Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“I could never forget how—”
A knock comes at the door, stopping me mid-sentence. I look out our open bedroom to the front door and glare at it, as if whoever is on the other side will be able to see and run away.
“Stop looking like that.” Luna chuckles. “It must be important.”
“Not important enough to come here and interrupt us,” I grumble.
Two knocks this time, accompanied by a voice calling out, “Waliz Halun.”
“This had better be of the utmost importance!” I shout, and I’m sure it’s loud enough for the Hallan to hear me.
“It is, Waliz.”
It’s not only his answer, but the resigned tone of it that has me finally standing from my seat. I walk to the door and rip it open to find the same young Hallan from my ship’s High Deck standing before me.
“What is it?” I ask.
He swallows before answering. “Thori Nowas wants you to meet him at the palace immediately.”
“For?”
“I am … I am not at liberty to say. I was told to make sure you understood that you and Luna are to come at once.”
My brows furrow. “Why is Luna being summoned?”
“I am just delivering the message, Waliz.”
I nod and he rushes off. No use being mad at him for his lack of answers. If my father told him not to tell me why my presence is being requested, then he can’t disobey that any more than I could deny my father’s summoning of me.
“I’ll get ready,” I hear Luna say behind me.
I turn to face her. “I’m sorry that our time is being cut short.”
“Don’t be. And we can come right back here after.”
I pick up the crate beside the door that has our clothing in it, although I was secretly hoping we wouldn't need it during our stay, and bring it into our bedroom. Luna puts on a smock that ties around her neck while I put on my pelt. It feels like we take forever to get ready, but I think it’s just the dread filling me that makes it feel that way. The same dread I’d felt when my father kept avoiding telling me where my mother and sister were. That unknowing, the uncertainty, twists my insides until it feels like I’ll be sick.
“Hey,” Luna says and I look up at her from the end of the bed. She comes over to me, her soft, perfect hands cupping my face. “Whatever it is, it will be okay.”
I nod. “I know. I’m hoping it’s a message saying they’re coming or on their way home. I just hope all-out war hasn’t broken out on Earth, and if it has, that they aren’t in the middle of it.”
“Any woman in this family strikes me as ones who can take care of themselves.”
I smile at that. “That is very true. Come. Let us go and find out what’s going on, so we can come back here.”
We walk to the palace, but even with Luna’s hand in mine, with the children climbing on me and chasing us, my dread torments me. Something is wrong. I can feel it. The wrongness thrums through me with each step. Once we’re in the palace, we go up the staircase and into the room I’m sure my father will be waiting in. When we enter, my father’s back faces me. The second bad sign. There’s a heaviness in this room that I have never felt before. It seems to suffocate me as I try to get a single word out. I have to swallow to force it out.
“Father.”
I see his shoulders rise and fall with the deep breath he takes. Dread turns to fear. Then, he turns to face me, and fear turns to a deep, dark terror. A knowing terror. Tears run down my father’s face. I have never seen my father cry. Never.
“No, no, no,” I murmur, shaking my head. “Please, no.”
Luna’s hand tightens on mine, and I look over to see the same sadness that’s expanding inside me like a great void on her face. She knows it, too. Can feel it, too. I turn my head to look at my father again. My chin trembles with the question I must ask but don’t want to. I have never wanted to speak words less than the ones I know I must right now.
“My mother or my sister?” I ask.
The words feel like they are nothing more than ghosts of sounds leaving my mouth. But I know my father has heard me from the way his mouth tightens, as if he, too, does not want to speak the words he knows he has to. He closes his eyes, and more tears fall. I see Bothaki and Selina come into the room out the corner of my eye, but I cannot, will not, turn away from my father. Only he has the answers I need.