Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
“Our kind must have helped,” Andarna tries again. “I can burn dark wielders. Are we the key to defeating them?”
“Hopeless.” The tallest male backs into the water. “Leothan, I have heard enough.”
The other male flares his nostrils. “I have not.”
“They can hear us through the bond,” I quickly sign to Xaden. “It’s not going well.”
He nods.
“Want to catch us up?” Garrick signs, studying the massive heads lowered in our direction.
“They think Andarna is a weapon, which is somehow a bad thing,” Ridoc signs. “They won’t come back to help us and pretty much think we all deserve to die because we can’t solve mankind’s oldest problem of how to stop killing each other.”
“Got it,” Xaden signs.
“And there’s no cure for venin,” Ridoc quickly continues, and it’s all I can do not to grab his hands to stop him from saying more. “Their souls die, so there goes our save-them-to-defeat-them idea.”
Fuck.
Xaden’s head snaps forward as Andarna’s talons flex in the sand.
“You are magic,” the female says, a note of sadness in her tone. “And yet all you seek to use it for is violence.”
“You preach peace while only having known its privilege,” Andarna hisses in retort. “You are all a disappointment to me.”
“In that, we find common ground,” the tallest male says.
What an ass.
Tairn growls, rumbling the sand and vibrating the trees, and Andarna’s scales ripple to the darkest black as she retreats to his right foreleg.
“We have a long flight ahead, and there is nothing to be gained here,” the male continues, retreating another step into the water. “The world was not ready for you, and though it is no fault of your own, we cannot accept you.”
I gasp and clutch Xaden’s hand.
“What’s happening?” Garrick signs.
Maybe it’s best they not hear this.
“Leothan may feel differently”—the tallest male glances at the other one—“but our majority has determined you are irid in scale and name only, Andarna. You will not be allowed entrance to our isle nor instruction in our ways. We part here and wish you peace.”
Peace? My grip tightens on Xaden’s hand.
“I wish I’d never met you,” Andarna growls.
The tallest male crouches in the water before launching into the air, his scales shimmering for a heartbeat before he becomes the sky itself.
“What just happened?” Xaden asks.
“I think we lost,” Ridoc whispers.
Andarna’s snout dips, and bone-splitting agony courses down the bond, but it’s the shame that hits in the second wave that pricks my eyes.
“Andarna, no,” I whisper. “You are fierce, and smart, and brave, and loyal. None of this is your fault. You’re perfect.”
“I am…not,” she snarls, whipping her head toward me.
“You did not know she was a juvenile when you bonded her?” Leothan asks, his golden gaze studying the four of us humans.
“I didn’t,” I answer out loud. “I should have, but the hatchlings and juveniles are kept hidden and safe within the Vale until after the Dreamless Sleep. Nobody had seen one for centuries, so we didn’t realize that they’re all golden feathertails until adolescence.”
“What is going—” Garrick twitches. “Fuck, that hurts!”
Xaden grimaces, lowering his head and squeezing his eyes shut.
I’m guessing they just got the slide-whistle treatment.
“The uniformity assures all hatchlings are cared for without deference to breed or den—” Leothan startles as Xaden looks up.
The female recoils, baring her dripping teeth. “How could you align yourselves with this?”
Weird way to say “bond,” but whatever.
“Again, I didn’t know she was a juvenile,” I argue. “Blame me, not her!”
“Abomination.” The female hurls the insult, her eyes narrowing.
On Xaden.
My head snaps in Xaden’s direction, and I gasp. The rims of his irises shine bright red.
“Your kind is beyond redemption.” The female glares at Sgaeyl, then disappears.
Leothan studies Xaden for a heartbeat longer, then fades, and waves rush in where they’d been standing. Wind from invisible wingbeats gusts against my face, and I squeeze my eyes shut as sand blows all over us, their presence slipping from my mind just like before. When I open them, Xaden’s eyes have returned to normal.
Or rather, his new normal. There are still spots of amber within their onyx depths.
“Fuck.” His tone could cut scale as his fingers slip out of mine.
“You’re not an abom—”
He slams his shields down, blocking me out.
Something heartbreakingly close to a whimper sounds to our right, and I look past Garrick to find Andarna retreating into the jungle, her scales shifting to gold.
“Andarna.” I start toward her, but she blocks me out, too.
“I’ve got her.” Tairn rises over us, and his tail takes out a tree to the left as he stalks into the jungle after her. “Teine and Molvic approach.”
“I can—”
“Only one of us is fireproof,” he reminds me, disappearing in the vegetation.
My fingernails dig into my palms. I’ve never felt so helpless.
“I’m guessing he’s why you’ve been so hung up on finding a cure.” Ridoc’s accusation hits me like a bucket of ice water, and I snap my gaze to his.