Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
It looked like that because it was not ordinary blood. It was bloodhorn.
And I panicked. I just… stood there. I’m not even sure for how long. It felt like years. I didn’t know what to do. My mind could not process.
The moaning was the only reason I snapped out of it.
I knew that moan wasn’t coming from Callistina. It was the moan of a beast. My heart thumped so hard. And suddenly I was afraid. Because I knew it was Ire, and I knew when I was, and I knew that he was missing his wings, and I knew that a lot of this blood that was all around me was not just Callistina’s, but his too.
Time was doing funny things, all right. Because we had skipped through time. Not to some other ‘when,’ but the same ordered list of events that started with riding the pegásius on the road that led to Glory Rome.
Only going backwards.
I scanned the forest, found Ire struggling in the trees trying to get to his feet. He’s normally a silver gray, but his fur was the same color as Callistina’s at that moment. Blood red.
He was moving though. Trying his best to right himself, at least.
Callistina was not, so it was her I went to her, not him.
This was when everything about me felt… off.
I was wearing leather pants, brown boots, a knife sheathed at my belt, and a formidable crossbow across my back. Bolts were secured to the bandolier that crisscrossed my chest. Not only that, my wings were back. But when I looked to the side, they were not the bat wings I had in Savage Falls, but the feathered ones that I…
The memory of the wind rushing over my back threatened to overtake me in that moment. And I was way too fucked up with concern over what was happening in my present to get caught up in my past. So I pushed it all aside and just concentrated on helping Callistina.
I reached under her arms and lifted dead weight up off the rock. And for a moment I thought it was over. Except I knew it couldn’t be. I just spent days with her in the future on the road to Glory Rome and inside the city. We were just there.
And if this was true, and we were traveling backwards in time, then I could be certain that she was going to recover and we would take that journey together just like we had.
I picked her up in my arms and carried her through the forest until there was no sign of blood. Then I set her down on the ground and let out a breath.
I am not a magical god. I can’t really do much even if I had all the power that was given to me by birth, and I don’t. I can make people love each other or hate each other. That’s really all it boils down to. And though that is a very powerful thing to control, it’s not something that is helpful at all when the woman you’ve grown fond of is dying at your feet.
“She’s not dying.” I remember saying that to myself. “I know she doesn’t die.”
And that’s the only reason I didn’t give up, I think.
I knew the ending. I knew that whatever was happening right now, she was going to be OK. She was going to fall in love with Glory Rome, and sleep next to me in the inn, and ride behind me on top of the pegásius that was still struggling to get to his feet.
I could hear a little stream nearby, so I picked her up again, carried her over there, and then I walked into it and sat down in the cool, rushing water, and held her until all the blood was washed away.
I don’t know how long that took because I fell asleep. It could’ve been hours or it could’ve been days. The only think I knew was that when I woke up Ire was nearby, standing in a deep pool downstream, splashing and thrashing his hooves, trying to get himself clean.
There were deep, red scabs on his back where the wings used to be. But he was beginning to heal.
That’s when I checked Callistina and realized the top of her head was starting to scab over as well.
Maybe it was the water. Maybe the water wasn’t simply water.
Maybe none of this was what it first appeared to be.
But Ire was up and Callistina was not. I leaned down, putting my mouth right up to her neck. “Callistina. Can you hear me?”
She didn’t even moan. But when I pressed my lips to the skin just below her ear, I could feel the blood rushing towards her thumping heart.
Of course she wasn’t dead. I already knew this.
It’s just that looking at her like that made it really hard to accept the idea that she pulled through.