Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“What the hell,” I whispered to myself.
“Hell indeed,” a husky voice said from behind me.
The shiver that rolled up my spine was terrifying, and I froze.
“Why would you ever make yourself so vulnerable?” the voice asked. “That seems a stupid thing for a witch to do.”
THREE
Having only heard the voice once before, still, I knew who it was before I turned around. Nott, a nymph I met last fall when I went to confront Declan Grant, now a friend. She had been hunting fae at the time. She was as beautiful as I remembered, with her pale skin, emerald-green eyes, and jet-black hair.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Of course. We’ve met before. You’re Nott. You were—”
“No,” she rushed out, shaking her head. “I’m Thero, and I serve Soter, the protector.”
I squinted at her. “You look just like her.”
Her jaw clenched, her eyes narrowing as she held my gaze.
“Oh,” I whispered, seeing the pain on her face. “Forgive me. You’re wearing her aegis.”
Quick nod.
Nymphs often, for protection and intimidation, wore the faces of their fallen. It was a mask—or aegis, as they called the glamour. The reasons for this were twofold. First, to those who battled them, it looked like they were immortal. It made sense—how terrifying and disheartening must it be to think you’d triumphed, vanquished an enemy, merely to have them come back again and again. And second, if you appeared in the visage of someone known instead of a stranger, you would be listened to and not questioned.
“What happened?”
“Would you step inside a cloche and speak to me?”
She was inviting me into what my grandfather had called a slip—a pocket dimension. Normally that was a trap, but in this case, since she was a nymph and not something trying to kill me, it was simply a place to talk privately.
Once I followed her into the shadow, maybe three steps, I saw the edges of what she’d fashioned, making the space where we’d been a six-foot square. Strange to see people moving by, so close, and knowing the two of us were invisible to them.
“Tell me what happened,” I pressed her once she faced me.
“We know not,” she rasped. “When we found her…when we examined what was left…before the end, she was bled.”
“But she was a powerful warrior, wasn’t she?”
“Yes.”
There weren’t a lot of things that could capture, as well as torture, a nymph. A witch could do it, but not a mage, and not any race of fae. I really didn’t want to guess at what else could have ended her. I had to clear my throat because for a moment I was scared, and I didn’t want the new nymph to hear that. “When I spoke to her last, after she found the fae she was after, she told me she was looking for a warlock,” I told Thero. “Could he have hurt her?”
She shook her head. “I know whom you speak of. It wasn’t him. That abomination was found and ended, and she credited your words as aiding her search. She spoke well of you.”
“That was kind,” I murmured.
She stepped closer, and when she did, she allowed the facade to drop, so I saw the green of her eyes change to a deep topaz and her black hair run to chestnut brown. The freckles across her nose were a surprise, as was her deep tan.
“I like your real face better.”
“I show it to you now so there will be no lies between us.”
“Thank you.”
“We found her at the site where the rift was in pieces. Not the one on Corvus, of course, but at the smaller tear by the river.”
I nodded.
“Whatever was asked of her, we can only assume she finally answered based on what happened to her.”
“And you have no idea who or what could have done that?”
She shook her head.
“I’m so sorry you lost her,” I said sincerely, and then the other part of what she told me sank in. “Wait, did you say where the rift was, past tense?”
“Yes, and that’s why I’m here. My lord bade me to give you the news that the small rift is no more.”
“What do you mean no more? That’s not possible.”
“I swear to you, I speak the truth.”
My body reacted before my brain even processed her words, and I shivered hard in response. “No,” I barely managed to get out.
Minute tears, not like the one on Corvus that an entire group of beings could move through at once, but an opening that would allow only one through at a time, could, in extraordinary circumstances, be sealed. But the only way it happened was when something or someone came through that was so powerful, it scorched and sealed the rip when it entered the new world.
“Yes,” she insisted.
“No, I believe you,” I made clear. “I’m just wondering what could have done that.”