Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 147891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
On the floor is Della’s crumpled body with sticky, dark blood surrounding her. She lies sideways, eyes wide open, and my stomach twists into a painful, unrelenting knot.
“He killed her?” Juniper gasps. “That monster! How could he?”
“It was bound to happen to one of us,” Maeve murmurs, and despite how strong her words are, I don’t miss the way her eyes well with tears. She lowers to a squat and reaches forward, running two fingers over Della’s eyes to close them. She saunters across the room, grabbing a quilted black blanket from the leather sofa. “We will give her a proper sendoff when we return.” Maeve stands again, facing us all. “Let’s go save our Caspian and make sure that monster never hurts us again.”
Chapter 58
WILLOW
Of course, we don’t leave the castle without stopping by the armory first. Killian and Rowan dress in bulletproof vests and retrieve three guns each, while Juniper and Maeve do the same. I’m pretty sure the vests are useless, considering we’re going up against a soul sucking Tethered Mythic, but I dress in one anyway.
Maeve marches across the room and slams a fist on a lone black door. The door falls open, revealing gray cases lined neatly in black foam. She unzips one, and inside are golden bullets with stark white tips.
“If we’re to go into the Rukane Forest, we cannot do so without ash from Luxor Mountains,” she declares. “They’re the only thing that can stop those wretched shadows, and these weapons are filled with them.”
Killian walks up to her, opening one of the other cases to reveal daggers. He takes two for himself, and Rowan and Juniper follow his lead before venturing to the bullets and loading their guns.
“Here.” Maeve places one of the daggers in my hand.
“These weapons won’t kill Decius,” I tell her as they all grab last minute things like grenades and round silver discs with blades on the end. I’m not sure what the discs are, but when Rowan switches one of them on and a red light flashes in the center, I figure they must be equally as lethal as the grenades.
“Hassha said only wood from a Trench tree can kill him,” I go on. “She gave Caz wooden bullets.”
“Hassha?” Maeve’s eyes widen as she stops everything she’s doing to pin her focus on me. Her green eyes are bold beneath the blinding light of the armory. “Where did you see her?”
“I was with her on an island called Kessel. Me and Caz were.”
Maeve continues staring at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “She still lives,” she murmurs. “And she’s allowing this bloody Mournwrath creature to go around killing people? How could she? We believed in her. I believed in her.”
Her voice cracks, and I’m not sure what to say to her. I know that Hassha hasn’t gone after Decius because it wasn’t her creation, and because Decius could never harm her or the people she loves. Kessel is a quiet place that goes undisturbed, and I’m certain Hassha has worked hard to keep it that way, but ever since my and Caz’s visit, I believe all of that has changed.
Regardless, if I tell Maeve that Hassha has been in hiding for hundreds of thousands of years and that she has, in fact, been avoiding Decius and the commoners to protect her peace, it might further upset her. I can’t say I blame Hassha, really. She has a family, and the women of Kessel rely on her to thrive.
I try coming up with a viable answer for Maeve because it seems she genuinely wants an answer, but I have none, and I’m relieved when Killian speaks up.
“We can talk about Hassha and all that bloody Regal stuff later. If we don’t get after Caz, we’ll never get the answers we need.”
I press my lips as Maeve shifts her gaze to Killian, then she shakes her head furiously, picking up a thick handgun with a silver handle and tucking it into the sheath attached to her hip. “Our bullets aren’t for Decius. They’re for the creatures who’ll come before we reach Decius.”
When we step outside, Silvera is already sitting by the door, waiting. She stands at my side as everyone else walks past, going toward an inclining hill. I can see the forest they’re heading toward from here, the tips of the pointed trees buried beneath thick clouds. The trees seem to run infinitely, and I shudder at the thought. Still, I follow along, hiking up the hill. The ground shifts from grass to gravel the closer we get, and Killian cocks one of his guns as we approach the steel barricade Maeve mentioned. It’s a silver wall that goes higher than I can see. There are no doors to be found; however, Killian takes a step ahead and jabs at a spot on the barricade. Red lights emit in the shape of symbols, and he taps in the code, then the lights blink white followed by a clunking noise. A rectangular gap appears, spreading just enough for a single person to walk through. The other side is so very dark, as if the leaves are bunched together, refusing to allow any light. My heart beats faster, but I swallow some courage because I have to go with them. I have to do this for Caz.