Grail of the Summer Stars (Aetherial Tales) by Freda Warrington Read Free Book Online Page A

blaze.”
    Mist sighed to himself. He continued entering every word or combination of terms he could think of. Azantios. Poectilictis. Theliome. Aurata. Places and people he had not seen for countless thousands of years.
    For “Aurata,” images of beetles, fish and caracal lynxes appeared. The name meant nothing more specific than “golden.” How had they spelled it, in the ancient days? That alphabet no longer existed. The language of Aelyr and Vaethyr alike had evolved along with the Earth and the humans who’d taken it over.
    On the fifth page of results, a title caught his eye. “Aurata’s Promise. Central panel of triptych, tempera and gold leaf on wood panel. Artist: Daniel Manifold.”
    He tapped on the link and found a website for an art gallery, a working studio whimsically called the Jellybean Factory. He scrolled a list of names with a thumbnail image beside each one. Mist pressed on the stamp-sized picture beside Daniel Manifold’s name and up came a bright image like a religious icon. He sat back, stunned.
    There was a red desert landscape and a city of towers, gold and pale yellow and white, so glassy and weightless they seemed to float. But their perfect shells were crumbling, open to the sky. Smoke rose. A woman with flowing auburn hair and the face of a feline goddess stared straight at him, enigmatic, one finger pointing at a volcanic crack in the ground, the other hand holding up an orb to the fiery sky.
    He recognized the place. Even with her stylized, cat-like features, he knew the woman, too.
    “What is it?” said Juliana, leaning forward.
    “Aurata,” Mist said softly. “My sister.”

 
    3
    Ghosts and Shadows
    Stevie dreamed she was drowning. She was on her back, fully immersed in cold green water, enveloped in cushiony moss. The surface rippled above her face. No air bubbles rose from her mouth. Her struggles had faded to calm acceptance. She was now like an amphibian, part of this watery, mossy realm. She had always been here, a forgotten sunken treasure, watching the hypnotic play of sunlight and shadows far above …
    A steel cord snared her, dragging her violently up to the surface. She gasped in the dry world like a hooked fish.
    The “steel cord” was actually the shrill of her alarm clock. Stevie slammed her hand on the button to silence it. Seven-thirty. Waking brought a rush of adrenaline, her usual reaction to such disturbing, recurring dreams.
    The boiler that supposedly heated the water and radiators clunked into life, jolting her back to reality. She stared at the sloping, off-white ceiling as she recalled the previous day’s events.
    She didn’t believe Daniel was dead. He’d always been wrapped in artistic visions, but had he been making a decent living? Didn’t a London studio equal success? Yet she knew too well that anyone could put on a confident front while quietly falling apart inside. Inner turmoil, provoking him to some crazy action … well, that was possible. But suicide? Surely not.
    Stevie hoped with all her heart that his mother was wrong.
    Daniel had been her savior. The first time she met him, she was seventeenish and working in a café, without family or hope. One lunchtime, there he was at a table, sketching. He looked up, caught her staring in fascination, and grinned. Warily sliding into the seat beside him, she saw that he was drawing her. They began to talk. He was so excited to be starting at art college that she decided, in a spontaneous rush of optimism, that she would apply too.
    She had nothing to lose.
    He’d helped her compile a rushed portfolio of artwork, told her what to say at the interview, and by a miracle, she scraped in. Horribly out of her depth at first, she abandoned fine art and found her vocation in working with metals.
    Daniel had been her first true friend, her first lover. Until then, her only brush with boys had been fighting off the unwanted advances of older foster-brothers, who’d all learned the hard way to keep