Total pages in book: 200
Estimated words: 189930 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 950(@200wpm)___ 760(@250wpm)___ 633(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 189930 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 950(@200wpm)___ 760(@250wpm)___ 633(@300wpm)
The fires had been a smart move by the Descenters. I had to give them that. With the guards distracted, the Descenters were able to move through the night, taking out guards stationed around the castle before they even knew they were there. They were able to commence wholesale slaughter before the guards who’d gone to Radiant Row could even be summoned.
No one could be positive what message the attack on the Rite had been meant to send, or even if they had been searching for me. None of the Descenters were taken alive that night, and any of those who had escaped, had slipped back into the shadows.
The Ascended had done what the Duchess said they would do. They got their hands dirty, but their assistance had come too late. Most who’d been left in that room had died. Only a few had survived, most so traumatized that they couldn’t even recall what had happened.
Well over a hundred had died that night.
Gods, I’d rather be asleep than awake.
At least when I slept, I didn’t think about the Duke burning from where he had been hung and impaled. I couldn’t think about Dafina’s one blue eye, or how Loren had tried to go back to her friend, only to be struck down. I wouldn’t remember how it had felt to crawl over people who were dead or dying, unable to do anything to help him. The metal wolf masks didn’t haunt my sleep. Neither did that smile Vikter had given me, or how he’d told me that he was proud. Asleep, I didn’t think about how the last words he’d ever spoken were a plea for forgiveness for him not protecting me. And I couldn’t remember how my gift had failed me when I needed it the most.
I wished I had never said what I did in that garden.
I wished…I wished I’d never gone to the Rite or gone out into the willow. If I’d been in my room where I was expected to be, we wouldn’t have been in the thick of it. The attack still would’ve happened, and people still would’ve died, but maybe Vikter would still be here.
However, a tiny voice in the back of my mind whispered that the moment Vikter learned of what was happening, he would’ve gone down there anyway, and I would’ve followed. Death had come for him, and that voice also whispered that death would’ve found a way.
In the days I spent lost to the deep nothingness, I couldn’t acknowledge what I’d done to Lord Mazeen and how I felt about it now.
Or how I didn’t feel.
There wasn’t an ounce of regret. My nails dug into my palms. I would do it again. Gods, I wished I could, and that disturbed me.
When I was out of it, I didn’t think, and I didn’t care about anything.
But now I was awake, and all I had were my thoughts, the pain, and the anger.
I wanted to find every single Descenter and do to them what I’d done to the Lord.
I’d tried the second night I was awake. I donned my cloak and mask and grabbed the short sword Vikter had given me years before since my dagger was lost to the chaos of that room the night of the Rite. I’d planned to pay Agnes a visit.
She’d known. Nothing could convince me otherwise. She’d known, and her attempts to warn me hadn’t been enough. The blood that had been spilled that night was on her hands—Vikter’s blood tainted her skin. My mentor and friend, who’d drunk her hot cocoa and comforted her. She could’ve stopped all of this.
Hawke had caught up to me halfway through Wisher’s Grove and all but dragged me back to the castle. The chest of weapons had been removed from my room at that point, and the servants’ access barred from the stairwell.
And so, I sat. I waited.
Each evening I’d been awake, I waited for the Duchess to summon me. For punishment to be rendered. Because I’d done something so expressly forbidden that it made everything I’d ever done before an afterthought.
I’d killed an Ascended.
Maiden or not, there had to be some kind of punishment for that. I had to be found unworthy.
A knock drew my gaze from the window. The door opened, and Hawke strode in, closing the door behind him. He was dressed in the uniform of the guards, all black except for the white Royal Guard mantle.
No one had replaced Vikter’s position yet. I didn’t know why. Maybe after seeing what I was capable of, the Duchess realized that I no longer needed as much protection. But protecting myself would be kind of hard to do without access to any weapons. Or maybe it was the fact that I’d already gone through three guards in one year. Or it could be because so many had died during the attack, and they were shorthanded.