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)
Would that be so bad? To never feel so deeply again? To never fear? To never hurt like this? To spend my days and nights ending the most wicked creatures in this land?
Across the room, the first fingers of dawn stretch into the window, reminding me that my ring has a magic meant for darkness and using it during the day comes at a cost.
Sleep. Just sleep.
After tucking the ring into the hidden pocket I sewed into the back of my mattress, I find my herbs from the apothecary. If my heart can’t be numb, I’ll hide in deep, dreamless sleep.
I take a double dose.
Chapter Two
Jasalyn
“GOOD MORNING, SLEEPYHEAD!”
My sister’s cheerful voice cuts through the thick blanket of sleep and drags me from my nightmare with a gasp. For a moment I expect to find myself in a dark cell, the scent of urine filling my nose, the icy cold of the stone floor seeping into my bones.
But the bed is soft and my blankets are warm. Day has come and, with it, the honey glow of light through the cracks in the curtains.
The bed shifts and I smell Brie’s cinnamon and vanilla soap, sense her warmth. And her worry. Always her worry.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” she says softly, knuckles brushing the back of my hand. “But I have a meeting in the northern mountains in a couple of hours, and we need to talk first.”
Before I was sold to Mordeus and dragged to Faerie from my home realm, the human realm of Elora, I never wasted much time imagining what it might be like to be queen of a faerie court, but I would’ve guessed it involved decadence and balls and . . . I don’t know, appearing before your subjects like some beneficent goddess. But judging from my sister’s experience in the last three years, it’s mostly meetings and more meetings. When she’s not convincing the lords of the court to assist in her rebuilding efforts, she’s mediating petty squabbles between shadow fae, like a schoolmistress teaching children to play nice.
As if dealing with the politics within the court isn’t bad enough, she’s also left to navigate the politics between courts. While she calls the king of the Seelie Court and the king of the Wild Fae Lands both friends, the subjects of the three main territories of Faerie aren’t keen to follow her lead. The Seelie and Unseelie fae were enemies for centuries before Abriella took the throne, and though historically neutral, the Wild Fae were reluctant allies at best.
“Jas?” Brie says, taking my wrist in her hand.
I force my eyes open before I fall back to sleep.
Brie’s wearing her riding clothes—brown leather pants with knee-high boots, a soft white cotton blouse beneath a leather riding vest. I catch her frowning at the puddles of dried wax on my bedside table from all the nights I’ve left candles burning while I sleep. She knows I hate the dark, but I don’t talk to her about it because she gets that crease between her brows and guilt fills her eyes.
It’s not her fault our aunt sold me to an evil faerie. It’s not her fault the darkness reminds me of those long nights in Mordeus’s dungeons and the horrible things I endured there.
She gently strokes her thumb over the circular scar on my wrist. It’s as wide as a plum and gnarled like a knot on an old tree. I hate the pain and worry that contorts her face when she looks at my scars, and I yank my wrist from her grasp and pull down the sleeve of my sleeping gown.
“Any new marks this morning?” she asks, eyes searching my face.
“I don’t know.” I yank up my blankets, tucking them under my arms before she gets any ideas and tries to look for herself. There are already more than she knows about, though I’m guessing my maids have told her about the game board of puffy scar tissue that’s appeared across my abdomen.
“Perhaps next time Finn and I visit Juliana in Staraelia, you could—”
“Is my appearance so disturbing to you that you need your High Priestess to fix me?” I snap.
She flinches, and I wish I could take the words back. The scars began appearing at random intervals shortly after my birthday. Once Abriella found out about them, I agreed to let her healers look at me, but their salves do nothing to make the marks fade, and they haven’t had any answers for their queen about my mysterious scarring. But I fear the High Priestess and whatever magic she has would tell my sister too much.
Abriella is a powerful queen, but with me she acts like a nervous child. And that’s all my fault. It’s all my fault because I’m broken. It’s all my fault because while this life in this world has made Brie grow and thrive, for me it feels like trying to breathe underwater.