Ghost in the Inferno (Ghost Exile #5) by Jonathan Moeller Read Free Book Online Page B

gown. Her expression was tight and hard, her hair thrown back from her head as if caught in a wind. Her arms were thrust before her, as if to ward something away.
    Or as if she was reaching for someone. 
    Caina had seen this place and this fountain before. Once, Caina had learned, the fountain had stood within the heart of Iramis, and had been enspelled to provide water for the city. Then Callatas had burned Iramis, killing its people and transforming its fertile farmlands into the desolate Desert of Candles. Iramis had burned, yet the fountain somehow remained, including the crystalline figures atop the plinth in the fountain’s center. 
    The crystalline figures were important, though Caina was not sure how.
    And she had the strangest feeling she had seen the woman before, somewhere in the waking world, but she could not quite place it.
    “The star is the key to the crystal,” Caina whispered.
    The spirit of the Moroaica’s father had given her that prophecy after Corvalis’s death. Those words had haunted her ever since, burned into her mind. Slowly she had been able to uncover their meaning. The “star” meant the Star of Iramis that Callatas wore on a chain about his neck, one of the three relics of the regalia of the Princes of Iramis that he needed to work his Apotheosis. 
    The “crystal”, according to the Emissary of the Living Flame that Caina had met at Silent Ash Temple, meant this fountain. More precisely, she suspect it meant the eight crystalline figures atop the plinth, the woman and the children. 
    But why? Why were they important? Just what was this fountain?
    Caina didn’t know. It was more than a little frustrating.
    A voice cut into her thoughts.
    “The Moroaica.”
    It was Kylon’s voice, but the words had a sardonic, mocking drawl to them, a tone Kylon had never taken with her. Caina turned and saw Kylon of House Kardamnos walking towards her. He looked a little younger and far less grim, the way he had looked before Thalastre’s death and the battle of Marsis. The way he had looked, she realized, on the day they had met and they had tried to kill each other. He wore the gray leather armor of a Kyracian stormdancer, a cloak the green-blue of the western sea streaming from his shoulders, a sword of storm-forged steel on his left hip. 
    His eyes were smokeless flame, hot and bright, painting the skin of his face with fiery light.
    The image standing before her was not really Kylon. The spirit wore Kylon’s form because it reflected her subconscious thoughts. Or, more likely, the djinni had chosen to wear Kylon’s form simply to rattle her. 
    “Samnirdamnus,” said Caina.
    Samnirdamnus, Knight of Wind and Air and djinni of the Court of the Azure Sovereign, stopped a dozen paces away, the sea-colored cloak rippling in the wind. He had spoken in Caina’s dreams ever since she had come to Istarinmul, and she was still not sure why. Callatas had bound the djinni to guard his Maze, the labyrinth protecting the entrance to his private laboratory, so Caina supposed Samnirdamnus wanted to be free of Callatas and take vengeance upon the Grand Master. 
    But the djinni wanted something else, she was sure. Something that he thought that she had, though Caina did not know what. Samnirdamnus liked to speak in cryptic riddles, but his counsel and warnings had saved her life more than once. 
    “The Moroaica,” said Samnirdamnus, a mocking smile on Kylon’s face.
    Caina felt a chill. “Why do you call me that? The Moroaica is dead.” 
    “You have the right to the title,” said Samnirdamnus. “Or would you prefer another one, perhaps? She had many names. The Szalds called her Jadriga, the Sword-Queen of War. The Anshani named her the Bloodmaiden, and the Kyracians called her the Bringer of Dust and Ashes. The Iramisians called her the Herald of Ruin, and I am not sure what the solmonari of the Szalds called her because she killed them all. But the priests of ancient Maat, the priests of the