Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 121339 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121339 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
When she couldn’t take any more, she’d skulked off to the bath to twitch in peace. The shocking system had been slow to dissipate.
As the water cooled further and time trickled by, she thought about getting out. She should go back to training. Everything counted on her mastering the chalice magic. It was the only thing that would keep her alive in this court. She felt it. Hell, just today, she’d been given proof of it.
Before she’d fully decided, the soft light from the magical orbs positioned around the room dimmed as a figure loomed in the doorway. She sucked in a breath when she saw Tarian’s appearance.
Shadows pooled under his eyes, and his face was drawn with weariness. His wild hair had frizzed, a bit of it matted at the side of his head with blood. Blood splatter decorated his neck and had dripped down. His tunic lay open, and the white undershirt was stained crimson all down his front. It didn’t look like the blood had come from him. His pants were ripped, and his boots were gone. He leaned heavily against the doorframe.
“Hello, darling,” she teased. “Busy day at the office?”
His answering smile was slight, and he leaned his head against the frame as well. “I had a few meetings that didn’t go as planned. Then I had to track down that nutsack who nearly killed me last night and gruesomely claim my vengeance. The last required a lot of effort, and I wasn’t really in the mood, but I had to send a message, so…” He shrugged.
“You got it done?”
He held out his hands, indicating the blood.
“I would’ve rather gruesomely killed someone than what I was up to,” she murmured, then swished the water. “Want in, or do you have another life to expend by narrowly escaping an assassination attempt?”
“Another…life?”
“Yeah, like a cat. Nine lives?” She paused. “Do you have cats here?”
“Oh.” He pushed off the frame. “No, we don’t. We have something like it, but they feed on entrails. They aren’t as moody, but much more violent.” He looked down at himself and then at the water. “I should rinse off before I get in or I’ll get the water all gross.”
“We should drain it and put in more, anyway. It’s gotten cold.”
He shook his head as he ventured closer, his steps unsteady. He grabbed the edge of the copper tub, and slowly it began to heat, then faster. In a handful of moments, she had to hold up a hand and say, “Whoa, okay. That’s getting hot.”
He nodded quietly and began to strip as she called up the various magics in the human world that might be able to do something like that. There were fire elementals, of course. They could heat a body of water like this. Or just set her on fire, if they wanted to. A couple Ares magics could…
She let her thoughts drift as she noticed Tarian staring down at her, his bloodied shirt halfway off.
“What?” she asked.
“You look exhausted, you sound exhausted, yet your mind is forever whirring. How do you do it?”
“Oh. Well.” She dunked her head in the newly warm water. “I have a mind for information. If I wasn’t human, Eldric would recruit me for the scribe order.”
“You’d never pass.” He shrugged out of his pants and left them in a pile on the floor. “Your humor is too dry. You’d tell sarcastic jokes, and they’d think you were saying facts. You’d get accused of lying and eventually killed, since you can’t quit once you’re admitted. In the meantime, the whole place would be in disarray.”
“The whole place—have you seen Eldric’s mess of a library? There’s shit everywhere. He kept giving me looks when I stepped on discarded scrolls, but the floor was littered with them. It’s madness. I’m not super tidy, but that would drive me insane.”
“Yeah, he’s somewhat chaotic. It works for him, though. He’s one of the best. It’s why he moved into this kingdom.”
“The gods willed it.”
“Yes, they did.”
“To help you.”
“It seems so.”
She grunted. She had some things to say about that help, those gods, and this whole shitshow, but it was nothing new, and she was tired. There was no point in the anger.
“That’s about where I’m at, too,” he said at the basin in the corner. He filled it with water and started washing away the evidence of his day. “Just stay alive, get it done, and walk away.”
“Walk away? I thought you were going to offer your life for the betterment of the realm.”
“Yes. But walk away sounds much nicer.”
She had to agree there. Maybe she’d adopt the lingo.
He had a few gashes across his back and what looked like a stitched-up wound. A couple of those fights looked like they’d gotten too serious for comfort.
“The underbelly of this court doesn’t fight fair.” Red water ran down his toned muscles and taut skin. “They like to bring all their friends and attack in numbers. I’m wise to their antics, though.” He gave her a low-energy thumbs-up.