Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
“Tycho! Theron!” Nitsa hissed.
“What? I’m not going to lie to her.” Tycho leaned in, taking my hand. “Life will be hell for you, Aella, and you don’t deserve it. My advice is to pick a minor god and claim a power too nebulous to prove. Like the god of dedication or the god of opportunities. Say your power lets good opportunities find people, and the next time something good happens, they’ll think of you.”
“Basically, I’m to live as a fraud.” The sentence dropped dully from my lips.
“It’s better than living as a hard laborer and then an outcast until some prejudiced beast decides you shouldn’t live at all.”
“Tycho!” Nitsa shoved him out of the way. “Stop scaring her. You’re not going to live that way—as an outcast or a fraud. There is power in you, Aella. I know it. Give yourself a chance to find it.”
Getting to my feet, I gifted her a soft smile. “I will, Nitsa, thank you. I think I’m going to take a walk and clear my head.”
“Of course,” Daciana said. “We’ll explore when you get back.”
Ducking into my three-walled room, I pulled on my boots and overcoat. Nitsa was a sweet, kind soul. But she was also wrong.
I’ve been on land and sea. I’ve struggled to breathe on the thin mountain air and swam with the sea nymphs. I’ve loved, hated, danced, cried, and held in fascination with every new creature I met. If an animal was meant to speak to me, or if the tides were meant to calm beneath my feet, they would’ve done so by now.
I was not a demigod. Neither was my future to fake my way through the academy until the goddess sank her claws in me for good and brought the destruction of our world. Or I spent years toiling under hard labor. I would get out of here and find a way to stop what was done to me.
My soft-heeled boots padded across the marble. Just as when we came in, there wasn’t a single guard or sentry loitering about the halls. I passed through the atrium of the gods and out into the starlit night.
Tall grass tickled my shins down a trodden forest path. Seemed like students regularly came this way, so this part couldn’t be subject to the various spells and enchantments fashioned to keep us in. That’s all the welcome book had to say, “various spells and enchantments.”
I’ll let this path take me to the gates, then I’ll see what defenses there are to keep me on the right side of it.
I’d known true darkness earlier that day at the power of Alexis Andino. It made this torchless, moonlit path radiant in comparison.
Giggles sounded from the trees. The rustle of leaves followed me, getting closer as the nymphs trailed new prey. Any second now they—
A twig bounced off the back of my skull. Giggle. Giggle. An empty bird nest scratched my ear and landed at my feet. I stepped over it and kept going.
Young nymphs were more mischievous than their older counterparts. The forest was their territory and they reserved the right to harass anyone who crossed their path. In about a hundred years, they’d accept humans in their forest as a fact of life, and even grow fond of more than a few demigod men.
I wasn’t walking for long when I reached the gates. If I expected more fanfare, I was disappointed. Half a mile down the path it ended in a brush of overgrown bush, and then a few feet beyond, there sat the wrought iron tool of my imprisonment.
“Well,” I sighed. “I won’t get through by staring at it.”
Grasping the bars, I climbed the iron curlicues and immortal laurel leaves like rungs, and flung myself over. I hit the ground, disappearing into brush that tried to keep me—branches snagging my hair and clothes.
“Oh my gods, that’s it? I did it? I can’t believe...” Trailing off, I turned my head toward the giggling... and the path littered with twigs, stones, and nests they threw at me. I was right back where I started.
“Wow,” I said to my audience. “The children of Hecate have a real love affair with this spell, don’t they. I don’t get anywhere, but I do get to fall on my ass for the trouble.”
“Hee hee. Silly human.”
“Stupid girl.”
I swallowed their mocking. I deserved it for thinking it’d be that easy. Should I try again? Maybe persistence would be rewarded, and after enough tries, the magic would take pity on me.
I snorted. No, I didn’t think so either. “Any chance you’ll tell me how to get over?”
I couldn’t tell where her voice came from. “Why would we do that?”
“Because I’ll”—I cast about for an idea—“bring you an offering, goddesses of the forest.”
“What could you possibly offer us?” Her voice rasped like tree branches scraping together.