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2024-10-29 19:42:56She could still smell the fires that had raged throughout her eighth and ninth years—the smoke of burning books chock-full of ancient, irreplaceable knowledge, the screams of gifted seers and healers as they’d been consumed by the flames, the storefronts and sacred places shattered and desecrated and erased from history. Many of the magic-users who hadn’t been burned wound up prisoners in Endovier—and most didn’t survive long there. It had been a while since she’d contemplated the gifts she’d lost, though the memory of her abilities haunted her dreams. Despite the carnage, perhaps it was good that magic had vanished. It was far too dangerous for any sane person to wield; her gifts might have destroyed her by this point.
The smoking fire burned her eyes as she took another bite. She’d never forget the stories about Oakwald Forest, legends of dark, terrible glens and deep, still pools, and caves full of light and heavenly singing. But they were now only stories and nothing more. T
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Wrath of the Invincible Billionaire Heir Chapter 157: A Failed Attempt
Six guards appeared in the doorway behind them, joining the dozens already in the chamber, swords at the ready. “If you attempt anything foolish,” Benjamin said quietly, “they’ll be here.”“I’m just a jewel thief, remember?” She approached the rack. Foolish, foolish decision to leave all those weapons out. Swords, sword-breakers, axes, bows, pikes, hunting daggers, maces, spears, throwing knives, wooden staves . . .While she generally preferred the stealth of a dagger, she was familiar with every weapon here. She glanced around the sparring room and hid her grimace. So were most of the competitors, it seemed. As she inspected them, she caught a movement in the corner of her vision.Modred entered the hall, flanked by two guards and a scarred, burly man who must have been his trainer. She squared her shoulders as Modred strode straight toward her, his thick lips parting in a grin.“Good morning,” he said, his voice raspy and deep. His dark eyes sn
Wrath of the Invincible Billionaire Heir Chapter 158: Fall Inevitably
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Wrath of the Invincible Billionaire Heir Chapter 159: Hallow Mark
“Do you know how insulting it is to pretend to be some nobody thief from a small city in Fenharrow?”He stared her down, quiet for a moment. “Are you that arrogant?” She bristled, but he went on. “It was foolish to spar with you just now. I’ll admit that I hadn’t realized you’d be that good. Thankfully, no one noticed. And do you want to know why, Lillian?” He took a step closer, his voice lowering. “Because you’re some pretty little girl. Because you’re a nobody jewel thief from a small city in Fenharrow. Look around.” He half-turned to the other Champions. “Is anyone staring at you? Are any of them sizing you up? No. Because you’re not real competition. Because you don’t stand between them and whatever freedom or wealth they’re looking for.”“Exactly! It’s insulting!”“It’s smart, that’s what it is. And you’re going to keep a low profile throughout this entire competition. You’re not going to excel, and you’re not going to trounce those thieves and soldiers a
Wrath of the Invincible Billionaire Heir Chapter 160: Clock Ticking
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Wrath of the Invincible Billionaire Heir Chapter 162: Double Count
“Do you hunt?” Nehemia interrupted in Eyllwe.“Me?” The princess nodded. “Oh—er, no,” Jane said, then switched back to Eyllwe. “I’m more of a reader.”Nehemia looked toward a rain-splattered window. “Most of our books were burned five years ago, when Skull gang marched in. It didn’t make a difference if the books were about cult ”—her voice quieted at the word, even though Benjamin and the councilman couldn’t understand them—“or history. They just burned the libraries whole, along with the museums and universities . . .”A familiar ache filled her chest. Jane nodded. “Eyllwe wasn’t the only country where that happened.”Something cold and bitter glittered in Nehemia’s eyes. “Now, most of the books we receive are from Skull gang—books in a language I can barely understand. That’s also what I must learn while I’m here. There are so many things!” She stomped her foot, her jewelry clinking. “And I hate these shoes! And this miserable dress! I don’t care if it’
Wrath of the Invincible Billionaire Heir Chapter 163: Inevitable
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Wrath of the Invincible Billionaire Heir Chapter 164: False Alarm
Her focus narrowed to the small, black dot in the center of the target. She steadied her breathing as she cocked her arm, letting her wrist go loose. The sounds of the other Champions faded. The blackness of the bull’s-eye beckoned, and as she exhaled, she sent the dagger flying.It sparkled, a shooting star of steel. She smiled grimly as it struck home. Beside her, Nox swore colorfully when his dagger hit the third ring on histarget, and her smile broadened, despite the shredded corpse that lay somewhere in the castle.Jane drew another dagger, but paused as Verin called to her from the ring where he sparred with Cain. “Circus tricks ain’t much use when you’re the King’s Champion.” She shifted her gaze to him, but kept positioned toward the target. “You’d be better off on your back, learning tricks useful to a woman. In fact, I can teach you some tonight, if you’d like.” He laughed, and Cain joined with him. Jane gripped the hilt of a dagger so hard that
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Closing her eyes, Irene unspooled her magic into a gentle, probing thread, and laid a palm on that splattered star atop his spine.The cold slammed into her, spikes of it firing through her blood and bones.Irene reeled back as if she’d been given a physical blow.Cold and dark and anger and agony—She clenched her jaw, fighting past this echo in the bone, sending that thread-thin probe of power a little farther into the dark.The pain would have been unbearable when it hit him.Irene pushed back against the cold—the cold and the lack and the oily, unworldly wrongness of it.No magic of this world, some part of her whispered. Nothing that was natural or good. Nothing she knew, nothing she had ever dealt with.Her magic screamed to draw back that probe, move away—“Irene .” His words were far away while the wind and blackness and emptiness of it roared around her—And then that echo of nothingness … it seemed to awaken.Cold filled her, burned along her limbs, creeping wider, encirc
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“Will it be hours every day that you work on him?” Nesryn’s words were steady, almost flat, and yet … The woman was not a creature who took well to a cage. Even a gilded one such as this.“I would recommend,” Irene said to Nesryn over a shoulder, “that if you have other duties or tasks to attend to, Captain, these hours would be a good time for that. I shall send word if you are needed.”“What about moving him around?”The lord’s eyes flashed at that.And though Irene was predisposed to chuck them both to the ruks, she noted the lord’s simmering outrage and self-loathing at the words and found herself saying, “I can handle most of it, but I believe Lord Westfall is more than capable of transporting himself.”Something like wary gratitude shot across his face. But he just said to Nesryn, “And I can ask my own damn questions.”Guilt flashed across Nesryn’s face, even as she stiffened. But she nodded, biting her lip, before she murmured to Vincent , “I had some invitations yesterday.”
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Chapter 249: Bad Habits
Vincent shot Irene back an equally displeased look the moment Kashin paused to sip his wine, and then launched question after question to the prince regarding his life. Helpful information, he realized, about their army.He was not the only one who realized it. Arghun cut in while his brother was midsentence about the forges they had constructed near their northern climes, “Let us not discuss business at dinner, brother.”Kashin shut his mouth, ever the trained soldier.And somehow Vincent knew—that fast—that Kashin was not being considered for the throne. Not when he obeyed his eldest brother like any common warrior. He seemed decent, though. A better alternative than the sneering, aloof Arghun, or the wolflike Hasar.It did not entirely explain Irene ’s utter need to distance herself from Kashin. Not that it was any of his business, or of any interest to him. Certainly not when Irene ’s mouth tightened if she so much as turned her head in Vincent ’s direction.He might have calle
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Chapter 248: Braids of the Table
Vincent waited until Nesryn had been gone for a good thirty minutes before he summoned Kadja. She’d been waiting in the exterior hallway and slipped inside his suite mere moments after he’d called her name. Lingering in the foyer, he watched the serving girl approach, her steps light and swift, her eyes downcast as she awaited his order.“I have a favor to ask you,” he said slowly and clearly, cursing himself for not learning Halha during the years Levi had studied it.A dip of the chin was her only answer.“I need you to go down to the docks, to wherever information comes in, to see if there’s any news about the attack on Rifthold.” Kadja had been in the throne room yesterday—she’d undoubtedly heard about it. And he’d debated asking Nesryn to do some searching while she was out, but if the news was grimhe didn’t want her learning it alone. Bearing it alone, all the way back up to the palace. “Do you think you could do that?”Kadja lifted her eyes at last, though she kept her head
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Chapter 247: Sorting Out the Chaff
She’d known his age, but Irene had still not expected the former captain to look so … young.She hadn’t done the math until she’d walked into that room and seen his handsome face, a mix of caution and hope written across the hardened, broad features.It was that hope that had made her see red. Had made her ache to give him a matching scar to the slender one slicing across his cheek.She’d been unprofessional in the most horrific sense. Never—never had she been so rude and unkind toward any of her patients.Mercifully, Hasar had arrived, cooling her head slightly. But touching the man, thinking of ways to help him …She had not meant to write the list of the last four generations of Towers women. Had not meant to write her mother’s name over and over while pretending to record his information. It had not helped with the overwhelming roaring in her head.Sweating and dusty, Irene burst into Hadiza ’s office nearly an hour later, the trek from the palace through the clogged, narrow str
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Chapter 246: Fist Mystery
He tried not to flinch. Even Nesryn blinked at the frank question.“Yes,” he said tightly, fighting the heat rising in his cheeks.She looked between them, assessing. “Have you used it to completion?”He clenched his jaw. “How is that relevant?” And how had she gleaned what was between them?Irene only wrote something down.“What are you writing?” he demanded, cursing the damned chair for keeping him from storming to rip the paper out of her hands.“I’m writing a giant no.”Which she then underlined.He growled, “I suppose you’ll ask about my bathroom habits now?” “It was next on my list.”“They are unchanged,” he bit out. “Unless you need Nesryn to confirm.” Irene merely turned to Nesryn, unruffled. “Have you seen him struggle withit?”“Do not answer that,” he snarled at Nesryn.Nesryn had the good wits to sink into a chair and remain quiet.Irene rose, setting down the pen, and came around the desk. The morning sunlight caught in her hair, bouncing off her head in a corona.She
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Chapter 245: Next Dimension
So Vincent had, half paying attention to the meal unfolding before him, half monitoring every word and glance and breath of those around him.Despite their youngest sister’s death, the heirs made the meal lively, conversation flowing, mostly in languages Vincent did not know or recognize. Such a wealth of kingdoms in that hall, represented by viziers and servants and companions—the now-youngest princess, Duva, herself wedded to a dark-haired, sad-eyed prince from a faraway land who kept close to his pregnant wifeand spoke little to anyone around him. But whenever Duva smiled softly at himVincent did not think the light that filled the prince’s face was feigned. And wondered if the man’s silence was not from reticence but perhaps not yet knowing enough of his wife’s language to keep up.Nesryn, however, had no such excuse. She’d been silent and haunted at dinner. He’d only learned that she’d bathed before it thanks to the shout and slamming door in her chambers, followed by a huff
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Chapter 244: Damages
Hadiza ’s face darkened. Not with ire, but memory. “I was once asked to heal a man who was injured while evading capture. After he had committed a crime so unspeakable … The guards told me what he’d done before I walked into his cell. They wanted him patched up so he could live to be put on trial. He’d undoubtedly be executed—they had victims willing to testify and proof aplenty. Eretia herself saw the latest victim. His last one. Gathered all the evidence she needed and stood in that court and condemned him with what she had seen.”Hadiza ’s throat bobbed. “They chained him down in that cell, and he was hurt enough that I knew … I knew I could use my combat to make the internal bleeding worse. They’d never know. He’d be dead by morning, and no one would dare question me.” She studied the vial of blue tonic. “It was the closest I have ever come to killing. I wanted to kill him for what he had done. The world would be better for it. I had my hands on his chest—I was ready to do it. Bu
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Chapter 243
Of all the rooms in the Torre Cesme, Irene Towers loved this one best.Perhaps it was because the room, located at the very pinnacle of the pale-stoned tower and its sprawling complex below, had unparalleled views of the sunset over Antica.Perhaps it was because this was the place where she’d felt the first shred of safety in nearly ten years. The place she had first looked upon the ancient woman now sitting across the paper- and book-strewn desk, and heard the words that changed everything: You are welcome here, Irene Towers.It had been over two years since then.Two years of working here, living here, in this tower and in this city of so many peoples, so many foods and caches of knowledge.It had been all she’d dreamed it would be—and she had seized every opportunity, every challenge, with both hands. Had studied and listened and practiced and saved lives, changed them, until she had climbed to the very top of her class. Until an unknown healer’s daughter from Benjamin was appr
