Cethe by Becca Abbott Read Free Book Online

riding
    to the head of the assembly, Corliss right behind him. At Severyn’s signal, they started down the lane, disappearing around the
    armory.
    Eldering couldn’t possibly believe he could escape. Except for the distant hil s, the castle was surrounded by miles of open
    land. With his lame foot, he wouldn’t get more than a mile or two. Abruptly, Michael turned and left the room.
    Two guards met him in the corridor outside. They were in the process of searching the house from top to bottom in case
    Eldering should have slipped back inside for some reason.
    “Have you been in the north tower?” Michael asked.
    They had and found it empty. Michael watched them hurry on to the cel ars, then walked slowly in the opposite direction.
    The north wing was indeed deserted. He went straight to the tower, climbing the narrow steps to the top. The smal , round
    room looked just as it had the night of the attack. Michael went to the window and looked out. Soldiers spread across the fields,
    moving slowly outward in a wide net.
    Retreating to the book-laden table, he sat down. He thought about locking the door, but it seemed unlikely he’d be interrupted.
    Closing his eyes, Michael began to breathe deeply and rhythmical y. His body relaxed. Little by little, his awareness of his
    surroundings began to fade.
    The shift from here to there happened quickly. Behind his eyelids, the ordinary dark abruptly changed, becoming deep and
    limitless. It was disturbed only by erratic flashes of light, threads of bril iance that writhed, twisted and whirled as they shot past him
    on their journey through the ether. Fragments of the Dark Stream, they were flung out from its turbulent current, like the spray of
    wild waves battering against a shore.
    Only the naragi had been able to drink directly from the Stream, but a witch could make good use of its random splash-overs.
    Michael reached for the threads, accepting the sharp, familiar jolts of contact as he caught first one, then another. Only when he’d
    taken his limit did he return to the world of the real.
    Michael had never used so much k’na over such a brief period of time as he had since coming to Shia. His head ached. There
    was a buzzing in his ears. He would probably sleep for a week after this. Slumping forward, he dropped his head into his arms on
    the table and whispered the Words of a seeking spel . Not so long ago, in this very room, he’d first seen Eldering’s life-pattern. It
    hung in his memory, bright and clear. Now, al he had to do was find it.
    Stefn had discovered the secret room by accident when he was younger. Its door was triggered by a narrow slip of stone on
    the floor in one of the west wing’s empty rooms. More than once, he’d escaped a beating by waiting out his father’s rage in the
    narrow, stuffy space.
    He lifted his candle to better see the marks carved into the wal s, floor and ceiling. The Sword and the Oak Leaf was Loth’s
    sign, a potent charm against witches and their forbidden powers. According to Shian legend, the women and children of the castle
    had hidden here during the war. Protected by the power of Loth, they had been safe from naragi sorcery.
    The nearest Cathedral was in Fornsby, a day’s ride south, a proper Cathedral, not just an Abbey like Shia’s. It had no
    knightmages, either, but there were Hunters. Although he’d never actual y been there, he’d seen maps and overheard talk about the
    town. Later, when things were quiet, he would creep from his hiding place, take a horse from the stable, slip out of the castle, and be
    away.
    Thinking of being outside Shia’s wal s again recal ed him to the refuse pit. His stomach clenched. He’d never seen real bones
    before, only il ustrations in the library’s anatomy texts. Stefn hugged his knees tightly to his chest, realizing suddenly there had been
    no difference between those drawings and the bones he’d been forced to dig out of the filth and garbage. Was it possible