Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
“We should be away,” he said. “Please tell the others to prepare to go.”
“We have naught but the clothes on our backs, Tedrey,” Moira pointed out. “We do not need to prepare.”
“Teddy,” he corrected.
“Pardon?”
He glanced at the “tome” he wrote on the wall before he looked back to Moira.
“My friends call me Teddy,” he told her.
Her lips quirked and then she said, “Shake a leg…Teddy.”
He smiled at her before he turned back to the wall, carved in a hasty “Teddy,” and then he gathered his women.
After scanning the area outside with some intensity, they left the stables and Teddy took the lead.
But as they moved out, Moira fell in step at his side.
“I am sorry to hear your mother met with an accident that took her from you,” he murmured.
“Good and right,” she mumbled in return.
“Pardon?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she replied, but then wrapped her fingers around his and walked much closer to his side.
Teddy felt the warmth of her hand, but also so much more through her touch.
Thus, he felt his head was positioned higher as he led them through the trees in the direction of Notting Thicket.
He also curled his fingers around hers.
And they were away.
128
The Ink
Queen Elena
Northeast Border
THE ENCHANTMENTS
I stood in the sun and stared at the open rift in the veil that we had not yet mended since it was rendered yesterday.
It would be mended that night.
I saw the new day was gray again in Airen, and threatened rain.
I also saw the contingent of warriors guarding the fissure.
Not their side and our side.
Mingled.
Nadirii warriors in their battle tunics and leg casings and Airenzian soldiers in their black leather.
And last, I felt his approach.
Only when he stopped to stand at my side did I turn my head to look up at him.
“True,” I greeted.
“Ellie,” he replied.
We stared into each other’s eyes.
I suddenly knew not what to say, and I blamed this on the fact that the last time True and I stood under the sun in The Enchantments, we were in love and hoping against all the odds that we would find some way to live our love in a world where that wasn’t possible.
Not much time had passed, but much had happened in it.
I was still in love, as was he.
But not with each other.
True broke our silence, whispering, “I would take you in my arms, your losses this grave, this fresh, to assure you of my friendship and support, and yet I feel I cannot.”
“And now you know how I felt when you lost your mother.”
He turned his body to me, lifting his hand to run his knuckles along my cheek.
“True,” I whispered.
And then I was in his arms.
We held each other tight and it was again True who spoke first.
“Ophelia will be missed.”
“Mercy will be missed.”
“Jasmine was…well, Jasmine.”
A bubble of laughter surged up my throat and out my mouth, and I took my cheek from his shoulder to tip my head back and catch his gaze.
“She was Jasmine,” I agreed.
There was humor in his eyes, but it ebbed away before he said, “Tonight, during the ceremony, when it is released from its bounds down here, her spirit will restrengthen the veil that protects her sisters and she would be glad of that.”
“I…I…”
I could not believe I was about to say what I was about to say.
But in that moment, the concept of the “us and them” that had been so long was extinguished now, as our soldiers stood intermingled after two days of battle side by side.
As my heart was owned by their future king.
And his heart was owned by my sisters’ queen.
And for more reasons than the warmth and friendship I needed that I felt from his arms about me, I also needed True, the King of Wodell.
A man whose instincts and integrity I admired.
“I am thinking of not closing the rift…but creating two more.”
True stared down at me.
I continued, “Another to the west, to Wodell. And another to the south, to Firenze. And perhaps, if they find their ways to heal the wounds they have thoughtlessly rendered in their handling of The Rising, also a third to the north. To Go’Doan.”
“Elena,” True murmured, openly astonished.
“We cannot…we cannot…” I shook my head. “We cannot call on other peoples to change, to grow in hearts and minds, to accept each other, to accept us, without building our own bridges. Or in our case, breaking down barriers in order to create gates that can be closed, but they can be opened as well.”
“This would speak a profound message, but I am not certain how it would be received by your sisters,” True remarked.
“I would not keep them open for anyone to come in at will,” I told him, the plan taking shape as I spoke of it. “At least not in the beginning. We could create a sort of system. Documents required for entry. Petitions made where we will know the travelers’ reason for being here, and either grant it, or deny it. We could vet them. We could establish some kind of communication with Airen, Wodell, Firenze. Assess if someone has some kind of unsavory history with your constabulary or…something.”