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)
“Are you constantly battling when you’re here?” she asked as he finished up, leaving water all over the floor. She frowned at it, but it wasn’t her bathroom, so she didn’t say anything.
“It’ll dry,” he said, answering her anyway. “I couldn’t be bothered to sop it up. Lean forward. I’ll get in behind you.”
A wave of heat and butterflies rolled through her body, but the feeling subsided as her body twitched with a dart of lightning.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked as he slid his long legs on either side of her in the large bathtub. “Fuck, this is hot.”
She didn’t bother answering with words, but instead mentally replayed her afternoon and into the early evening.
“Hmm.” He sighed and leaned back, pulling her in tighter against him. “Seems like it hurts.”
“Yes, thank you. It does. Nice choice in contraptions to train me.”
“You’ll get it. The learning curve is only steep if you’re a dum-dum, and Eldric doesn’t think you are. High praise coming from someone who thinks humans spend most of their time drooling because they forget to shut their mouths.”
She shook with silent laughter. He laughed as well.
“No, I don’t spend all my time here fighting. Usually, it is more politics and an occasional assassination. And hiding from Princess Elamorna. This time is different. The king is trying to settle things in preparation for going over the fringe, and I’m having to pry information out of certain individuals who won’t be missed. I need to know what the king is planning without his knowing that I know. He will try to use me and then destroy me, I’ve learned, which I’ve always suspected. I need to do the opposite. Things are progressing quickly, and I’m running out of time. Hence the long, blood-soaked days. Not to mention this court is badly twisted. Worse, even, than when I left. I’ve never seen a group of fae so badly off. It’s dangerous to all of Faerie. The Celestials have a lot to answer for.”
“I thought it was the gods.”
He pulled her hair from around her neck and bent forward to kiss her jaw. “My brother didn’t have the power to kill me on his own. He made a deal with King Valanor—the king of this court—that the Celestials would turn a blind eye to what was going on here if the king helped set a trap for me. The king went for it, and my brother delivered the deadly strike. If not for the gods, I would’ve died. The rest, you know.”
“Then the king was cool with your just taking up residence in his court even though he helped trap and nearly kill you?”
“Why wouldn’t he? He has the Ancestral Sevens Celestial at his beck and call. He has a Celestial trapped in his court and forced to use his style of magic. He knows how much that rankles one of my kind. We represent the balance. The turning points of light and dark. To be forced to use, solely, his shadowy power…”
She was glad he couldn’t see her crooked grin. The Celestials had their fair share of arrogance, she’d say that much.
“Maybe try harder on that mind-shield device,” he said grumpily.
She laughed as he leaned back again, his head thunking against the edge of the tub.
“Regardless,” Tarian went on, “a god offered me to him. You don’t turn down a god’s favor.”
“That god is fucking him over, though.”
“Only if I can get my shit together, and let’s be honest, the verdict is still out on that.”
She traced her fingers over his knees. “What’s the ancestral magic of sevens?”
He rested his hands on her tummy, stroking softly, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The result of bad decision-making and a troubled past.”
“Sounds like what I’m doing with you.”
He leaned forward to kiss her bare shoulder. “My father is a seventh son. I am his seventh son.”
“What’s the significance of that?”
“It is said that a seventh son of a seventh son, or a sixth daughter of a sixth daughter, will double in power. They had many more sons than daughters, so when they got close to seven sons, my father pushed my mother to keep going. He wanted to be the first Celestial king to create the Ancestral Magic of Sevens. But my mother’s body was starting to fail. By the time she had my brother, the sixth boy, she’d had nine children and lost two. She pleaded to give up. Technically, fae live forever, and one would think they could procreate forever, but babies are hard on a female’s body, as you probably know. It was becoming dangerous for her. The healers advised against trying for more. He would not be deterred. So she agreed to have one more, come what may. If she produced a daughter instead of a son, she granted him to try with another, something that must’ve killed her to say. It is said she loved him greatly. She did not share. She did have one more son, though. Me. But it was her last. She died in childbirth, and I nearly went with her. I got the Sevens Magic and then some. Some healers think she imparted her dying breath unto me—a boost to my already boosted power.”