Chapter no 41
CHAPTER 40 The mortal queens were a mixture of age, coloring, height, and temperament. The eldest of them, clad in an embroidered wool dress of deepest blue, was brown-skinned, her eyes sharp and cold, and unbent despite the heavy wrinkles carved into her face. The two who appeared middle-aged were opposites: one dark, one light; […]
Chapter no 40
CHAPTER 39 “Do you think you can decode it once we get the other half?” I said to Amren, lingering by the front door of her apartment the next afternoon. She owned the top floor of a three-story building, the sloped ceiling ending on either side in a massive window. One looked out on the […]
Chapter no 39
CHAPTER 38 Amren took the Book to wherever it was she lived in Velaris, leaving the five of us to eat. While Rhys told them of our visit to the Summer Court, I managed to scarf down breakfast before the exhaustion of staying up all night, unlocking those doors, and very nearly dying hit me. […]
Chapter no 38
CHAPTER 37 “NO!” Amren screamed, at the door in an instant, her fist a radiant forge as she slammed it into the lead—once, twice. And above—the rush and gargle of water tumbling downstairs, filling the chamber— No, no, no— I reached the door, sliding the box into the wide inside pocket of my leather jacket […]
Chapter no 37
CHAPTER 36 The following day was torture. Slow, unending, hot-as-hell torture. Feigning interest in the mainland as I walked with Tarquin, met his people, smiled at them, grew harder as the sun meandered across the sky, then finally began inching toward the sea. Liar, thief, deceiver—that’s what they’d call me soon. I hoped they’d know—that […]
Chapter no 36
CHAPTER 35 Two days passed. Every moment of it was a balancing act of truth and lies. Rhys saw to it that I was not invited to the meetings he and Amren held to distract my kind host, granting me time to scour the city for any hint of the Book. But not too eagerly; […]
Chapter no 35
CHAPTER 34 Mercifully, there was no sound from his closed bedroom. And no sounds came out of it during that night, when I jolted awake from a nightmare of being turned over a spit, and couldn’t remember where I was. Moonlight danced on the sea beyond my open windows, and there was silence—such silence. A […]
Chapter no 34
CHAPTER 33 We were given a suite of connecting rooms, all centered on a large, lavish lounge that was open to the sea and city below. My bedroom was appointed in seafoam and softest blue with pops of gold—like the gilded clamshell atop my pale wood dresser. I had just set it down when the […]
Chapter no 33
CHAPTER 32 In the end, only Amren and I joined Rhys, Cassian having failed to sway his High Lord, Azriel still off overseeing his network of spies and investigating the human realm, and Mor tasked with guarding Velaris. Rhys would winnow us directly into Adriata, the castle-city of the Summer Court—and there we would stay, […]
Chapter no 32
CHAPTER 31 “Don’t dance so much on your toes,” Cassian said to me four days later, as we spent the unusually warm afternoon in the sparring ring. “Feet planted, daggers up. Eyes on mine. If you were on a battlefield, you would have been dead with that maneuver.” Amren snorted, picking at her nails while […]