{A Wattpad Featured Book}
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Her heart or her people. Only she can decide.
Hated, cursed, outcasted. It was Eleena Asterin's life ever since she was blamed to have betrayed her village. So when she is offered a task to earn back her honour and prid...
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Phoebus waved his hand, and a hundred candles sprang to life. Whatever Kallistê and Oberon said about magic being drained and off-kilter thanks to the attacks clearly hadn't affected Phoebus as dramatically, or perhaps he had been far more powerful to start with. The tang of magic stung my senses but I kept my chin high. That is, until I peered inside.
My palms began sweating as I took in the enormous, opulent study. Tomes lined each wall like the soldiers of a silent army, and couches, desks, and rich rugs were scattered throughout the room. But ... it had been over a week since I left my family, hence signing the contract with Japeth. And because the attacks were slowly, but surely, moving South, because I had wasted so much time dallying around, it was only time that kept the faeries from realising the truth about me. And it was only time that separated us from sparking another war.
There was only one method to stop that from happening.
"Do you need anything else?" Phoebus asked and I jerked. He still stood behind me.
"No," I said, striding into the study. I couldn't think about the casual power he'd just shown—the graceful carelessness with which he'd brought so many flames to life. I had to focus on the task at hand.
It wasn't entirely my fault that I was scarcely able to read. Before our downfall, my mother had sorely neglected our education, not bothering to hire a governess. And after poverty struck and my elder brothers, who could read and write, deemed the village school beneath us, they didn't bother to teach me. I could read enough to function—enough to form my letters, but so poorly that even signing my name was mortifying.
It was bad enough that Phoebus might have a hint. I would think about where some of the landmarks are located once I have gained some information; perhaps I could beg a favour of him, or Kallistê or Oberon.
Asking them to read out words I struggled with would be too humiliating. I could hear their words: typical ignorant human. And since Kallistê seemed convinced that I would turn spy the moment I could, which she was not wrong about, she would no doubt burn whatever notes I have, and any I tried to write after. So I'd have to learn myself.
"I'll leave you to it, then," Phoebus said as our silence became too prolonged, too tense.
I didn't move until he'd closed the doors, shutting me inside. My heartbeat pulsed throughout my body as I approached a shelf.
.____________________.
I had to take a break for dinner and to sleep, but I was back in the study before dawn had fully risen. I'd found a small writing desk in a corner and gathered papers and ink. My finger traced a line of text, and I whispered the words.
" 'The hun-tress ... huntress walked si ... lently ... silently into the cave, her bow ... bo ...' " I sat back in my chair and pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes. When I felt near less from ripping my hair, I took the quill and underlined the word: bowstring.
