Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
“You’ve been in the place I was, where someone was going to take from you without permission,” I stated.
She nodded quickly.
“I’m so sorry.”
I watched as she swallowed hard, wiped away tears before they even reached her cheeks, then lifted her chin. “It was long ago, my consort, but I remember the fear and the fury, and I saw both on your face before your barrier was unleashed.”
I had wondered a thousand times why I hadn’t been able to use my barrier when Nerilla and I were in Gideon’s home. Why it wouldn’t rise and protect us both.
“You blame yourself for that, but you shouldn’t,” Varic told me late one night when we’d been sitting together on the thick stone railing on the roof of the palace. We were whispering because it felt right in the dark. A storm was coming in, and we could see it, the lightning, out over the sea in the distance. “You were fighting with a weapon, she was at your side, and without being at home, in a place you call your own, without me…there was no barrier to raise.”
I was about to argue.
“Plus, you were terrified for her, never yourself.”
“I don’t understand what that—”
“Your barrier rises to keep you safe…or me. It’s not an offensive power, but a defensive one,” he explained.
I was quiet, wanting only to listen.
“Unlike my power,” he said, taking my hand and kissing my palm, “yours is not something that can be trained or honed. It happens on instinct, nothing more.”
I nodded, looking at him in the faint moonlight, at the chiseled lines of his face. He was telling me something important, and I wanted to remember the moment, engrain it in my memory.
“You were so focused on Nerilla, on protecting her, and in that chaos, with your own safety not paramount, only hers, and not having me with you…what were you supposed to do?”
I had no idea.
“You blame yourself for things you have no control over. That way lies madness.”
It did. He wasn’t wrong.
He laced his fingers with mine and held on. “I’m so fast,” he said, more to himself than to me. “But the day Cassius fell, I couldn’t reach him in time. I’m always there, I’ve saved so many, and yet…not then. Not that day.”
“It haunts you.”
“It’s a lesson that sometimes, no matter what, you can’t save everyone because…because it’s not your story.”
I nodded.
“Let’s both work on celebrating life and not forever mourning death. Because isn’t life the more important piece?”
It was. Without question, it was.
“My consort?” Keres said, which returned my attention to her.
“I’m sorry, I was thinking about—”
“The draugr, I surmise, from the look on your face.”
I smiled at her. “Yes.”
“He is blessed to have you, and I thank you for your lie to protect me, but know that I will take your words to heart and be yours when we return to the palace. I will be your most trusted courtier,” she announced.
“You’ll be my second, but you’re in good company with Dae-Jung,” I told her.
Her hand went instantly to her heart. “Oh, my consort, I know Dae-Jung. What a great honor you bestow to place me in his good company. I will be forever loyal.”
“I don’t have any doubt,” I replied, grinning at her. “But first, we hafta get out of here.”
“We will. The prince is coming for his prize,” she stated flatly. “And once he’s here, he’ll bring his justice to bear.”
“I agree. You know, with how exciting your life has been, you might find being in my service quite boring.”
She watched Ødger run at the barrier again, but this time he wasn’t thrown far. I’d noticed that the barrier matched the energy exerted. As he tired and his attack weakened, so did the response. “I think not,” she told me. “Somehow I doubt anything about you is at all boring.”
TEN
Finally, after what felt like hours, Ødger dropped like a stone in the middle of the floor.
“Oh, thank God,” Cirillo groaned, as tired as the rest of us to see him hurt his already wasted body.
As soon as Ødger passed out, the slow, agonizing change began, back to the vampyr he was. Several minutes passed, and while I couldn’t say for certain that it was painful, listening to the cracking of bones and seeing the open wounds on his body when he was again Lord Maedoc, my guess was that he was in agony.
“I can help the pain,” Keres called over to Balon when he slowly approached his brother, clearly frightened that Ødger would rise again. “I promise you, I won’t kill him, even though I could.”
When Balon nodded, I rose with the others and started toward the fallen man.
“My consort needs a new coat or some kind of heavy garment,” Carice informed Balon as the four of us reached him, and I saw others start moving from all corners of the throne room, coming out of hiding. “Your brother shredded the only vestments my consort had to keep him warm. He’s human, after all, and he’ll freeze if you don’t clothe him.”