Read Online Bound by Prophecy (Descendants Series) by Melissa Wright - Free Book Online Page A

has had an abundance of unpleasant pursuits in the years before we found her.”
    Emily sat up, suddenly rigid. “We?”
    “Council,” I said. “We of the blood.” I stood to collect the tray. “But it was one of his minions who finally tracked her down.”
    “How did they know?” she asked. “How did they know, after all this time, to look for her?”
    “It wasn’t her at all,” I said. “It was us. It was that a son was finally born to our line.”
    Emily paled, and I knew she was remembering the words of the prophecy. The prophecy that, not so long ago, had only been a fiction in her mind, the ramblings of an eccentric parent.
    I gave her a moment to gather her thoughts as I slid the tray into the hall. When I returned, she was already recovered and waiting for me to continue.
    I sat on the bed opposite her. “The prophecy says that ‘a daughter of great power, born of the serpent with eyes of the sea, will bring absolute conflict’. That’s not much to go on, really. So Council has been watching for the other clues. Namely, ‘the heir to the dragon’s name will rule with their union.’ It doesn’t seem like much, until you count the fact that the dragon hasn’t had an heir in a few hundred years.”
    “I’m sorry,” Emily said, “but my mother… Well, maybe she did explain it, but I guess I didn’t really listen to everything she said. I just thought it didn’t matter, that it was a story.”
    “Where did I lose you?”
    “The dragon?” she asked.
    “I don’t suppose you could know that,” I said. “A lot of the words in the prophecy actually mean something else. They were written in the old language, and even we don’t reference things the same way now. The dragon points to my family’s bloodline, one of the Seven. Those who had ruled in the past. And an ‘heir to the name’ is an unusual one, since names weren’t even passed as such when the prophecy was written, but it says that the chosen one must be male.”
    “And there weren’t any before?”
    I shook my head. “Not for a very long time. The blood was passed mother to daughter until Morgan was born.”
    “How do you know?” she whispered. “I mean, how can you be sure?”
    I shrugged. “Council has been studying the prophecy since before any of us were even born. I suppose we just trust them to understand the clues and hidden meanings.”
    “Have you seen it?” she asked.
    I smiled. “Yes. Only me—they didn’t trust Morgan with it.”
    She leaned closer. “Was it… Did you know ?”
    I leaned forward as well. “I did.”
    A sad smile crossed her lips as she leaned back against the headboard. “I wish I had seen it. I wish, so much, that something could have convinced me. That I could have believed her.”
    “You did,” I said. “When it counted.”
    We sat silent for a moment, and I could see exhaustion take over Emily’s features. I glanced at the brown plaid chair in the corner, and then brushed my hands over my jeans before standing to go to it.
    Emily grabbed my arm. “Aern?”
    I turned back to her.
    “Tell me Brianna is safe.”
    “She is,” I promised. “She will always be safe.”
    She drew me toward her, gaze dropping as she pressed me back on the pillows to curl against my chest. The motion was tentative, but she had done it nonetheless.
    I wrapped my arm around her shoulder. “You will both be safe, Emily. I swear by it.”

 
    Chapter Nine
    The Division
     
    I stared at the toes of my boots until morning. I didn’t look at the girl in my arms, at her honeyed locks that had dried, uncombed, into loose ribbons. I didn’t watch the skin of her bare arm, draped easily across my cotton-covered abdomen, or the way her lips occasionally twitched while she slept, tucked neatly into the crook of my arm.
    And I certainly didn’t think about the way her cheek felt, pressed to my chest. At least, not until she began to wake.
    A quiet rumble came from deep in her throat and she burrowed deeper