Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
My sister quirked a grin at me.
Always up for a fight, my Serena.
“Serena—” I began.
“The Dragon’s Breath are going to train me in the Arts,” she stated.
I glanced at the four remaining Mystics, their faction known as the Dragon’s Breath, all of them standing at the railing of the ship, gazing transcendentally down at us, and this did not make me feel any better.
I looked back at my sister. “You know it takes great amounts of spiritualism to advance in the Arts.”
“I’m spiritual,” she completely lied.
“When was the last time you meditated?”
She searched the sky with her eyeballs.
I burst out laughing.
I stopped of a sudden when she tugged me violently in her arms.
“I will return,” she said fiercely in my ear. “I will want my sons and daughters to meet their cousins.”
And then she let me go, turned so quickly, her cloak whipped my body, and she made her way up the gangplank.
Chu came to stand in front of me.
“I’ll be assassinating a king if anything happens to her,” I decreed.
He shot me an audacious grin, bent in, touched my cheek with his lips then looked beyond me and jerked up his chin.
And then he was off up the gangplank.
Two arms circled me about my chest from behind.
“Are we going to stand here until we can’t see them in the horizon?” Cassius asked over my head.
“Yes,” I answered.
He chuckled.
The captain called out to push away.
He was a man I’d met whose name was Magnus, and who I knew was a lunatic, for he’d taken on this endeavor of delivering my sister and the man she loved to a place that, according to the Dragon’s Breath, wasn’t altogether stable.
As men rushed about the deck and the sails unfurled, Serena and Chu came to the railing.
And Gal and Brix walked down the pier as the galleon caught wind and started to make its way to the sea.
“You’ll wish you had taken us with you!” Brix shouted irately.
“Go home! Find women! Make many daughters!” Serena shouted back. “And name them all Serena!”
I shook my head, smiling, and closing my eyes.
I swiftly opened them so I would not lose sight of her too soon.
“Be smart!” Gal yelled. “Send word if you need us!”
“Yes!” Cassius boomed from behind me. “Send word if you need us!”
The ship had cleared the pier and was sailing away, but I did not think that was why my sister made no reply other than to lift her arm and wave at us.
I watched and watched, and she did not leave that railing.
And Chu did not leave her side.
Gal and Brix left the end of the pier to come and stand with Cass and me.
“She is a powerful witch and a mighty warrior,” Cass reminded me when the great galleon was naught but a dot on the horizon.
“She’s a pain in the arse,” Brix groused.
I burst out laughing.
I did it because that was funny (and true).
I also did it so I would not start crying.
King Mars
THE DEEP
It wasn’t the swimming.
Mars was Firenz.
Water was revered in Firenze.
If they could, and they were not nomad, everyone in Firenze had at least a small pool in which to frolic and bathe.
And even the nomads sought water, and not just to drink.
It was also not that they were in The Deep.
Silence had tight hold on his hand, and he would admit, it seemed odd his lungs still worked the longer they were under and the deeper they went.
It was not even the amount of merfolk who swam after them.
He was glad to know they were a people of plenty, for his wife, as well as for all lands to know their goodness when they had a mind to journey to them.
And it wasn’t the schools of fish and pods of dolphins that accompanied them as they swam behind Jorie, who held Elena by one hand, Cassius by the other. True and Farah were attached to another mermale. Aramus had his Ha-lah.
No, it was when the stingrays joined their party and waved about them. And the bloody enormous whales arrived and undulated at their sides, filling the depths with their ethereal song.
Not to mention the damned sharks.
Though, as they approached the glowing-blue cave, Silence had warned him about the angmostros, thank the gods.
Jorie, Cassius and Elena entered first.
Silence took him in next.
Aramus and Ha-Lah followed and True and Farah were escorted in after.
And he found his wife was right.
The water in that tunnel glowed blue as well, and with it came a heartening feeling of goodness and light.
Not too far into it, the tunnel led them up and they broke the surface to breathe air.
The Mer who were escorting True and Farah retreated.
Mars’s feet found sand and he held his wife close as her fin turned to legs.
The wet dripping from him, his eyes took in everything.