Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 152616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 610(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 610(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
So I walked on, the sōls drifting in the air above me as I followed the path I’d walked a thousand times. They’d be gone at the end of the Feasts, not returning until the days leading up to the next.
I kept my gaze on them, because the low hum of conversation wasn’t the only sound echoing out from the many different pathways and hidden-away nooks of the grand gardens. There were softer, sultrier gasps and thicker, deeper moans, a kind of song one didn’t normally hear while traveling the hedged walkways.
The Feasts were in full, decadent swing.
Dragging my teeth over my lower lip, I watched the sōls dip and rise as if they were joined in a dance until a soft peal of laughter drew my attention from them. A trio drifted out from one of the shadowy lanes. Two women and one man, and there was no telling if they were aristo or not, but there was a whole lot of skin on display. Bare arms and legs that played peekaboo with the pastel panels of skirts. The man’s shirt was left undone and open. Crimson ribbons fell from the women’s masks, and the man’s was a plain, shiny black.
I stepped aside, allowing the two women walking arm in arm with a man to pass by. One woman nodded in my direction. The other smiled.
“Good evening,” the man said, his head tilting as he eyed me. All I saw was the curve of his mouth tip up in approval as he eyed the lacy straps crisscrossing over my breasts and the gauzy material clinging to my hips.
“Would you care to join us?” he asked.
I bit on my lip, fighting a grin. “Thank you for the invitation, but it looks like you already have your hands full.”
One of the women giggled. “He does, but our hands?” She shared a glance with the dark-haired one. “Are not quite as full.”
Interest sparked as the man chuckled, leaning in to kiss the shorter woman on her cheek, the one who spoke. I opened my senses just a little. They . . . they were a couple. The three of them.
What a lucky man.
“I’m on the way to meet someone,” I lied. “But I wish you good Feasts.”
“What a shame,” the man murmured, bowing elaborately. “Happy Feasts.”
I murmured the same, hanging back as the trio moved farther down the path. Then I kept walking, this time following two sōls circling one another as my mind alternated between the vision, what Maven had shared, and Claude’s disappearance. My thoughts strayed, though, to him. It was kind of hard for them not to when I was in the gardens, and the breeze stirred up the scent of catmint.
Would Thorne return tomorrow? Then what? I would be his? But wasn’t I already—
“Stop,” I whispered, refusing to let that thought even finish. My stomach tumbled nonetheless as I shook my head.
The only thing that I needed to think about that concerned Thorne was telling him about having met before.
As I neared the wisteria trees, I stopped and looked up. Stars blanketed the sky. It was such a . . . a strange coincidence that all of this was happening at the same time.
Thorne’s sudden appearance, fulfilling a twelve-year-old premonition. My near-visceral reaction to him. His interest in me that he couldn’t explain and that I felt went beyond him not realizing we’d met before. My intuition stopping me from telling him. The Princess of Visalia and the Westlands’ Iron Knights making a move on Archwood. Learning that lowborn could descend from Hyhborn. Claude’s absence. The vision. Hymel. That smiling lord who resembled Lord Samriel. All of it happening at the same time, and I . . .
I didn’t believe in coincidences.
Or fate.
I lowered my gaze to the still lilac blossoms. A faint tingle danced at the nape of my neck and then between my shoulder blades. Like a slumbering giant, my intuition sparked.
Everything is related.
All of it.
A warning.
A reckoning.
A promise of what was to come—
Pools of blood. Rivers of it streaming between still limbs, seeping into gold veining. Bare arms with deep gouges. So many of them, their mouths gaping open in frozen, silent horror. Brocade and jewel-encrusted masks torn, strewn across the floor. Silver and sapphire drenched in blood. And this time there were screams. Screams of pain. Screams of death—
I jerked out of the vision just as the wisteria limbs began to shudder, swaying in the absence of any sort of breeze.
Breath catching, I took a step back. A shiver coursed down my spine as tiny bumps prickled my skin. Hair along the nape of my neck rose as an icy, unnatural energy built in the air. I looked up to see what looked like dark clouds gathering in the sky, blotting out the stars.
My muscles seized for a moment and then instinct kicked in, fueled by the heightened sense of intuition. I spun and took off, running faster than I ever had through the maze of pathways as the streams of moonlight faded and disappeared.