Blood of Mystery by Mark Anthony Read Free Book Online Page A

to get back to Eldh. There’s no doubt this comes at a dark time.”
    Melia looked at Grace. “You were gazing out the window at the time, dear. Did you see anything strange in the moments before the star vanished? Anything that might have presaged what happened?”
    Grace wished she had, but she shook her head. “I was reading a book I borrowed from the university. My eyes were tired, and I looked out the window to rest them. I saw Tira’s star. And then it was...gone.”
    Falken gave her a sharp look. “What book were you reading?”
    “It’s called
Pagan Magics of the North
. I was going to show it to you earlier, only after the Library of Briel you didn’t seem in a very probook mood.”
    Falken grunted. “I can’t argue with you there. But I have to say, I know most of the books ever written about northern magic, and I’ve never heard of that one. Could I look at it?”
    Glad to have something to do, Grace hurried upstairs and retrieved the book. She returned to the others and handed it to Falken. The bard turned it in his hands and thumbed through the pages. Grace explained how she had found it.
    “Interesting,” he said with a frown that said
strange
. “The text is definitely written in High Malachorian. But I’ve never seen paper of such fine quality, and the binding is Tarrasian. I doubt
Pagan Magics of the North
was the volume’s original title. It’s far too condescending to be anything but the creation of a Tarrasian scholar. I suppose whoever renamed the volume tossed out the original title page.” He shut the book. “I doubt we’ll ever know who wrote it, but it does look interesting. Would you mind if I borrowed it, Grace?”
    “No, but there’s something I want you to look at, something I saw just before the red star vanished.” She sat next to him and tried to keep her hands from shaking as she turned to the last page she had been reading.
    Falken’s eyebrows drew down in a glower. “I find it despicable when people mark up books that aren’t their own. And what’s this written here in the margin? It’s gibberish.”
    Grace reached into the pouch at her sash and took out the silver half-coin. “Here,” she said, pressing the coin into Falken’s hand. “Now read it.”
    He glanced again at the book, and his eyes went wide. He looked up at Grace. “It can’t be.”
    “What does it read, Falken?” Melia asked.
    Grace licked her lips. “It reads, ‘Is it fate?’ The words are written next to a passage about the prophecy of the one called Runebreaker.”
    Aryn sat up straight. “Runebreaker?”
    “Yes, but that’s not what’s important. What’s important is that—”
    Falken brushed the page. “—the first letter of ‘fate’ is written backward.”
    Beltan leaped to his feet and pounded the table. “By the blood of the Bull, it’s Travis! He’s a mirror reader—you said so yourself, Falken. And this was written backward. It has to be him. He’s in Tarras somewhere.”
    “Calm yourself,” Falken said in a warning tone. “We don’t know for certain that Travis wrote this.”
    Except Grace knew the bard didn’t believe that. A note in English with one of the letters reversed, scribbled next to a passage about Runebreaker. Who else could it be but Travis? Only how could he have written a note in a book that had obviously been lost for years at the University of Tarras?
    Grace took the half-coin back from Falken, then flipped to the front of the book. A slip of paper was pasted inside the cover. On it, the librarian had written the date Grace was to return the book to the library—a fortnight hence. Above it, crossed out, was a list of previous due dates. Grace looked at the one just above hers in the list.
    Durdath the Second, in the thirty-seventh year of the blessed
rule of His Eminence, Ephesian the Sixteenth.
    A gasp came from behind Grace. It was Melia; she had risen to read over Grace’s shoulder.
    “But that’s impossible,” the lady said. “The