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)
“Osor dor mi Damaes!”
Magic clamped me. Each syllable was an effort, as if I were hitting a wall made of rubber as hard as I could, and the impact of it reverberated through my body.
Something stirred in the temple, deep in the primordial darkness.
“Re braste ca!”
The rags flew aside. A woman jerked upright, her body rigid, her mouth open, a filthy mass of red hair swirling around her head as if she were underwater. Her eyes rolled back into her head, the stark whites glaring at me, unseeing.
“Sonta mih perss, cro su geñi . . .”
A blue glow gripped her, pulling her off the steps up into the air. The knot of power inside the temple slithered toward me. Every word hurt.
“Mimpro bo ullu taprin . . .”
My jaw locked open. I strained, trying to make my mouth move.
An enormous hand, each finger as tall as me, reached out through the gap and grasped the side of the stone door. It was translucent and black glyphs slid over it, like ghostly tattoos. My mind refused to process it.
A second hand stretched out of the darkness, then two more, another pair, another . . . They grasped the doors, sliding over each other.
My jaws still wouldn’t move. My heart hammered against my ribs, my blood pounding through my head and throbbing in my ears. An invisible cord of magic connected me and the woman in the air. I felt her through it, like a fish on the end of a line.
The phantom hands pushed. The stone slabs of the door slid a couple of inches. Something in me knew that if those doors opened all the way, an unimaginable horror would seize all of us and pull us into the darkness. I had to finish it. I had to do it now.
Something crunched in my mouth. The salty taste of blood washed over my tongue, wetting the words as they tore out.
“Galbir os re cuar!”
A column of bright neon blue light burst out of the woman, turning her mouth and eyes a pure, brilliant white. A ring of light pulsed out of her and smashed into me in an explosion of heat and radiance, as if a star had burst into life in front of me. Magic sizzled on my skin. The light hit the temple doors and slammed them shut.
The woman collapsed onto the steps, fell on her side, and rolled down to the street.
The night turned completely silent. Nothing moved.
I swallowed a mouthful of blood and ran down the stairs to her. She was on her back, her face to the sky. I dropped to my knees and checked the pulse in her neck. Alive. Oh good. Good, good, good.
“Grab her, and let’s get the fuck out of here,” Gort growled.
Will scooped her off the ground, slung her over his shoulder, and we ran for the carriage.
Washing an unconscious person was surprisingly difficult, especially since Shana and I were on our own. Clover was in the kitchen, watching the vat containing my dress and the dye boiling slowly on the stove. Her face looked haunted, and when I asked her if she was fine, she gave me a look that was pure zombie.
Will had brought the unconscious woman into the bathroom for us and departed. We heated up water, filled the tub, stripped her, and lowered her in. Shana shoved a rolled-up towel under her head to keep it above water and we started scrubbing. She wasn’t just dirty. The grime was layered and thick. Her dirt had dirt.
Normally I would’ve waited to bathe someone until they came to, but in her case, there was no telling when that would be. She could wake up in a minute, in a week, or not at all. She’d been on that street for months, without any awareness of her own hygiene or injuries. Her legs and arms had several cuts and scrapes, some of which were clearly infected, and her hair was full of lice. Getting her clean was a medical necessity and spot cleaning wouldn’t do it. We had to let her soak.
Shana had mixed some sort of botanical powder with oil and rubbed it into the woman’s scalp and mane of red hair, and now we waited for it to work. Shana said it would take about half an hour, and it would kill both lice and their eggs.
I heated more water and carefully added it to the tub. In winter, we’d build a fire directly under it, but considering her condition, gentle and lukewarm was best.
Shana checked the hair and got a fine-toothed wooden comb out. I picked up a small brush and started carefully washing her left hand, working the dirt from the cracked skin of her knuckles and from under her fingernails. Between the soaking and the scrubbing, the filth was coming off. Our soap kicked ass.