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)
But I suspected it was quite something in the light.
Now, however, the din coming from the arena was growing ever louder and I had to quell my desire to look behind me, where Hera and Jasmine rode side by side with Serena’s lieutenants in order to catch my friends’ eyes and be fortified.
Theodora was riding at the rear with the trainees who would not be in parade. She would watch with them as we executed our exercises.
I told myself she would be fine in this land of an enemy who was not right then an enemy, but as an ally of Airen, they had been in the past, and it was understood they always would be.
I would also be fine.
My mother would be fine.
Melisse, Hera, Jasmine, Agnes, Lucinda, Julia and even Serena would be fine.
All my sisters would be fine.
We would get through this.
I would get through the reception after the parade.
And then I would face tomorrow…
Tomorrow.
As we drew ever closer to the arena, I noted that it was lit high up in the air by a long cauldron of fire that ran the length of the arched stands. This was held up by tall, tarred poles like those that made up the wall of the city. And this fire was screened at the back and top with polished steel, which directed the light of the fire down into the arena and on the field.
Clever, that, and a mammoth effort.
Though Firenz were known to enjoy a vast amount of spectator amusements. So many, I assumed, they wouldn’t want it restricted to daylight hours.
We started to meet intermittent vats of fire set on the sides of the road that aided the moon in lighting our way perhaps half a kilometer away from the coliseum.
And about a quarter of one, we were met with two Firenz guards wearing bladed leather kilts, crossed belts at their bare chests, double swords at their backs.
This was not alarming because these guards were expected. They were to meet us, guide us to the arena and then open the gates for us to enter when it was time.
And thus, they twirled their horses when they met us on but a dip of the chin to Mother and guided the way.
The clamor was almost ear-splitting as we rode into a lighted tunnel that ran under the stands, and I wondered what was happening on the field to cause that amount of cheering, when the guards stopped at some gates.
Therefore, our line stopped.
It was only then I spoke to my sister, and I did it loud enough for only her to hear through the clapping, shouting and what sounded like pounding of feet.
“She’s ill and she’s using her magic to silence you, which will tire her. We will soon be parted, me from you, me from her. I would hope, my sister of the blood, that in future, or what she has left of hers, with me gone, that you take far better care of her than this.”
I received a grunt in return.
An angry one.
But I didn’t look at her and said no more.
I kept my gaze glued on my mother’s back.
After a time, there seemed to be a quieting all around us.
Whatever they were viewing was over.
I watched my mother’s back get straighter.
Therefore, I shifted my hold on my reins slightly and I felt my blue roan, Diana, bunch her back flanks.
Then the Firenz guards shuffled to the side, the gates before us flew open, my mother shouted her high-pitched Nadirii cry, and she burst forward, as did the rest of us.
But once in the stadium, Serena and I rounded our mounts to the sides, and the phalanx of sisters rode past us in a blur of horseflesh, streaming cloaks of coral or purple and flowing long hair of all colors.
And from the sidelines I watched as they raced—five abreast, one hundred precise rows—on the field around the edges of the stands, the horses so close, the riders’ legs looked to be touching.
And the only sound I heard as the crowd was stunned silent at this sight (and perhaps sound) was the wail of the Nadirii cry rising into the night shouted by five hundred and nine Nadirii sisters.
With Mother at the lead, they’d rounded the entire stadium and past where Serena and I were waiting to go around one side of the oval of the coliseum again.
But at the front, where I could see a podium with no stands behind it, just a red, gold, and black striped awning over it and the roof of a large crimson tent beyond that (though I could see no one who was on that podium through the riders), the Sisterhood changed routes and cut their mounts down the middle of the field.
But when they arrived at the other side, they broke off, a row of five with coral cloaks going one way, a row of five with purple going the other.