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)
Several months from now, Hreban would manufacture suffering on a mass scale. He would do it out in the open, without fear of retribution. There would be no Justice Chamber to stop him because he would be running it. Nobody would escape unscathed.
Thinking about it made my stomach churn. What would happen to Reynald and the kids? True, I’d helped them for now, but it wouldn’t last. Their lives would turn into nightmares, and I was the only one who knew about it. I hadn’t saved them. I’d just postponed the torment. I’d given them hope, and then Hreban would set their world on fire.
What was the point of being thrown into this world and watching it all burn?
“Will you try to get Matheo out of the Tower?” I asked.
Reynald stirred. “Yes. He is my son. I promised my wife . . .”
“At her grave. I know.”
He looked at me and shook his head. “What will you do after we return the children?”
“I’m going to destroy Ulmar Hreban.”
The moment my mouth shaped the words, something changed. It felt right, as if I had blundered out of the woods onto a path. Almost like a bell tolled somewhere.
Reynald raised his dark eyebrows. “You’re going to destroy the richest man in Rellas? The head of a Great Family?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I will not let Rellas burn.”
Reynald and Matheo, Clover and Kaiden, Galiene and her daughter, Solentine, the bakers, the nameless handpie seller, I would give them all a different future.
Just wait, Ulmar. You thought you could murder people left and right as if they didn’t matter. I will fix you right up. Fucking watch me.
Reynald pondered me. “How are you planning to go about it?”
“I don’t know yet. I have six months to figure it out.”
“Not a lot of time.”
“You’re right. Unfortunately, your timeline to rescue your son is even shorter . . .”
Reynald was a careful man. Cautious, even. But he was also a grief-stricken father desperate to find his son. He’d been trying for months and gotten nowhere, and he was at the end of his patience. I saw a hint of that when he was on that roof, thinking about storming the Redeemer Tower.
There was an excellent chance that if I told him exactly what would happen, he would lose his shit and go on a killing spree, which would likely end with his head separated from his body. The fictional Rellas had killed him, and I didn’t want to take a chance that the real Rellas would want to do the same. I had to keep things vague.
“You have about five months at most. Less than that actually. More like four and a half, before the end of the High Court Session. You have to pry Matheo out of the Tower before the first assassination, because after that it will be very difficult.”
Impossible. It would be impossible.
“And Reynald, if you fail, you must leave the city before the Winter Hunt. I don’t care how angry you are. If you value your life at all, you must leave. Once the second murder happens, that entire mess of Hreban and the Redeemers spins out of control and sets Kair Toren on fire . . .”
Reynald rose from his chair and stared at me.
“What?”
“Maggie,” he said, his voice quiet. “Can you see the future?”
CHAPTER 10
Crap. Crap, crap, crap.
I’d said too much. I’d concentrated so hard on not saying anything that would immediately set him off, that I had put way too much out there. Damn it.
Too late to back out now. Even if I did make something up, he wouldn’t believe me. He was focused on me like a wolf who had spotted a lame bunny.
“Not exactly. I know a version of it.”
“Tell me.”
I didn’t want to go there.
“Tell me what’s coming. Please.”
“A civil war and everything that brings. Slaughter, atrocities, famine. A complete breakdown of society, aided by the invasion of the Crimson Empire and a plague. It begins with three powerful people being murdered one after another, and things really fall apart after the second murder, the assassination of the crown prince. King Sauven isn’t in his right mind already. After losing his eldest son, he becomes unhinged.”
And that was just the start of it.
“During the investigation into that assassination, the capital burns for three days. They will call it the Night of a Thousand Fires. Rellas fractures as the Eight Families revolt and start clawing at each other, trying to get to the throne and pull the Savarics off it. Then it’s tragedy after tragedy. Nobody is spared. Even the countryside endures atrocities. The king’s forces march to meet the rebels and come across a small town called Applegrove. The town refuses to open its gates. The commander in charge takes Applegrove and decimates the male population. Every tenth male, no matter their age, is put to the sword. They spare no one, not even babies. The river by the town runs red with blood . . .”