Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
“Now Lilith has several Dragonseekers right here, all together,” Benedek said. “Clearly Skyler is a child of the earth, as well. Who else would be considered a child of the earth?”
“Tatijana and Branislava are,” Ivory said. “Razvan is.”
Benedek turned his attention to Afanasiv. “There are five Dragonseekers in this room together, Siv. Four of the five have admitted to being children of the earth mother. Are you?”
Afanasiv sighed and nodded his head. “Sadly, I must answer in the affirmative.”
There was a stunned silence. His brethren exchanged a puzzled look. Vasilisa managed to pull her hand away from his. He hadn’t told her. She had been so certain he tracked and read the ground so easily through his connection to her, but he had his own connection. He didn’t need her at all. She’d never felt so distant or off center in her life. She thought they were so well suited, but suddenly everything she thought she knew about him was wrong.
She folded her hands carefully in her lap and tried to make herself as small as possible. She didn’t need anyone noticing her. If she wasn’t sitting next to him, she would have been able to disappear. She was good at it, blending in with her surroundings until she faded away and everyone forgot she’d been present in the first place. She wanted time alone to think about what had been said and what it all meant.
“Why sadly?” Skyler asked. “It is a great honor to be given such a gift.”
Afanasiv inclined his head. “Yes, it is an honor, and one I felt I didn’t deserve. I did manage to escape, but there was no skin on my bones, and I am not altogether certain I was entirely sane. Lilith was furious that she didn’t get the child she wanted. She punished me by making me watch over and over the tortures my mother went through while I was being tortured. I could take the physical torture, but strangely, when I shouldn’t have been able to feel anything, it was the mental torture that got to me.”
“Why do you persist in blaming yourself for not upholding your honor?”
“Where was the honor in what I did?” Afanasiv asked. “Was it honorable to trade deceit for the life of my mother? Was it honorable to deceive Lilith simply because she is an enemy? Was it honorable to return and spend the entire time deceiving her and plotting my escape?”
“Afanasiv, do you think it would have been better to allow her to torture your mother and then your father to death in front of you?” Ivory asked. “I think you ask too much of yourself. Clearly you have a personal code of honor. All of your brethren have one. The Dragonseekers have one.”
“That is true,” Afanasiv agreed. “There is honesty included in that code.”
Skyler smiled at Afanasiv as she leaned toward him. “But then you were strictly honest, weren’t you? You and your father went over the contract very carefully before you signed it. Lilith wrote it up. She’s the one who was dishonest, deliberately deviating from it in order to try to persuade you to give her what she wanted. You stuck to the exact wording of the contract. There was no dishonesty.”
“I had no intentions of ever giving her what she wanted,” he pointed out.
“You couldn’t give her what she wanted,” Dimitri said. “Your father knew that and so did you. Lilith wrote out a contract, and you negotiated until you were able to put in writing something that would work for you. During that time, your mother was being hideously tortured. Lilith wasn’t being fair even then. She deliberately did her best to distract you. She was the one without honor. If you ask me, Siv, you were down there so long and she tortured you so much that you became disoriented and started questioning yourself and your integrity because she was questioning it.”
Afanasiv rubbed his temples again. Vasilisa could feel pain pounding through his head. It manifested itself in a strange rhythm, a knocking, as if someone were trying to invade his mind, but his shields were too strong to allow them in. Still, they persisted, trying to wear him down. Had they been alone, she might have tried to help him, but not in a roomful of people she didn’t know. Not when she felt too shocked and numb to be able to sort through everything she had heard.
After the blow of knowing her aunt had betrayed them and knowing many of the people they had spent their lives helping were turning on them, this felt like one too many hits. Vasilisa wanted to be alone. As soon as she could, she was going to excuse herself, go back to the palace and lock herself in her room for a long time. First, she would let her wolf run so she would be numb and exhausted.