Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
“I would do anything to bring you home again,” I whispered. “Now, could you loosen your grip? I can’t…breathe!”
He loosened his grip but didn’t let go of me entirely. His face was still filled with concern as he kept me in his arms.
“You need not worry, my Prince,” Stableforth said to him. “The Shadow Throne simply said, ‘Not Yet.”
“And then it told me I had to prove myself,” I told Liath. “Which I guess maybe I did? I’m not sure—but at least you’re free of your iron cell and we can go home.” I frowned. “If we can figure out where home is.”
“Home is here,” Stableforth asserted. He frowned. “Well, except the floors are wrong. Your Majesty,” he added, turning to me. “You were saying something about the Great Divide?”
“Oh, yes.” I nodded. “Well, I was trying to rip a portal in it just a while ago while Liath and I were…well, while we were together…” I could feel my cheeks getting hot but I made myself go on. “But when I pulled on it, it didn’t just feel like I was ripping it. It felt like…” I frowned. “Like I had pulled the whole thing down. Which I know, doesn’t make sense.”
“Actually, it might. If the prophesies are true…” Stableforth shook his head. “No, we cannot guess. We must verify. We need to go to the Throne room—that is the only place we’ll be able to tell for sure.”
“Tell what?” Liath growled. “I just want to get out of this fucking place and go home, Stableforth. I’ve been stuck in an iron cell for over a fucking week.”
“How horrid for you, my Prince!” Stableforth shuttered. “But if what I am thinking is correct, our home—the Winter Court—no longer exists. At least, not as we know it.”
“What?” Liath and I exclaimed at once.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Liath growled.
“As I said, we must go to the Throne Room to be sure,” Stableforth repeated stubbornly. “If your Majesty will not come with me, I must go alone.”
“Of course you’re not fucking going alone,” Liath exclaimed. “Come on—we’ll go together. Alira—”
“I know,” I said. “I’ll stay behind you—don’t worry.”
“Good. Come on.”
And the three of us made our way down the long hallway, to find out what had become of our home.
34
The Throne Room doors were open but no one was guarding them. We had seen several Seelie couriers and nobles on the way there—but we saw several Unseelie ones as well. They were wandering around as though lost—all of them disorientated by the sudden change that seemed to have happened. They didn’t bother us and we didn’t bother them—it was as though everyone was walking in a dream.
Liath stepped warily through the golden doors and I saw my cousins at once. The two of them were sitting on the stone steps of the dais where the throne sat. Asfaloth was rubbing his head, where the Sun crown sat askew and both of them were looking confused.
It was the Shining Throne itself which drew my eye, however. It had…changed.
No longer was it a low golden couch—it looked more like the Shadow Throne, I thought. That was, it had grown taller and narrower, though there was still room for two to sit. It wasn’t gold anymore either—neither was it black, like the Shadow Throne. It was silver but the cushion on it was blood red, like the one on the Shadow Throne.
There was another similarity as well—I saw a fist-sized diamond embedded on the back of it, at the crest, just where a ruler’s head might be if he or she sat directly in the middle of the throne. It was just where the deadly ruby had been in the Shadow Throne, I thought.
“I was right!” Stableforth exclaimed, stamping a hoof and surprising me so much I jumped. I had been studying the new throne, which I felt drawn to for some reason.
“Right about what?” Liath growled. He was keeping a wary eye on Asfaloth and Calista.
“Right in thinking that the two Realms of Fae have merged!” the centaur said. His eyes were wide with excitement and he gestured as he spoke. “Princess Alira has torn down the Great Divide, allowing the Winter Court and the Summer Court to become one again, as they have not been for a thousand years. Look!” He pointed at the throne. “The pictures in all the history books show that it looked just like that. The Throne of Worthiness and Merit, it was called. Or often just the Shining-Shadow.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, frowning. “How can you put the Shining Throne and the Shadow Throne back together?”
“What I really want to know is if this new throne—this Shining-Shadow—denies those who try to take it unlawfully in the same way the Shadow Throne did,” Liath rumbled. I was sure that Great Aunt Acosta’s gruesome death was uppermost in his mind as he asked.