Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
I tried to twist, to turn, vaguely hearing feet hit floor.
Coming in the window.
Not just him.
Others.
I opened and closed my mouth, fighting for breath and fighting to scream.
And I heard the loud, welcome clang of steel hitting steel.
Tril got help.
Oh, I loved my Tril.
The room filled with coral light, like a starburst, before it started fading, and the sounds of a swordfight renewed my strength.
And as another starburst filled the air, more sounds of steel clashing rang through it, I focused all my concentration on getting those hands from my neck, when suddenly, I felt a thrill up my spine.
One I didn’t call.
And the man straddling me grunted in surprise before he released me.
I drew in a much-needed, burning breath.
The man above me was lifting his hands in the front of him.
This right before they burst into flame.
I would have stared in shock.
But this was a scant second before his head left his shoulders.
Blood sprayed over me before the heavy weight of his headless body fell on me.
It was almost instantly shoved off, I had a hand wrenching my upper arm, pulling me up, and I heard Elena shouting, “Run, Silence, run!”
In another coral starburst, she let me go, but I stood frozen at all that was happening. Thus, I saw her engage with a man taller and larger than her, he was dressed in all black, a mask covered his head and face, all but his eyes, their swords slicing through the air, and connecting.
And another starburst showed Serena at the end of the bed, engaged with two men wearing black.
As well as Ophelia inside the door, seemingly holding four back.
Aramus rushed past Ophelia, a long saber in one hand, a curved blade that looked like a handheld sickle in the other. He arrived slashing with one and stabbing with the other at anything moving that wore black.
And the room was filled with men wearing black.
With more coming in the window.
The one Elena was fighting fell to the ground at my feet and she screamed, “Silence, run!” as she leaped on the bed, dashed across it, jumped off and engaged a villain on the other side.
It was then, True stormed in with broadsword swinging.
Which was when I turned to my dresser, yanked open the drawer, pulled out the dagger, and as Elena had done, I leaped on the bed (likely not as gracefully), nearly fell over running across it…
I then stabbed the man she was fighting in the shoulder, yanked it out, stabbed again and again, quickly.
He bellowed, turned, a beefy arm struck me, and I slammed into the headstead, cracking my skull against the wall.
Elena took that opportunity to gut him.
Another coral flash filled the room, and vaguely I realized how clever that was as I was temporarily blinded with it, just as anyone but the Nadirii surely were. It gave them a view of the room at the same time crippling their opponents, if momentarily, still effectively.
I saw in the waning flash the man Elena gutted slumping forward.
Another kill for the Nadirii.
Oh gods.
However, he did this as a man who’d just come through the window at Elena’s back began to raise his broadsword two-handed toward the ceiling.
I opened my mouth to scream a warning…
But an animal roar exploded through the room as the very air lit with the stars of a clear sky in midnight.
Cassius had entered the fray, fighting toward Elena.
But thank the gods, True was already there.
He caught the downward swing aimed at the Nadirii.
She whirled, and as True held the villain’s sword high with his own, she jerked her arm back and speared the rogue through the stomach, drawing up.
In that moment, I let out a screech as I was torn from the bed, an arm around my throat from the back, that arm dragging me rearward.
I lifted my dagger over my shoulder and brought it down, again experiencing the sickening feeling as it stabbed through the flesh of his shoulder.
He dropped me, and I was unprepared, so when my weight hit my ankles, they gave way and I fell to my knees.
Steel clashed.
Men and Nadirii grunted.
Coral flashed in the air.
The stars sparkled midnight as the edges of the room started to creep with trails of a peculiar green, like vines unfurling, and I was sure to be going mad as we were nowhere near water, but I could swear I heard waves crashing.
The man had me bent to me, and I dropped to a hand to evade him, stabbing him in his calf.
He howled, caught my hair, pulled me up, and I cried out again, this time in pain as he started dragging me toward a screened window just as the screen burst forth and another man wearing black surged through.
“Silence!” True shouted.
I did the only thing I could do.
I struck out at everything with my dagger, catching flesh, but not nearly enough.