Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Lewis’s works were cut short when he was found dead of a gunshot wound at thirty-eight. His death was ruled foul play, though his killers were never brought to justice.
“Fuck, Aria,” Pax breathed, and I could feel the way his heart ravaged.
I knew exactly what he was thinking.
Exactly what he was adding up, just like me.
Three Laven. Three artists who couldn’t keep Tearsith from bleeding from their fingers. Two dubious deaths . . .
“He was married to Maria,” I muttered as I tried to swallow around the lump in my throat. I looked at Pax, and he gave me a knowing nod.
The two of us in tune.
Barely able to breathe, I dialed the number Maria had left us and put it on speakerphone.
A crack ran down the middle of my heart, thinking of her loss, terrified but unable to stop my mind from spinning through a thousand assumptions.
I would be next.
It rang three times, and my eyes dropped closed in disappointment; then they flew back open when she answered, her voice wary, “Hello?”
“Maria?” I rasped.
Caution filled her tone. “Yes?”
My throat was raw. “My name is Aria. I was in the library a couple days ago.”
Silence pounded through the line before there was shuffling around, then the sound of a door clicking shut. “You were with another?”
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“Laven,” she whispered.
My heart seized. I couldn’t believe I was talking with someone who knew what we were. “I researched your husband. I’m so sorry.”
Sorrow infiltrated her voice. “He was my ultimate gift and my greatest loss.”
“You knew what he was?”
She scoffed a soft sound. “We grew up together. Went to the same school. Knew my whole life he was different. That there was something special about him. He was the shiest, brightest person I’d ever met. He did his best to stay away from me, trying to hide what he was, but I was drawn to him. And soon, there were no secrets between us.”
She hesitated before she continued, “At first, I was terrified to believe him, but I think I’d always known there was a piece of him that wasn’t a part of this place. There was too much of him to be contained by this simple world. Plus, I saw the scars. Held him when he woke up with them.”
My chest clutched, heavy with emotion. Pax placed his hand on my thigh. Warmth streaked through my body.
“He was an artist,” I murmured.
“A brilliant artist. He’d told me he felt compelled to paint. As if he couldn’t keep the images from the places he went while he was asleep contained.”
I guess it’d been the same for me. Why I’d been unable to heed the warnings I’d been given to never speak of it. How I’d shared with my parents, as if the beauty of our sanctuary had to find its way out through me. How I could never keep it from my drawings.
“He was killed?” I hated that I phrased it as a question when I already knew the answer. But I didn’t know a better way to broach the topic.
Hatred and horror surged through the line, and her voice thinned to dismay. “It was hunting him.”
“What was hunting him?” I almost begged it.
“He called it a Ghorl. Stronger than the ones he fought in the night. It wanted him dead.”
Terror fisted in my stomach, and I could feel the apprehension roll through Pax.
There’d been more of them.
“Why?” I asked, scared to give it voice but needing her to give me the confirmation.
“Because he was different from the others. He could do the same work while awake that he could do while asleep, not that I could ever pretend to understand what that really meant. I just knew it made him significant. Special, the way I’d always known he was.”
Oxygen wheezed in and out of my lungs.
“A Valient,” she murmured in awe.
Surprise froze me for a beat before I whispered, “A Valient?”
Her voice dropped. “One with great power gifted by Valeen.”
Gasping, I sat forward. “How do you know this?”
“That new power manifested in him a couple months after he turned thirty-eight. It was just . . . there one day. An urge he had to reach out and help people. But as soon as he did, horrible things began to happen. Mugged outside his shop. A drunk driver hitting him in a crosswalk. Attacked at every turn. And he could hear it . . . feel that the Ghorl was after him. He sought the knowledge of Valeen, was on his knees both awake and while asleep, seeking an answer. It was whispered upon his soul that he was a Valient—the greatest of Laven and the only ones who possessed the power to extinguish a Ghorl.”
She paused, and I could feel the rush of her pain, her words choked. “He was killed before he was able to destroy the Ghorl. I was devastated, but I also couldn’t sit idle in it. Over the years, I’ve researched everything I possibly could. Read books and articles and letters. There was little to be found, but I believe I discovered mention of several others.”