The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

Chapter 21
Casteel’s hand slipped from my neck as shock rippled
through him. For a moment, I thought he might drop his
glass of whiskey. “Are you for real?”
Kieran closed the thick book. “He can’t be.”
“It’s true,” Jasper confirmed.
The room was thick with tangy confusion. “How is it
possible that no one figured that out?” I asked. “That no one
attempted to cross the mountain or take to the sea in a
ship?”
“More than just words have hidden Iliseeum’s location.”
Jasper tilted forward, resting his arms on his bent knees.
“Iliseeum is well-protected by land and sea.”
“The eather—like the mist in the Skotos Mountains?” I
guessed.
Jasper nodded. “As both my son and Cas know, the sea
is too rough to travel on once any ship nears Iliseeum’s
coast.”
“It’s not just rough waters.” Casteel’s hand returned to
the base of my neck. His fingers moved in a slow, steady
slide as he said, “Sea stacks around the coast can tear a
ship apart in minutes if one gets close enough to even see
through the mist that obscures the coastline. Just like the
mist from the Skotos protects the shores of Atlantia from
both the Stroud Sea and Seas of Saion.”
“We tried once—Casteel and I—when we were younger.
We tried to take a ship as close to the coast as we could, to
see if any part of the land was habitable,” Kieran said. “We
damn near drowned in the process.”