Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Beasts don’t get names, so there is no name. Just a number—‘397739. Property of…’
Well. Things just got interesting.
Because it does not say ‘Eros.’ It says ‘Erotes 10-77-999.’
And in this same moment that I am reading this name in my head, I’m there, not here.
Somewhere high. Like a cliff. The wind is blowing hard against my naked back, pushing me forward as the purple sky surrounds me in a tumult of thick, gray clouds and thunder is sending out threats above my head.
Someone is yelling but I don’t understand the words. I just know that I am supposed to run.
“What is it?” Callistina asks, snapping me out of the vision, or memory, or whatever it was.
She’s still across the room and my first instinct is to lie to her. To save her from seeing this formal, legal announcement of her slave status to spare her feelings. But her flippant attitude about the whole thing has pissed me off, so I turn and hold it up. “Your ownership papers, my queen.”
She crosses the room and takes the card from my hand, studying it. “Hmm. That’s not your name.” She looks at me. “That’s not my name, either.”
I scoff. “So you’re just gonna be in denial? Is that how this is gonna go?”
“I’m simply making an accurate observation.”
“Is that not your face?” I point to her picture.
“It resembles me, but obviously it’s not me. It’s someone like me. Perhaps of the same bloodline as me. But this woman here”—she taps her clawed finger on the picture—“she lived thousands and thousands of years ago. And I didn’t.”
The fact that she says this with a straight face kinda blows my mind. I raise my eyebrows at her. “You do remember that we’re time traveling?”
“But I just got here.”
I rub both hands down my face in frustration. “OK. Listen. Fine. Be in denial. I don’t care.” Then I take my attention to the other thing that spilled out of the envelope. The thing I was looking for. The key to her fucking chains.
I face her and twirl my finger in the air. “Turn around.”
She obeys and lifts her hair up once again.
The lock is small and so is the working part of the key. Tiny, really. Very nice metalwork. But the handle of the key is long enough for my large hands to manage and a few seconds later, the lock releases. A few of the chains fall down her back, but it appears to be all one piece and needs to be disconnected at various links.
Callistina says nothing as I exhale and begin the process. There are larger links over her shoulders, which I disconnect first. But this doesn’t release anything, only gives me access to the collar. Once I disconnect that, I have access to the veil, and the veil gives me access to the crown.
But there’s still the matter of her ‘dress.’
“Here. Take these.”
Callistina holds out her hands, palms up, and I drop the crown, veil, and shoulder chains into them. “It’s not a very practical way to hold wealth,” she says as I work out how to address the rest of the chains. They really are all one piece and it’s kind of a puzzle. One good thing, I highly doubt that either of us will be able to put it back on.
“How so?” I ask, finding the connector that will release the bra portion of the silver fringe that sits on the highest part of her breasts. It releases one side only, so I need to step around to the other side to find the next one.
“Well, you just pulled off a string and gave it to the innkeeper. Couldn’t anyone just start pulling strings of godsmetal off me? Why bother with the dress and locking it onto my body?”
I huff a little. “Why don’t you try to pull a string off.”
She does try, but is unable. “Oh.” She chuckles a little. “I guess it’s stronger than it looks. Or… maybe you’re stronger than you look.”
I smile a little. “Or maybe I’m just a god and that’s the whole reason they call it godsmetal?”
“Or that,” she agrees, chuckling. “But then wouldn’t the innkeeper know you were a god and not a godling?”
“There are no gods in the Age of Fire. Well, I mean, there are. I am in one of the Sphere of Science and Glory buildings right this moment. Building One, to be exact. But I am but a baby in this time. The people of Glory Rome don’t yet know that the dream has been realized and the gods have been made. They won’t know until Parting Day.”
“How far away is that?”
I get the other side of the bra disconnected and start looking for the next piece of the puzzle, which is in the dip of her hipbones. I kneel down to get a better look at it. “About… fourteen years, I think? All third-generation gods were made in Breath Year. Which is three or four years ago, depending on what season we’re in now.”