Taming the King (Witchling Academy Book 3) by D.D. Chance

Author:D.D. Chance [Chance, D.D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781943768899
Publisher: Elewyn Publishing
Published: 2021-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

21

Belle

I jolted awake and couldn’t help the scream—but managed to stifle it enough so it came out as nothing more than a breathy whisper. It still was enough to wake Aiden, and his eyes snapped open. He scanned the chaos that surrounded us, then met my gaze without moving another muscle.

“What the hell is this?” he whispered fiercely.

“I don’t know.” I was more than a little relieved he at least saw it as well. Light swirled all around us, comforting and terrifying at once, an unreasonable stream of shapes and forms winking in and out of existence. Glyphs, runes, squiggles and spikes, Cyrillic lettering, and finally, words I could actually recognize, portions and measures and mathematical symbols.

“Are they spells?” I asked, recognizing a few strains.

His laugh was low and rueful. “You would know better than I would, but I take some comfort in knowing I’m not that far behind you. I constantly seem to be playing a game of catch-up when it comes to your abilities.”

“I don’t know about that,” I muttered, but together, we sat up slowly, trying to get our bearings. We were still in the center of the grotto, the heavy shadows draping us giving us the illusion of privacy. Beyond that ephemeral barrier, the sun peeked through the clouds. I tried to gauge its position, and Aiden grunted beside me.

“Time doesn’t pass here,” he murmured. “You called this place the Hallows. I begin to see why.”

“Niall and Celia?” I asked, and Aiden sighed.

“Hopefully, they know we’re in here, but without the passage of time. Either way, we need to get moving. You can bet King Lyric has not been idle.”

Just hearing the name made me tense up. “Do you think he knows what we, um, did here?”

“Oh, my sweet and beautiful Belle, I’m counting on it,” Aiden said. “And that leads us to two potential outcomes. One, he can see us completely, in which case attack is imminent. Alternately, he has been restricted from the access he craves, and so he is left to wonder. If that’s the case, then he’s going to try something else, and soon. A king’s patience can only wear so thin.”

All the while he spoke, I watched the shapes and squiggling patterns of the light. Their pattern, though strangely restful, also stirred my memories.

The Luacra guard had let me escape from the Riven District, had begged me to escape, in fact. He’d also shown me his family, made it seem like they were trying to do their best, to live someplace where they could almost see the sun.

Aiden shifted beside me with irritation, clearly reading my thoughts. “It was a trap,” he accused. “Or it was Lyric himself, influencing one of his own.”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But if it was… I was there, Aiden. In that underworld prison. I can remember bits and pieces of it, but what hit me most was the darkness. The despair. The cold. I don’t know how the Fomorians lived before they came to be exiled, but seriously—outside of Lyric’s great hall, the place totally sucked.

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