Total pages in book: 222
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
“Why is it here?”
“This statue was commissioned by Wynand Bors’s father, Sagred,” Reynald said. “He’d managed to kill a dursan single-handedly during the conflict, and he was very proud of it. He presented this monstrosity to Sauven on the first anniversary of the battle. ‘Behold the mighty enemy we vanquished.’”
“But Sauven didn’t want a reminder of his dead brother,” I guessed.
“So Sagred Bors found out,” Reynald said. “Sauven would’ve loved to set it on fire, but he’d needed the Conquerors’ support, so he had it put somewhere in the Tangle.”
The Tangle was the collective name for the northern slums. The last place Sauven would ever visit.
“Someone must’ve realized that it had been defaced. It was still a royal gift, so it was carted off and must’ve ended up here. I’ve never seen it before. I’ve only heard the story. This was before my time.”
The dursan glared at us, scarred, stained, and yet defiant. I had the strangest feeling. A kind of vague anxiety, as if I were looking at a sign of things to come.
“It’s fitting that it’s here,” Reynald said quietly. “Ralinbor’s mother and his uncle were his only living relatives besides Sauven. Ralinbor died on the battlefield. His wife was tried, convicted, and beheaded. His son perished in the fire when Sauven’s personal guard set Kair Tred on fire. Everyone is dead now. It stands here as a monument to the fallen family.”
“I’m not so sure,” I told him.
He gave me an odd look. Like he was both amused and admiring. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Reynald Karis, the ice-cold blademaster of Rellas, found me endearing.
“What?”
“I’m not even surprised anymore,” he said. “Tell me more, Maggie.”
Somehow, he loaded a lot of meaning into my name. Was I reading too much into this?
“I know of a boy who woke up in a burning house to the shouts of his enemies in the courtyard.”
It was one of those random Latour scenes. No hint when or where it took place. No names. No explanation as to why it was in the narrative. It was just there to drive the fandom out of their minds with speculation.
“The house was engulfed in flames. He couldn’t get to the window, so he hugged his puppy and ran into the hallway through the fire. The burning boards collapsed under him. He fell three floors, all the way into the stone cellar, landed badly, and passed out from pain and smoke. Two days later, when the knights who’d set his home on fire were long gone, a man rode up to the still-smoking ruin. He searched through the wreckage and found the boy in the cellar. The boy’s legs were broken, but he’d kept the puppy safe in the fall. The man took the boy and his dog with him because he was the child of a woman the man once loved, and he raised the boy as his own son.”
Reynald pondered the statue. “Do you think the boy was Mirabor Savaric?”
“I don’t know. I can’t say either way. But he could’ve been.”
That was my personal pet theory. It would so much more interesting if Ralinbor’s son survived.
“Who was the man, do you think?” Reynald asked.
“It’s hard to say. Aelis Savaric was supposed to be so beautiful, her smile could stop a heart. Many people were in love with her.”
The sun broke through the clouds, and I turned my face to the warm sunshine.
“Are your parents alive?” he asked.
“Yes.” Somewhere. “Yours?”
“Dead. My father was killed, and my mother died on the battlefield two years later.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
Suddenly I missed my parents so much, it hurt.
“What does your father do?” Reynald asked. “He must be retired from the army by now.”
How to explain a civil engineer?
“Yes. He earned our country’s version of the Green Purse and then became a kind of architect.”
“So you are from a scholar family?”
“I suppose. You could say I was a scholar.”
“What did you study?” he asked.
“Power. How to acquire it, how to keep it, how not to abuse it. How to exercise it for the greater good of as many people as possible.”
“Fitting,” he murmured.
“What about your father? What kind of man was he?”
“Kind.” He sighed, looking at the trees across the path. “Many people feared him, but he was a good father. He loved my mother, and he loved me. I wish we’d had more time.”
There was a world of pain and regret in those words.
“I need to be there when you take the Butcher down,” I said.
“You’re not a trained fighter, Maggie,” he said gently.
“And yet, of all of us, I’m the most likely to survive that fight. I will come back to life. I’m Maggie the Undying.”
“I don’t want you to be hurt.”
“I won’t be.”
“‘Dying horribly and then waking up in a lot of pain,’” he quoted.
“Do you remember everything?”