Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
We settled in, taking notes on her lecture, and then moved around to study the plants as she requested. Believe it or not, most of what she said I knew. The lamia would hardly take us to a village healer when we got ill. If she was to track down medicine without risk of attack, that left the forests, groves, and fields as her shopping ground. I learned what black cohosh was the week I got my first monthly bleed. How bittersweet to finally not be the clueless one in the room.
I rounded a bilberry tree, making note of the small differences that set it apart from a blueberry.
Flapping tipped my head up, alerting me to the arrival of Sirena’s bird. The little owl preened, fluffing out her beautiful feathers as if on display for an admiring audience.
“You are lovely.” I couldn’t help a smile when she hooted in response. “Shame you don’t keep better company.”
Tawny hopped on a lower branch, coming closer. She cooed a sweet sound to me, fluffing her feathers out again.
“How is it you’re allowed here? I don’t see anyone else with a pet riding their shoulders.” I snorted. “Must be another rule that doesn’t apply to her.”
Tawny flew down to a branch eye level with me and gently bumped my nose with her beak. If she spent her days in the imperial palace, she was likely used to compliments coming with treats and pets.
I looked around for Sirena. She was across the room—within two feet of Alexander as usual.
“Okay,” I whispered. “But this is just between you and me.” I reached out, running a finger through—
“Caaaah!”
Tawny flew at me. I whipped my arm up, snapping across my face. Vicious sharp pain lashed across my forearm. My cry bounced off the windows.
“Tawny? What are you doing to her?!”
I didn’t have a chance to reply to Sirena’s idiotic accusation. Screeches and cries assaulted my ears, heralding the berserk animal’s outrage. Screeches almost as loud as mine as she clawed my forehead, scalp, and ears.
“Galanis, get down!”
I heeded the unfamiliar voice, dropping flat to the floor. Just like that, the screeching stopped.
Thud.
Peering through my fingers, I squinted at a ripe bundle of green grapes. Sirena’s scream shattered my eardrums worse than the owl.
“You monster! What did you do?” She knocked Rodion aside rushing to me. Completely ignoring the person bleeding from multiple head wounds, Sirena cradled the grapes, her eyes welling with tears. “You killed her. She was just defending herself.” She kicked me in the side spinning around. “When I’m done with you, Sarris, you’ll wish I had dropped you from the highest peak into the deepest ocean.”
“It’s not dead,” he snapped, kicking his way out of the trees’ clutches. “I turned her into grapes, I can turn her back.”
“Do it. Now.”
“Love to. Once you get that insane animal in a cage.”
“She’s not insane. She’s never done that before. That Sisyphean did something to her and if you don’t turn her back now—”
“Enough,” Cassia barked. She shoved through the gathering crowd and came to me. A sharp hiss whispered through her teeth at the sight. Bad sign. “Rodion is right. You will take that owl outside before there’s any thought of changing it back. And it’s never to enter this classroom again.”
Sirena harrumphed. “I’m telling you, Tawny’s never done anything like this before. That twisted bitch provoked her. She’s had it out for me since the day she got here.”
I was in too much pain to shout back at that bald-faced lie. It felt like I groomed my hair with a comb of scimitars. A pool of blood grew beneath my head.
“Get it out. Now.”
Sirena stood up to go. Over Cassia’s shoulder—so quick I might’ve missed it—she winked at me.
That bird’s attack was no accident.
There’s my answer to if she intends to leave me alone. It would appear when Sirena Cirillo makes an enemy, she carves her revenge in blood.
Class was over for me.
Cassia had Ionna and Nitsa help me to the infirmary—a soothing place of brown limestone walls and two rows of soft beds resting beneath its own stained-glass windows. They cast a myriad of colors on me as my friends helped me onto a bed.
“I’ll look for Healer Helena.” Ionna ran out, calling her name.
“Don’t.” Nitsa stopped me reaching for the mirror on the bedside table. “Look after she heals you. Trust me.”
“Good idea,” I rasped. “I can’t believe she had that creature attack me. That bird went straight for my eyes, Nitsa. What kind of psychopath does this?”
“Sirena Cirillo is a special kind of psychopath with one mission: marry Alexander Damien and get rid of anyone who gets in her way.”
“I’m not in her way.”
Nitsa moved down to help me out of my boots. “Neither was Eliana Filo. She was a maid who worked in the imperial palace to save up some money for her family before she entered the academy. Alexander took up with her last summer. It was just a bit of fun for both of them. Eliana wasn’t looking to get serious at sixteen, and she had no delusion that the son of a councilman would promise forever to a maid.”