Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 62637 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62637 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
She’ll be cold. Afraid. Alone. Terrified of the night. Of the full moon. Terrified that if she sleeps, everything will be finally stolen from her—including her bead.
The nightmare jerks me awake, and I realize I’m still in the darkness. I sense Bannik. “So this is our new future?”
“Yup.” He sighs long and hard. “Should have kept your eye and left when you could.”
“It’s not so bad.”
“Give yourself a thousand years, and you’ll change your mind.”
I shrug and sit up. “Things, they always happen for a reason.”
He snorts. “What a horrible reason, brother, what a horrible reason.”
We sit in darkness.
In silence.
I’m okay, though. I tell myself that at least she knows our past now; she knows why I fought for her.
I’m okay.
I hope she is too.
The others will help her. While nobody can rescue us, she at least has them. I find satisfaction in that and lay back down, staring up into the darkness, wishing I could see just one more star again.
Bannik makes a choking noise in his throat and then cries out. “They’re cutting again.”
“What?” I sit up.
I can’t see him.
“My wings,” he chokes out, his voice gurgling low in his throat. “It burns, it burns so bad. Tell me.” He cries out harder. Screams erupt from his mouth. “Tell me a story.”
“Second chances,” is all I can say. “They always happen when we’re in the darkness. So embrace that. Let them tear you apart. What can they do to a Watcher of the Abyss? A king? Nothing but pain. Embrace it. I’ll be here the whole time.”
“I’ve been so alone.” He sobs. “So alone.”
“No longer,” I whisper, “will you be alone.”
“No.” A booming voice sounds. “He won’t.”
The earth beneath me shakes and shatters into tiny little pieces of clay, getting thrown against the walls of the cave. Light illuminates around us, exploding in what looks like an actual sun. It nearly overwhelms my remaining eye.
“S-Sariel?” Bannik holds his hands against his face, his fingertips allowing him to peek through. “What are you doing? You’re a star! You have a purpose, a plan. You have—”
“Silence.” His hair’s red and white pulled back into a ponytail, and he’s wearing nothing but low-slung black joggers as if he stole them from some random person before coming down here. “I’m here to make a sacrifice, he announces with finality.
“What?” Bannik and I ask in unison.
The feminine voice laughs. “Oh? And what could you possibly give me, oh angel of the stars?”
Silence, and then, “Myself.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
一刀両断
ittouryoudan
“One stroke, two halves.”
~Japanese proverb
Kit
I see my past.
My future.
I’m in the present.
I’m sitting at the table holding a freshly baked sugar cookie, and all I keep thinking is, “I gave him my bead. It’s all I have left.”
Foxes have beads, what Horus’s eye means to him, my bead means to me.
“What?” Hope nudges me. “Are you okay? You keep saying bead over and over again, and listen, I’m not upset about arts and crafts, but it’s getting freaky when you start rocking back and forth.” She takes a huge sip of wine. As she sets the glass down, her eyes widen. “Oh wait, is this like a code word for something else? I see how you look at Horus; hell, everyone looks at him that way with his giant muscles and—” Alex kicks her under the table. “Babe, yours are way bigger, swear.”
Alex grunts and stares me down, then her. “Why do you keep saying bead?”
“Bead?” I repeat. “Um, I think I lost it? I don’t know, but these memories keep hitting me, and it’s weird. What’s a bead to a fox? Truly? I mean, I know it’s important, like Horus’s eye is to him, like your wings are to you.” I point to Cassius. “But, if I sacrifice it, will it be enough?”
Cassius drops his fork, leaving half his peach pie, and stands. “So he did it.”
“What?” I jump to my feet. “Horus did what? What did he do?”
Cassius stares me down, then the rest of the table, and then back to me. “Do you taste it yet?”
I’m so confused. “The dessert?”
“The bead.”
Okay, these people are seriously crazy, even for immortals. “No, I don’t taste a bead, and what do beads even taste like? And why would I be tasting one?”
“Fox,” Alex says under his breath. “Nine-tailed fox from Japan. A Kitsune.” He nods and stands. “She won’t taste it until she sees him. They’re connected, so even if he did succeed, she’ll still be trapped.”
“Trapped where?” I ask. Trapped doesn’t sound good. It sounds terrifying.
Genesis sighs and looks at Ethan and Mason. “Should we figure out a way to go down and grab him? Would that help?”
“Help Horus?” I’m confused. If he did it, why isn’t he back? “Why does he need help? Is he okay?”
Cassius slams his hands against the table and crumples to the floor. “Nooooooo!”