Spirit Binder by Meghan Ciana Doidge Read Free Book Online Page B

little farfetched to me. There’s spirit in the stone beneath your feet.“ This observation seemed to startle Sammy, and he lifted his feet like he’d prefer to place them elsewhere or not need them to stand. “The trees sway with spirit.“
    “That’s enough! We ain’t here for you to talk us confused.”
    “Very well, then.” Her acceptance caused another round of hesitation on their part and she wondered about the traitor again; was he a killer? He could have served his time. The scar did look older. Was that why this Preacher sent him?
    Then, as one, with their knives held aloft in front of them, they stepped forward. As they moved closer, they spread out to either side, in case she tried to run by them, Theo supposed. They were corralling her. She wondered if they’d been farmers before … she wondered how close she would let them get …
    Something blurred in her peripheral vision.
    A large body with wings swooped around her once, and then slammed its massive clawed feet into the rock between her and her would-be assassins.
    A gryphon, she guessed, obviously having never set eyes on a mythical beast outside a book before. The body of a lion with the head of an eagle. This one was at least nine feet tall.
    It screamed at her attackers.
    They’d frozen at its arrival, but now they shrieked, dropped their knives, and ran. She was fairly certain Sammy had peed himself.
    “Well, they were hoping to see some tricks,“ Theo murmured, as she watched them disappear into the forest. The gryphon glanced back at her over its shoulder, and she decided it might be a good idea to step away from the cliff. As she walked by, the gryphon lowered its head to watch her. The forest now in front of her, she turned to face the mythical beast.
    “A gryphon? A legendary creature, and a guardian of the divine. Is that ironic or by choice?” The gryphon tilted its head as if listening, but Theo made sure to stay out of the reach of its hooked beak. “Though … it might have been a good idea to capture them, instead of just scaring them into fleeing.”
    The gryphon turned its head and squinted toward the dense forest.
    “I don’t think you can fly through the trees.”
    The gryphon seemed to think for a moment, and then its skin began to crawl and ripple and twist. She stepped farther away, but, intrigued, couldn’t will herself to flee. The gryphon began to glow, and then, with a flash of magic so bright it knocked her back, it transformed into a large grey wolf. The wolf shook itself all over, then sprang by her, and dashed into the forest.
    A spiritwalker.  
    Not just a gryphon, but a magic user who could transform. She’d heard of their existence; one of the rarest manifestations of magic: to be able to connect to and collect the spirit of animals and alter the very structure of their bodies. It was an amazing ability, and obviously one not just confined to actual living animals. Though, perhaps the spiritwalker could simply combine the spirits of multiple animals at will … hence the gryphon.
    ∞
    Theo, a little regretfully but steadily, left the peacefulness of the cliff and traced her steps back toward the castle. She didn’t know who the spiritwalker was, and though he or she appeared to be friend rather than foe, Theo was all too aware — thanks to the killers on the cliff and her own ten-year kidnapping — that the enemy of her enemy was not necessarily a friend.
    She was almost back to the safety of the wards — why was it that the return trip always felt longer — when the wolf padded out of the forest to walk alongside her. Had she been more aware of the surroundings, rather than so in her head, she would have noticed how quiet the forest had become right before the wolf appeared. Prey always recognizes a predator; even if it could change shapes.  
    The wolf came up to her waist, and easily weighed two hundred pounds but the gryphon had been larger, so spiritwalkers were not hindered by their own