Total pages in book: 401
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
The smile froze.
“Yeah,” he drawled, a white-blond lock of hair slipping across his forehead as he dipped his chin. “I know you weren’t in the Solar this whole time.”
Damn it.
“How did you know?” I asked.
He lifted a shoulder.
I eyed him. The notam wasn’t that sensitive, but Delano had always been different. He seemed to recognize the notam even before I entered the Culling.
“So, what were you staring at?” he prodded, drawing me from my thoughts.
“I guess the Cliffs and the Dark Elms.”
His head tilted again. “The Dark Elms?”
“The forest.” I turned and gestured to the elms in the distance. “That’s what Ian called them.”
Delano strode forward, his features marked with curiosity. “Interesting. We’ve been calling them something similar.”
I arched a brow. “Because they look like the sun can’t penetrate them?”
“That, but mostly because they give off…weird vibes,” he remarked, staring at them. “Not necessarily bad, just…unwelcoming. Like they’re already occupied.”
A wave of surprise washed over me. “Can the wolven sense spirits?”
His brows shot up as he looked over at me. “We can sense the unnaturalness that accompanies them. Sometimes, we don’t always know that’s what we’re feeling.”
My eyes widened. I’d been half-joking when I asked that. My attention shifted back to the Dark Elms. Hadn’t Tawny once mentioned seeing a spirit in the—
Tawny.
My chest felt as if it were being split open as I thought about having to tell her what I’d done. How did one go about confessing they’d taken someone’s soul? Better yet, how did you tell your first true friend they would eventually sour and rot from within and become something monstrous without it?
Feeling Delano’s stare, I drew in a ragged breath. “Ian told me the forest was full of spirits too afraid to pass on and face judgment.”
“Really?” Delano tipped his head back. “He may have been on to something. That’s probably what we’ve been feeling.”
Well, now I had even more reasons never to go into them.
“Sometimes, I wonder if Ian was part Seer,” I said with a shake of my head. “He told me so many things that I believed were just fantastical stories that are now turning out to be true.”
“Maybe he was.” Delano angled his body toward me. “Leopold and Coralena were his parents, right?”
“Yes, but…” But what? I frowned. It felt like I was forgetting something, but nothing came to me. “That’s what I’ve been told. But I honestly don’t know for sure.”
“I wonder if Millicent knows.”
I pressed my lips together. She might. I could ask her. That was if I ever saw her again. Something quite…horrifying popped into my head then.
Eythos was my great-grandfather, which meant Kolis was my great-granduncle. And while I’d already known that, it was before I learned about the whole Sotoria thing.
My upper lip curled in disgust. Did Kolis realize that? Would it matter?
Probably not.
Ew.
Shaking those thoughts from my head, I glanced at Delano. He practically vibrated with curiosity.
“Did you happen to notice that it was snowing this morning?” he asked.
I blinked. “What? It was snowing?”
“Well, flurrying,” he replied. “But yeah.”
“It has never snowed here,” I murmured, frowning. “Was it even cold enough for it to snow?”
“I don’t think so,” Delano said. “But then again, it takes a lot for me to feel the cold.” He crossed his arms. “I guess it’s more of the whole destabilization thing.”
I sent him a curious look.
“Kieran filled us in.”
“Oh,” I murmured, wondering when that had happened. Had it been before Stonehill or more recently? It felt like there was so much I hadn’t been present for. “I guess it’s good that only the weather…” My lips pursed. “And the path of the sun has been affected.”
“Yes,” Delano said. “Only the path of the sun.”
The way he’d said that made me laugh. “I suppose I shouldn’t phrase it that way.”
His gaze slid to mine. “You know I’m dying to ask about her,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper.
“Seraphena?”
His eyes glimmered with interest. “Yes.”
“Go ahead and ask,” I said, welcoming the diversion.
“How was she?”
“She was…” I paused, struggling for an appropriate adjective. “Casteel would probably say temperamental. I would say blunt. And…” I trailed off again with a frown. “Okay. Maybe a little temperamental.”
Delano’s eyes widened.
“Toward Casteel,” I quickly added. “They had moments of…misunderstanding. But she was actually nice and not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“An…ethereal being in a flowing gown,” I answered after a moment. “But she was dressed like I am and had a mouth to rival a dockworker.”
Delano grinned at that. “She sounds…normal.”
“Surprisingly so,” I said. “She mentioned that she couldn’t linger in this realm for long without causing the notam to revert back to her.”
“I’m not surprised to hear that. I could feel it here,” he said, unfolding his arms and touching his chest. “Right next to yours.”
Curiosity rose. “Does it feel different? My notam and hers?”