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)
Hawke was quiet for so long that I had to look to make sure he was still there and still breathing. He was. He stared down at me, his amber eyes cool. “I had a brother.”
“Had?” My senses stretched out, and I didn’t even have a chance to control them. I opened myself up, and I locked my legs to stop myself from taking a step back. I didn’t feel anything strange, but I felt Hawke’s anguish, the bitterly cold pain that pelted my skin. It was sharper. This was where his pain stemmed from.
He’d lost a brother.
I reacted without thought to what he would think or to the fact that we were not alone. It was an uncontrollable urge, as if the gift itself had a hold of me.
I touched just his hand with mine and squeezed it in hopes that it would be construed as a gesture of sympathy. “I’m sorry,” I said, and I thought of warm beaches and salty air. Those thoughts quickly changed to how I’d felt when Hawke had kissed me.
The taut lines of Hawke’s expression smoothed out as he stared out the window. He blinked, not once but twice.
Lifting my fingers from his, I clasped my hands together, hoping that he hadn’t realized that I’d done something. He stood there, though, as if he’d been struck immobile. I lifted my brows. “Are you okay?”
He blinked again. This time, he laughed softly. “Yes. It’s…I just had the strangest feeling.”
“Is that so?” I watched him closely.
Hawke nodded as he rubbed the palm of his hand over his chest. “I don’t even know how to explain it.”
Now I was starting to worry that I’d somehow done something other than relieve his pain. What, I wasn’t sure, but if my gifts were evolving, anything was possible. I reached out with my senses once more, and all I felt in return was warmth. “Is it a bad feeling? Should we find a Healer?”
“No. Not at all.” Hawke’s laugh was stronger then, less uncertain. His eyes, now a warm honey, met mine. “My brother is not dead, by the way. So, no need for sympathy.”
Now it was my turn to blink repeatedly. “Oh? I just thought…” I trailed off.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to visit the garden?”
Thinking it was far past time for me to lock myself away before I did yet another reckless thing, I shook my head. “I think I would like to go back to my room now.”
He hesitated for a moment but then nodded. Neither of us spoke as we made our way. Apparently, Hawke was trying to figure out why he felt…happier, lighter. And I was left wondering what exactly had happened to his brother to cause that kind of reaction, especially if his brother was still alive.
Chapter 21
It took less than twenty-four hours for me to, yet again, do something utterly reckless. This time, however, I may end up regretting it. Of all the ways I’d thought I might die, it had never occurred to me that it could happen while borrowing a book from the Atheneum.
There were far more dangerous things I’d done in my eighteen years of life, times where I would’ve been more likely to die in the process. Utter heaps of examples where even I had been a bit surprised that I’d walked away with my limbs and life intact. But here I was, one wrong step away from plummeting to my death, clutching the supposed diary of one Miss Willa Colyns, the book that Loren and Dafina had been talking about. Obviously, the book would most definitely be the type of reading material Priestess Analia would expressly forbid. And if I were caught with it in my possession, it would be yet another reason for her to believe that I wasn’t respectful of my duty as the Maiden.
So, of course, I had to read it. I’d been so very bored all day.
I’d already read every book Tawny had snuck me at least three times, and I couldn’t bring myself to read another too-familiar page even one more time. She had yet again been commandeered by the Duchess and the Mistresses, and I knew I might not even see her the following morning. So, I had another day of staring—uninterrupted except for my training with Vikter—at four stone walls. And the longer I stayed in my room with nothing to occupy my mind, the more I thought about what Hawke had said about all the rights that had been stripped away from me.
It wasn’t like I didn’t already know that, but it wasn’t something that others appeared to even acknowledge. Maybe it was because they were with me constantly, so everything had become the norm. But to Hawke, who was new, none of this was normal.
And that was what led me to travel unaccompanied through Wisher’s Grove to the Atheneum while Hawke stood outside my chamber door, thinking I was inside. Vikter was…well, I had no idea where he was. I had a feeling based on how tired and sad his eyes had looked this morning, that he’d been called upon the night before to take care of one of the cursed and hadn’t invited me.