Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
“I understand fully, mistress.” Xavier bowed low and then turned back to the portal. With great confidence, he stepped through.
“You had better,” the voice followed him. “If you lose your staff, you will come straight back to me.”
As Afanasiv was gathering the information for Vasilisa, she was stalling Xavier and doing her best to keep his attention centered on her.
“How did they force you, Aunt? You have always been the strongest among us. When there was no one to aid my dying mother, you fought off the attackers and kept them from violating her body. You did that with no one to aid you.” Vasilisa didn’t have to reach for admiration and love, it was right there whenever she pulled up the memory of Olga desperately trying to save her sister’s life.
Olga nodded her head. “Yes. I did try so hard to keep her alive, but there were so many wounds, Vasi, so many.” For once, there seemed to be genuine sorrow—or maybe Vasilisa just wanted there to be. “Before she died, Bronya told me how extraordinary you are and how I must guard you at all times and continue teaching you to fight. I was to encourage you in learning all sorts of defensive and offensive techniques. She told me you hold the soul of a Carpathian and must guard it at all times. That it was a sacred trust, and no matter what, you had to be up to the task.”
Olga’s expression turned crafty the moment she mentioned the soul of the Carpathian. “Maybe you can barter with that soul. It’s only half, in any case. Maybe the mage would take that in return for our lives.”
“Why would I want half a soul when I already have two whole ones right here?” Xavier snarled, but there was no way for him to contain the look of pure glee. The blood in the crystal ball swirled around like mad. Suddenly, the heart began to beat a fast rhythm.
Afanasiv found the overly loud beat distracting. The rapid heartbeat thundered in his ears and roared out a challenge as he backed out of Xavier carefully.
Olga pleaded with the mage. “Don’t kill me, please. Take the soul of the Carpathian instead. Vasi, give it to him now.”
Xavier pretended to consider that. He shook his head a couple of times, looked off into the forest as if contemplating, frowned and then sighed. “Oh, all right, then. Hand it over to me now, and I won’t kill this worthless being.”
“What would you want with half a soul?” Vasilisa asked.
“Vasi,” Olga wailed. “Don’t make him mad. He agreed to our bargain.”
“Your bargain. I didn’t make the bargain with him,” Vasilisa pointed out in that same confident, quiet way she had. She continued to look at both of them, yet they couldn’t make her out. The snow around her was blinding white, as was the coat she wore. The white hat covered the dark hair she had fixed on top of her head. One moment she appeared there, and the next she was somewhere else. “I need to know why he wants this soul before I turn over my legacy to him.”
Olga screamed as the knife pierced the delicate skin of her neck and blood began dripping down onto the material of her blouse and jacket. She shuddered and shook, opened her mouth again, and no sound emerged.
“I tire of the sound of your voice. This conversation is between Vasilisa and me. You stay out of it.” Xavier waved his hand and mumbled a curse as he did so. “I cannot abide high-pitched shrieking.”
Vasilisa sighed. “I will admit, her steady high-pitched shrieks were getting to me, as well. It makes it hard to think when someone is continually screaming in the background.”
“You can’t imagine how many times I warned her I would take away her ability to speak if she kept it up. I warned her several times to just have a clear, concise way of speaking.”
“She always used to have a clear way of speaking. I never noticed that she screeched like that.”
Afanasiv thought it brilliant the way Vasilisa was subtly playing to the mage’s ego and aligning herself with him.
Olga’s reaction was to fight harder, until Xavier pressed the blade tighter against her skin in warning.
“She’s seventy, you know. That isn’t much in age to someone like you, or even in the Lycan world. We have tremendous longevity, but sadly Aunt Olga’s eyesight began to fade a bit. She was considered an up-and-coming star in the dance world, and that became closed to her.” Vasilisa poured sympathy into her voice. “She was always brilliant onstage. She’d taken the world by storm. Then accidents began to happen. Small ones at first. Then much bigger ones, until finally her ankle and foot were shattered when a beam came down on her left leg during a performance.”