“Yes, I very much do.”
I nodded, my stomach aflutter and in every knot conceivable. I reached into my pocket, the card bending under my grasp, and ran my fingers over the embossed Vortech logo.
“I guess I’m going back to Ceres with you.”
He squeezed my free hand. “You mean that?”
“Yes. Vortech might be involved.”
His eyes widened. “You’re serious? I thought you found all the white cerecite.”
“Yes, I did.” I sighed, picking at the paint on the fence. “But they suspect someone’s stealing cerecite and possibly using it for weapons. I don’t think I can ignore something like that.”
“Then I’ll help you find them. We’ll do it together.”
I nodded. The sun crested the horizon. Its warmth melted my chills.
“I’ll never get tired of that,” Morven said softly.
“The sunrise?”
“Yes. It’s remarkable. I never knew what I was missing until I saw that. This is an incredible world.”
“I guess it’s not so bad.”
“Not so bad?” he asked. “I think you must’ve lived here too long.”
“Maybe I haven’t lived here long enough.”
He smiled, and I couldn’t help but smile back. “You asked me what I wanted,” I said. “I want to go back to Ceres. It was me who opened the gateway. I’ve got to make sure nothing bad happens because of it. I guess there’s more out there than just me and my family, isn’t there?”
“There’s a lot more out there.” His voice turned wistful as he studied the sky, then his gaze went back to me. “And I imagine there’s a lot more in store for you—and for us.”
I rested my cheek on his shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around me. His warmth enveloped me, and I couldn’t think of a time I’d ever felt happier.
“I hope so.”
He held me close against him. “You were on the news. Well, not you, exactly, but I knew who they were referring to when they mentioned a Vortech agent saved the world.”
“I didn’t save the world.”
“But you made it possible for cerecite to power your grids for the next several centuries, even through another flare. That’s pretty impressive.”
I almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation. “Vortech caused the flare to begin with. The whole planet could have died because of it. Did they mention that?”
“Oddly enough, they omitted that part.”
“Big surprise, huh?”
I was sick of thinking of Vortech, so I turned my attention elsewhere. The sunrise transformed the sky, tinting the puffy jet trails that tracked across the horizon, a foreign sight to someone who’d spent their life on Ceres. Unhindered by the dome, Morven’s gaze fixated overhead, on the freedom he’d never known he was missing.
“Amazing, huh?” I asked.
He turned to me. “More than amazing.”
His eyes met mine. My heart raced with anticipation. He stirred my soul so powerfully, I could never let him go.
He leaned in and brushed a kiss over my lips. My senses heightened, the feel of his lips, warm and soft. His hands moved to encircle my back, the palms of his hands drawing me nearer.
Instinctively, I clammed up, dulling my awareness, closing me off before I became overwhelmed.
But with a deep breath, I let go.
When I did, everything in the outside world faded—the sounds of the birds, the scent of green wheat shoots—until nothing remained but freedom.
Afterword
Thank you for reading The 7th Lie. If you enjoyed it, please post a review where you bought the book. And check out Tamara Grantham’s other spellbinding fantasy novels.
To learn more about Tamara Grantham and her books, or to contact her, click here to visit her website: www.tamaragrantham.com.
Author’s Note
Warning: only read this if you’re into nerdy sciency stuff.
Kidding. But really, I wanted to share a few details that make this book more interesting—the science behind The 7th Lie.
First, Champ Island. Yes, it’s a real place. It is indeed located in the Bering Sea north of Russia. It’s covered with perfectly-sphere shaped stones ranging from the size of marbles to boulders. As was stated in the book, scientists don’t know what causes them to be shaped as perfect spheres. They shouldn’t exist in nature. However, scientists were able to discover that the stones were created by water. Everything else is supposition. The shipwreck is fiction, although explorers did find an old wooden ski on the island. Its origins are unknown.
Next, Ceres. It’s the only planet-shaped body in the asteroid belt. It’s also the closest dwarf planet to Earth. Although not well-known, it was discovered in 1801 and is a fascinating world. Several NASA missions led to the discovery of bright spots on the planet, which were discovered to be made of a salt mixture. It’s a geologically active world, with geysers and volcanoes. Scientists have also revealed that Ceres contains ice and could contain liquid water beneath its surface.
If mining in the universe were to ever become a reality, Ceres would be a prime candidate because of its proximity to Earth and abundance of minerals.
I’ve always been fascinated with the prospect of “what’s out there.” Are there elements combined in different ways we haven’t discovered in the universe? If so, what sort of properties would they have? Would they be something alien and distinct from anything we’re familiar with? Thus, the idea of cerecite began, and the birth of The 7th Lie, began.
About the Author
Tamara Grantham is the award-winning author of more than a dozen books and novellas, including the Olive Kennedy: Fairy World MD series, the Shine novellas, and the Twisted Ever After trilogy. Dreamthief, the first book of her Fairy World MD series, won first place for fantasy in INDIEFAB’S Book of the Year Awards, a RONE award for best New Adult Romance of 2016, and is a #1 bestseller on Amazon with over 200 five-star reviews.
Tamara has been a featured speaker at numerous writing conferences and has been a panelist at Comic Con Wizard World. Born and raised in Texas, Tamara now lives with her husband and five children in Wichita, Kansas.
Also by Tamara Grantham
Never Call Me Vampire
Twisted Ever After
The Witch’s Tower
Dragon Swan Princess
Rumpel’s Redemption
Fairy World MD
Dreamthief
Spellweaver
Bloodthorn
Silverwitch
Goblinwraith (novella)
Deathbringer
Grayghost
Shine series
Raze
Never Say Reven
Into the Fire
Storms and Spirits
About the Publisher
Babylon Books is a division of Bernhardt Books, a family-owned publishing house founded in 1999 that showcases emerging authors and compelling fiction.
Editor-in-Chief: Alice Bernhardt
Chief Financial Officer: W. Harrison Bernhardt
Marketing Director: Ralph Bernhardt
Learn more at: www.babylonbooks.net
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