Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
I take the confession to my empty tent, and despite the uncertainty the next morning will bring, I sleep deeply.
Quin and I leave early the next morning. He swings himself into the saddle smoothly and adjusts the straps holding his cane across his back. He’s dressed simply, so as not to attract attention from the regent’s men. Princessa Liana catches us before we leave, speaking gravely. “Be careful. If this warding takes root, it threatens everything he’s built. He’ll strike back, hard, where it most hurts.”
“He has power yet cannot wield it for the people,” I mutter. “It must be taken from him.”
“Yes,” she agrees, and meets Quin’s sober gaze. “But you cannot go up against him alone. Father still has more power and people behind him. When this plague is under control, your men will reunite. Wait for us.”
“I’ve been the underdog too long. I know I can’t win alone.” Quin exhales slowly, jaw tense. “I will wait. For now.”
She watches us go, and we ride in silence, our path leading straight toward the black smoke curling thick over the capital. My legs tense around the horse the closer we get. The plague may no longer be a personal threat to me, since I’ve recovered from it—or to Quin, who is immune—but there is danger ahead.
Quin looks my way, something unreadable in his dark eyes. He exhales through his nose, shifts in his saddle. Then, his voice is quiet, certain. “I may have no army left. But I have you, Cael.”
I steer my horse closer to his, so close our knees nearly knock together. I murmur, the words quiet but resolute, “I won’t let you die.”
The smell of burning bodies chokes the air, thick and acrid, coating my throat until I heave up coughs. The dead have been dragged from the streets, their pyres rising into charred spectres beyond the city walls. The sound of tears is like a new birdcall—ever-present, ceaseless. I hear it until I don’t. Until the wailing becomes just as constant as the tolling of luminist bells.
I halt my horse abruptly close to home, to the Amuletos manor. A long line of people snakes down the street, disappearing around a far corner, all quietly standing with covers over their mouth and nose—
And Akilah is here too, handing out cloth to those yet uncovered, urging them to use it while they wait. The sight has my stomach clenching hard. She’s here, home, helping.
I croak, “Take me to the roof over the courtyard.”
I barely finish speaking before winds coil around us. Quin’s arm hooks around my waist, steady, unyielding. In a breath, we’re soaring, the streets blurring beneath us until we land on the rooftop above the courtyard. Below, Florentius is with my father, my mother and my brothers. All pricking patients and smearing paste on their arms.
My father—the man who always warned me to obey the laws, to never risk the lives of our family—is standing beside my mother and brothers, pressing his hand against another patient’s arm, his touch steady. He’s defying the law. He’s defying the luminists.
I exhale sharply, the reality hitting me with a soft shiver. He read my letter. He listened.
Quin’s arm presses me in closer, quiet comfort, steadying my shaking limbs. He doesn’t have to hear me speak to understand. He knows my feelings better than I do myself. He always has.
With gentle winds, he drops us to the courtyard and draws out his cane to follow as I lurch towards my family.
Mother throws her arms around me, gripping tight, as if she never wants to let go.
Florentius and Father look over. They too seem unsurprised, as if this moment is inevitable. Florentius points towards the table where bowls of my warding sit, and I gently steer my mother away with whispered promises to talk after. I move to take a bowl and wave a patient forward. I glance over at Florentius, holding an achy breath. He has magic, yet he is using my alchemic method.
Beside me, Quin murmurs he’ll bring in the supplies and our horses, and once he has, he helps me administer treatment. We’re wordless until the sun is high in the sky and luminist bells get closer and closer. Father stiffens, but he doesn’t stop his work.
When the premade warding runs low, I make more away from the eyes of patients, in the vitaliary room where I once hid all Grandfather’s books.
Florentius finds me there, measuring and stirring. I glance up and speak. “You—who are so elegant, who hates mess, who is exceptionally skilled at spells—you could have transposed this warding into magic. Instead, you’re smearing it into cut flesh.”
“You know why.”
I think I do. I know I do. It takes too much energy. A vitalian could save forty people in a day with spells. But with fingers and paste? Each healer will save hundreds.