Reclaiming Mystique (SpaceStalker Saga Book 2) by Bevan Greer Read Free Book Online Page B

her exams, Naria ate a light meal and gathered a small satchel containing her books.
    She left the Lysst moon by way the large, dark blue circle on the ground called a transector. Mentally powered transports, transector circles connected the moons of Dark World to each other and the planet. Stepping inside of the circle, she envisioned a similar circle on Fer closest to her university. She appeared there in the blink of an eye.
    Walking the familiar path to the Haunted Library, she smiled at the large writhing man-serpent seated upon the entrance throne.
    “Good day, young shayna,” he hissed and bowed his head in deference to her station. The equivalent of a princess, a shayna was the daughter of a demon lord, his son called a shade. Lord Demise was thought extremely lucky to have not one, but five shaynas born during his last fertile cycle.
    Demise had a few shades and shaynas born four hundred cycles ago, but they had long since left his keeping and now worked throughout Dark World. Naria knew them only by sight. Her half-sisters by Lordess Xeche had grown up alongside her on Arnth, the pleasure moon.
    Demise, however, had seen the wisdom in separating Naria and Carinna from Arnth after Xeche’s third attempt on their lives. He’d had since raised them on Fer and Lysst. Her half-sisters and Carinna had come into their dark gifts many cycles earlier. At four and twenty cycles of age, Naria knew she had little time left to enjoy her studies on Fer.
    Naria joined her fellow students in the testing room and took her exam. She completed it with ease, awash in tales of the legendary Ragil Horde—ancient demon kings of Dark World and their soldiers the Cazeth. She reveled in the many eras of darkness that existed throughout the history of time.
    Naria loved learning about the past almost as much as she loved reading about the System beyond Dark World. Only the academics at university understood her thirst for knowledge. But even they had no desire to leave Dark World.
    Naria breathed each day in hopes of one day leaving her planet. The cold and the constant agony echoing in the very air she breathed took its toll. A proper shayna would would revel in the darkness swirling about this place. Instead she felt a sense of wrongness when around others “of her kind”.
    She desperately wished to understand her place, because she had a bad feeling it wasn’t meant to be lived on Dark World. She thought she would find her answers out among the stars. There had to be more to existence that what lived in darkness.
    “Ahem.” A test monitor frowned at her, and she flushed, hoping she hadn’t given away any sense of mental distress not associated with the exam.
    Naria finished her exam in record time and turned it in. Then she waited while her instructor passed her with honors.
    Her teacher, a Zethythal, infamous for their small, blocky forms and indistinct features constantly moving around their faces, had a mind that absorbed knowledge like a sponge. Only the Zethythal could work in the universities and learning centers. Demons and devels had more important work to do.
    “Zeth,” she said respectfully, “what do you know of life outside our world?”
    Her instructor blinked, one eye level with her chin before it moved again. “Why do you ask, Naria?”
    “Father has a new prisoner with extraordinary mental abilities. I thought this talent rare, even unheard of among offworlders.”
    “Hmm. Most offworlders have no psychic talent. There are a few variances in the System, however. It is not inconceivable that a few humans have been gifted beyond that of normal men.”
    “So you know of no particular race renowned for such an ability?”
    “None that exist in this plane.”
    An odd answer. Naria would have questioned him further but another student approached with a question.
    “Thank you, Zeth. I appreciate your time.” She nodded respectfully then turned and left the building.
    She liked Zeth. He had spoken to her father