that power has been horrific for the majority of the Eloran citizens. Even if I didn’t have my own reasons for needing him gone, I would want to help my brother with his mission. Hale has never been able to understand why I wouldn’t slay my father myself. He’s never known what the oracle showed me. But I’m haunted by the memory of that vision, by the sight of death creeping into my brother’s eyes as his blood pools around him.
If I kill Erith, as was foretold, Hale will die too. I don’t know how one leads to the other, but I know what the oracle showed me.
And I could never tell Hale, because he would’ve told me to do it anyway.
But now we’ve both been shown the shadow princess as the key to an alternate path.
“What do you need me to do?” I ask. My hands are shaking. I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this. It’s insanity. It’s a death wish. It might be the only way to save Hale.
“Be the princess. Then once you’re sent to Castle Craige, I need you to get as close to King Misha as you can.”