Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 101280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
“Yeah—what are we going to do about that?” I asked her, frowning. “I’m sure Vik’tor will come looking for me—if he has any idea where to look. Will your guys come for you?”
“Of course they will! Drace and Lucian would lay down their lives for me,” Rylee exclaimed. “But they’re not going to have any idea where I am if I can’t reach them mentally. We were just leaving Femme One when that Gumpas guy kidnapped me.”
“Femme One?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
“Oh, that’s where I live now,” Rylee explained. “It’s the home world of the Majorans and it’s also where Leah—the client and friend I was telling you about—and her husband live. Drace and Lucian and I have been appointed by the Goddess Empress as Royal Delegates—we go and meet with important leaders and rulers on other planets and report back to her. We had just started on a new mission when I got sucked through a mirror and found myself naked on Gumpas’s ship.”
“Where did you get that dress and cape then?” I demanded. “All he gave me to wear was this awful hot pink mesh dress!” I gestured at myself with embarrassment.
Rylee laughed.
“Yeah, I don’t blame you for not wanting to wear that out in public. Here.” She took off her long red cape and gave it to me. “I got it from the Tangellans when they first dragged me in here—I told them I couldn’t help the Emperor unless I was well covered because being cold interfered with my La-ti-zal abilities.”
“Wow—you really know how to work them,” I said in admiration, as I wrapped the red cape around me. It clashed with the hot pink mesh of my dress horribly but I didn’t care—at least I was covered now.
“Yeah, but I’m running out of ideas and ways to put the Emperor off,” Rylee said, looking worried. “I kept stalling, telling him I couldn’t tell him what was wrong with him until another La-ti-zal arrived, but now you’re here and I don’t know what else I can say to him.”
“Well, we need to think of something,” I pointed out. “Or he’s going to have our damn heads cut off!”
“I know…I know…” Rylee shook her head. “I just don’t know anything about this planet. As far as I can tell, the Tangellans aren’t one of the Twelve Peoples. They just emigrated to our galaxy millennia ago and they mostly leave everyone alone and stay to themselves.”
“Well…I know at least a little bit about them,” I said. I told her about spending time with Vik’tor on the female side of the planet and how the males and females had split up centuries ago and nobody seemed to know why. “But there is a prophecy that two La-ti-zals are going to bring them back together—at least, that’s what the Rainbow Empress says,” I told Rylee. “And I think they will get back together because I saw it in a kind of dream. A vision, I mean.”
“Oh, is that the kind of La-ti-zal you are?” My cousin looked excited. “You’re a Visionary? Those are supposed to be so rare. There hasn’t been one in centuries!”
I shrugged.
“That’s what everyone keeps saying—that I’m a Visionary, I mean—but I never had any visions until I met Vik’tor. And so far, I can’t have a vision on my own—I need his…er, his help to have one.”
Rylee raised her eyebrows at me speculatively but to my relief, she didn’t ask how Vik’tor helped me have visions.
“Okay, so to be clear—there’s a prophecy that the Tangellan males and females will get back together and you’ve seen it happen in a vision?” she asked.
“Well, I saw the Emperor and the Empress getting together, anyway,” I said, cautiously. “I kind of assumed that the rest of their kingdoms would fall in line after that. But you’re forgetting, the prophecy about them getting re-Joined is from the female side of the planet. Over here on the male side, the Emperor is telling us the prophecy is that two La-ti-zals will tell him ‘his heart’s desire.’”
Rylee looked thoughtful.
“Maybe they’re the same prophecy.”
“What?” I shook my head. “How can that be?”
Rylee sat forward.
“Tell me every little detail of that vision you had. Maybe we can work something out …”
I hoped she was right, but I still had no idea how my cousin and I were going to get out of here with our heads still attached to our necks…
FORTY-SEVEN
VIK’TOR
When I woke up, Natalie was gone.
Golden light streaming through the tall windows of the palace bed chamber woke me and I groaned and rolled over, reached for her instinctively. Today I was supposed to take her home, which I fucking didn’t want to do. But her spot on the big, round bed was empty. Not only that it was cold—she’d been gone for some time.