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)
Okay then. Glad we’d cleared that up.
“Why did you go to the Ribs?”
“Don’t worry about it, Your Grace.”
A thin streak of darkness snaked toward me. I waved my hand, dispersing it. “You don’t scare me. You promised you would keep me safe, and your word is cut in stone.”
“It was worth a try,” he said.
CHAPTER 34
PLANTER 31
Turn your wrist a bit more,” Gort suggested, raising his head from the map he was drawing.
I stabbed the straw dummy, twisting my wrist, straightened, and exhaled.
Gort nodded at me from his seat at the laundry table. “Better.”
“It’s really difficult to cut through packed straw,” I said.
“A human leg is thick. Lots of muscle,” Gort said.
Kaiden, who sat cross-legged on the table next to him, mimicked my stabbing with his hand.
I stretched my shoulders.
In the past seventy-two hours, I had stabbed such a wide variety of humans and objects, I had dulled my dagger and had to learn how to resharpen it. Sharpening knives wasn’t my strong suit. I had ended up dulling it more and had to have Shana help me.
My arm hurt, but cutting things was helping with my stress. There had been no word from Darotha. She hadn’t found Isadau, Solentine hadn’t found Cai, and I could feel time slipping away. Stabbing random crap was better than pulling my hair out.
The straw dummy was the latest target for my self-defense adventures. It had been made with packed straw, tightly wrapped with cords, set on a wooden base, and dressed in old rusty chainmail. I had no idea where the brothers had gotten it, but they had presented me with it yesterday and were so proud of themselves, I told them that it was the best gift ever.
Soon I would have to switch back to producing soap. The Garden had sent a messenger. They had loved it so much, they wanted to buy some. I sent Clover to negotiate. The Garden found our prices agreeable—Clover was sure that they thought we were suckers who were selling our soap to them dirt cheap. They ordered so much that we made a whole gold grest on the sale. Clover had presented the gold coin to me in the courtyard in front of everyone and then did a little dance. But now our inventory was running low.
Also, Solentine had sent two large chests with various items selected to convince anyone that I was a Demarr, including two paintings, several lacquered crests, and other silliness. I had to sort through it at some point.
A bell rang inside. Will exited the house and went to the front door.
Now who could that be?
“Where is he?”
That sounded suspiciously like Solentine.
A moment later my cousin emerged, with Will right behind him rolling his eyes. Solentine wore his incognito outfit, a plain brown jerkin and dark pants with a worn cloak, and he still looked elegant. And pissed off.
Solentine marched across the yard, holding a large wooden scroll case like a club.
“I told him. I said—” He saw me and stopped. “What are you doing?”
“Learning to stab straw people with a dagger.” I showed him my knife.
“Why in the world would you learn that from them when you have me?”
Um.
Solentine motioned me away from the dummy. I joined Gort and Kaiden at the table.
Solentine set the scroll case on the table and extracted two small, slender knives from somewhere in his jerkin. They had short blades, maybe four and a half inches long, curved like claws, with the inside edge sharpened. Their handles were bone, carved to provide a textured grip, with a ring large enough to slide a finger through at their ends.
“Ooh, ooh, he’s going to do the two-dagger thing!”
Yessss. His signature fighting style from the books. Yes, yes, yes!
“His Grace doesn’t need two daggers,” Kaiden said.
“Hush and watch,” I told him.
Solentine spun the two blades in his hands and struck at the dummy, lightning fast and yet smooth, flowing like water. His left blade slashed the dummy’s face, while his right hooked an imaginary arm and sliced through the inside of the elbow. He spun around the dummy, sinking his knife into the kidneys, stabbing into the armpit, slashing across the spine, and finished with a wide, beautiful cut to the throat.
I reached over and pushed Kaiden’s chin up to close his mouth.
“Straw doesn’t fight back,” Will said.
Solentine grinned at him. “Do you?”
Will pulled his knife.
The door opened, and Everard stepped out.
“Will, don’t you have blades to oil? Solentine, do not debone my soldier.”
Will sheathed his knife, bowed his head to Everard, and went inside.
“You ruin all my fun,” Solentine said. He flicked the knives, and they vanished back into his jerkin.
“Do you have news?” I asked. If he had figured out the missing link, I needed to know it right now.
“Yes, but not the kind we wanted.”
Solentine picked up the scroll case from the table and lobbed it at Everard. Everard snatched it out of the air, pulled the scroll out of the case, glanced at it, and swore.