Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55602 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55602 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
When I turn back, the farmer is hurrying towards the exit, my golden feather still in his pouch.
I hear a woman’s moan through the walls. Megaera.
Quin doesn’t even get the privilege of voicing the pain he’s suffering inside. I slam my eyes shut. I have barely any immortal bone left in my system.
With a hardened heart, I stride out of the cottage and return to the luminarium.
Olyn snatches my arm and pulls me into a corner. “The broth is all gone. We’ve won ourselves time, but there are still many infected.”
I have enough bone to save one more life.
The knot in my stomach tightens. Even if the ignisleaf and dragonfire moss come, Quin has made me promise to heal him last. What if waiting ruins his health to a degree he can’t be saved at all?
What if he never wakes up?
Panic ripples through me. The king must survive. He needs to stop his uncle and help his people.
“Give them more capsules,” I tell her. “Get the recovered to sing, dance, put on a play. Keep them entertained—”
I’m already racing back out, heart pounding with every jolting step. The sickly crowds from before have transformed. Wine jugs are being passed around. A few campfires have been lit. Someone plays a fiddle.
Tears stream down relieved faces. I halt at a shout that sails over the field, hailing the king. One by one, townspeople rise and cry their thanks towards the heavens that their king has protected them. Wave upon wave, they bow, rise, and bow again. Their sincere movement hustles up a breeze that gently flutters over my face. “Praise the runaway king. Our true king.”
My heart skips a beat. This is what he wanted—hope for his people.
But the price he’s paying . . .
“You’re their king,” I croak, staring towards the golden trees where we’d rested together. “But you’re also mine.”
I run.
He’s where I left him, lying serenely on a raised bed, surrounded by darkly oiled wood, gridded windows that stamp diamonds onto the floor next to him, a cold hearth. I dismiss the vespertine who was guarding him and when we’re alone, I move across the room to his bed, my footsteps creaking over the old floor. So loud in the night, in the quiet of his deep slumber.
I drop to my knees. “You must wake.”
I grab his hand and drag my fingers up to read his pulse. Weak, but fighting. “Please wake up. Please?”
He doesn’t so much as twitch.
“I’ll blame you for everything if you don’t.”
Still nothing.
I shout and storm out of the cottage, back to the one where Megaera is curled on a straw mat, clawing at air, at her throat, at the damp floor. Nail marks bite into the wood.
I curl my hands into fists, calm myself, and call up the last of the immortal bone. A ball of light glitters on my palm, bright in the darkness of the room. The pain on Megaera’s face is amplified, and I swiftly cast the cure, pushing it into her chest, her lungs—
Her first full breath is followed by a pained and sorrowful cry.
I keep the spell steady, slowing the push into her down. Her eyes are dark and mournful and she averts them. “Look at me,” I say.
With effort, she pulls her gaze back to mine.
“Do you know what’s saving you?” my voice is sharp and cutting.
Megaera glances at the stream of magic entering her and falters.
I continue on clenched teeth. “Someone risked everything for this immortal bone. Someone who deserves it more than you.”
As my words drop between us, she struggles to breathe, and I soften my spell a fraction.
“Immortal bone?” she says, her gaze flickering with understanding. This is precious; once-in-a-hundred-years precious.
“This would not only wake him,” I croak, “but cure him too. He would never suffer again.”
“Give—”
I laugh again, and it aches. The last of the spell enters her with a snap and I rock back unsteadily from the force of it, breathing hard. “He protects his people. That’s the kind of king he is.”
Our gazes hold, dark, heavy, pained.
I pull away first, and I don’t look back.
When I return, head slumped towards my chest, and drag myself over the threshold through creaky rooms to Quin, he looks too peaceful. Unmoving and elegant, and—
I lower myself to the side of the bed and glare down at his sharp nose, his jaw, his thick whitened hair. “I still blame you.”
I shift the blankets higher up his chest and my hand grazes over something hard. I pause and then pull at his shirt neck. The flutette.
I crush it in a tight grip.
It’s not a cure, but maybe . . . maybe if his body is suffering, this can offer some relief.
I press the mouthpiece against his lips but he can’t blow into the instrument, can’t make music. My gaze scrolls over his face. It’s like a marble statue, chiselled to perfection but lifeless.