Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 112001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
“There is no next. I am merely here on a little vacation.”
And now seriously reconsidering what he had thought was a private place where he could hide out, determine his strategy against his cousin, and come and go from this base camp as he hunted his prey.
“You are trying to impress her,” the entity said, “but you have at your disposal the ultimate prize to present unto her.”
“Her? I am afraid you have confused me with someone else.”
Now that kindly face registered an authority. “I do not get confused. And you know exactly to what I am referring. You are better at caring for others than you wish to acknowledge, and if you love her as you believe you do, then the decision is an easy one, is it not? Would you not give all of you to the one you love? Sacrifice yourself for them?”
Blade slowly shook his head back and forth.
“Yes,” the entity said. “You would. And you have. All these years, avenging your sister. You have lived no life in service unto her—and you have sought no glory for yourself from her. She is blind to your virtue, and that is your business. It is also your preparation for the true sacrifice that is coming.”
“Again, I think you’ve confused me with someone else.”
“As you wish. Free will is a force in this world. So you will believe what you do—”
“Who are you? The Scribe Virgin?”
The entity laughed, and as she did, her silver hair seemed to move around on its own, an extension of her mirth. “No, I am not her. She is… let us say, we are of relation.”
“I do not understand any of this.”
“Your understanding is not required.” That face, so beautiful even with its lines, grew serious. “The wolven has been shown that you are her future. Give her that. In your heart, it is what you know is right—and the answer to the question you have been asking yourself is yes, there is.”
“I have no question,” he said in a voice that broke.
She regarded him with the telltale sadness that came with pitying a stranger. “Yes, there will be a compensation for your altruism. You will get what you have sought for all your nights.”
“I do not know what you are—”
Now there was laughter. “You asked for me. You prayed for guidance. Did you think someone was not listening? You came up here to my summit, and you stared into my valley, and your heart called out in your torment. So I am here.” That smile returned once again. “I wish you the very best—and remember, you have everything you need with you. Even if you lied to yourself about why you brought it.”
In between one blink and the next, the old woman was gone, and the instant she disappeared, the howling cut off in midstream, as a door would shut on a sound.
Heart pounding, mind swimming, Blade let his head fall back and just tried to breathe. Up above, the clouds had parted in a perfect circle, an oculus created directly over him, certainly by the entity’s strange energy. And now that she had departed, the weather pattern was reclaiming the aperature, and as he regarded the stars twinkling and winking down at him, he felt like they were mocking him—or perhaps he was making everything personal because he felt like the core of the universe had just done a drive-by on him.
And that did make a male feel of special importance.
Whether one appreciated the effort or not.
And he did not.
When the heavens were once again fully obscured, he turned away and sought the cave’s entrance. Passing through the rough-hewn corridor with its tight angles and tighter squeeze, he orientated by touch and thereafter emerged into the belly of the space. He had lit a candle upon arriving earlier, and paranoia made him search the bedding platform, the trunks of clothes that were not his own, the old dresser… the spring-fed basin in the back.
He was alone, but that was of no reassurance a’tall. If that entity could emerge from out of nowhere outside, there was no reason she could not find him in here, or anywhere. And though she had not been aggressive, he felt as affronted as if she had put a knife to his throat. To his symphath sensibilities, the amount of information she had on him was alarming—and the kinds of things she knew were utterly devastating.
“And I was not praying.”
On that note, he went across to the table set back upon the rock wall. The candle he had recently lit with his mind was in a holder layered with the melted wax of many previous uses, and he wondered what struggles the rightful owner of the cave had endured…
Next to the fragile source of light, there was a collapsible plastic cage with a screened top. And beside that rested a small container, about the size of a ring box.