Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 205594 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1028(@200wpm)___ 822(@250wpm)___ 685(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 205594 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1028(@200wpm)___ 822(@250wpm)___ 685(@300wpm)
I should be upset more. Panicking more. Instead, I just feel…tired. Drained. As if all the energy has left my body. This is confirmation of what I feared, isn’t it? I shoot a glance up at Nemeth, to see if he’s still pretending to deny it.
“It’s…true,” Nemeth confesses after a moment. His gaze is tortured as he looks down at me. “But it’s not the whole truth. Yes, I was sent to the tower with instructions to woo you. But I fell in love with you instead. That is very much the truth.”
I shake my head slowly and drink a bit more milk, though my stomach is starting to feel unpleasant. My head pounds. “That seems rather convenient, don’t you think?”
“It’s the truth.” He kicks his stool aside and drops to a crouch beside me, taking my cold hand in his. “Believe me, Candra. Think back to my actions. Of how we’ve worked together.”
Ajaxi makes a disgusted sound as Nemeth pleads with me. “Don’t debase yourself to a human, brother. Slap a collar on her and use her like the betrayer she is—”
Nemeth roars with fury, turning and rounding on Ajaxi. His wings spread and he flies toward him. The brothers crash into a wall nearby, knocking dishware to the ground and sending the servants scattering.
I jump to my feet—and nearly pass out. Darkness swims in front of my eyes, and I press a hand to my brow. Oh gods, why am I so tired and weak suddenly? I clutch at the table as the two men brawl, and as I step away, I see another set of stairs at the back of the room.
More stairs. Huh.
I wonder if I can find Ivornath on my own?
I stagger toward the stairs, dizzy. My steps feel heavy, and something feels vaguely wrong. I should stop, go back to the table and sit down until the dizziness passes, but we’ve waited so long to see Ivornath that I’m not about to stop now. Clutching the railing, I haul myself up the flight of stairs slowly, vaguely aware of the two Fellians brawling and shouting at each other. The stairs are new, the wood scent fresh, and splinters stick up from the railing, the wood so recent it hasn’t yet been worn down. This seems important, but I can’t get my mind to focus.
Something is definitely wrong.
In a haze, I stagger to the landing and then down a corridor lit with magic globes. There’s a pair of double doors at the end of the hallway and I push toward them. Dimly, I’m aware of them opening to let me into a room that smells sickly sweet, thick with incense and something foul. The edges of my vision are filling with black, and I know I don’t have much time. I fall to my knees and crawl toward the large curtained bed in the center of the room and pull back the hangings. Sure enough, a large form lies there in bed.
Lazy shite king. With a snarl, I grab the blankets and rip them off of his body. I lose my balance and tumble to the ground with the blankets, and as I do, the smell in the room grows stronger.
The smell of dead and dying things.
Gagging, I crawl to my knees and haul myself upright, using the bed to support myself. As I do, I stare down at Ivornath’s dead body. Maybe once he was a man in the prime of his life, but now he’s simply a desiccated corpse, his neck and chest marked with a dark, putrid rash. His mouth hangs open as if he screamed in his last moments, and his wings are shriveled underneath him.
Dead.
Long dead, probably from the plague. How…
“It’s a good thing you’re already poisoned, because now you have to die.”
The feminine voice is light and confident, familiar and yet strange. I turn and as the darkness envelops my gaze, I can just barely make out a face similar to my own, with green eyes and long, black hair and a haughty smile.
“M-Meryliese?” I manage before I collapse to the floor.
Chapter
Eighty-One
My vision is fading, my head foggy.
Meryliese. My sister. She’s alive…and she’s here in Darkfell.
Meryliese was supposed to be the one in the tower. Instead, she perished in a shipwreck and I was sent to her fate. I don’t understand. “H-how…you’re dead?”
She folds her hands at her waist and gives me a sly look. “Am I? I don’t feel dead.” She adjusts the cuff on one of her sleeves. “The shipwreck was a good story, wasn’t it? Such a tragic tale, too. All people on board died.” She clicks her tongue. “At least, all people that didn’t have a Fellian waiting to rescue them from the open water. I bet they never found my body.”
I stare. My eyes slide shut, and I have to struggle to force them open again. My limbs are cold, and I can’t feel my fingers. I reach for her, and she neatly sidesteps in a swirl of crimson silk.