Veiled Innocence (Book One, The Soul Cycle) by Krystle Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

them, only her voice was no longer her own. It was darker, hypnotic even, and when she spoke she could see wisps of smoke-like tendrils curl around the sound.
    She had always been able to “hear colors,” an ability that proved to be half gift, half curse. Her hearing was more attuned, the colors more vivid and sharper than they had been when she was a mortal. The landscape exploded in color around her reborn self , disorienting at first but not so much that she couldn’t quickly learn to control it. She had been left on the riverbank, her arms crossed on her chest as if she were on her funeral pyre. In her hands, she clasped the hilt of an exotic black saber encrusted with a single blood-red gem. Her body hummed with a strange power; it writhed and twisted within her, emanating from the saber, already searching out its prey.
    Her victim. Her purpose.
    Nothing existed outside of it. Nothing, no one, mattered.
    The pain was gone, replaced by an apathetic serenity she had never known in mortal life. She felt stronger. Invincible.
    She stretched a hand toward the sky, expecting to see charred flesh only to find the same odd shimmer to her olive skin that Draxonus had possessed. She feared her appearance would give her away during her Calling, but she later learned mortals could not see the shimmer. Only those closest to the brink between life and death, such as newborn babes or the dying, could see through the glamour.
    Shaking her head to clear the memory, Vishka stepped onto the next street. A door creaked open to her left , and laughter bubbled out from a tavern with a rush of warm air that smelled of sweat and sex. A couple stumbled past her, tripping over themselves as they flirted and joked. A few more men left the tavern only to be flagged down by a cheaply dressed woman at the street corner. All except one, who fell into step a few feet behind Vishka as she passed. 
    Vishka darted past the woman and down the next alley. A heap of garbage rattled and then hissed at her as a cat scurried across her path and disappeared into the night.
    Heavy footsteps plodded behind her, but she kept walking. 
    There was a dim glow up ahead. It was an old man, his skin so thin and sallow it looked like it had been painted on. He squatted on the ground beside a pile of burning rags, half hidden by a tower of crates. Something roasted on a stick, and Vishka thought she would gag from the putrid smell wafting from it. He heard her approach and lifted eyes partially obscured by a filmy whiteness. “Please. Spa re some coins for the poor, my L ord?”
    She reached into the folds of her robe and pitched several krillions on the ground before him. He groped for the coins, and his face lit up in astonishment as his fingers traced the embossed profile of Dreaka, Accalia’s patro n goddess. “Th – thank you, my L ord!”
    Vishka slowly lifted her chin as she passed. Though he could not see her, she could tell by the pale blue light – the color of death – veiling him that he would sense her. The dying always recognized an agent of Death.
    She waited for the revelation. At first, several emotions crossed his face before it settled into a look of utter terror. His mouth agape, he stared at her speechless as she floated past him and disappeared into the shadows at the end of the alley. 
    The footsteps following her stopped.   
    Her tall black boots kicked up dust as she walked, quiet as the dead.
    Behind her, the old man pleaded. There was a loud crack, followed by a thump , and the alley was silent, save for the hurried footsteps heading in the opposite direction. 
    She knew what would happen to that old man the moment she laid eyes on him. Could she predict the future? Far from it. It was a simple fact of life. He was much easier prey, and besides, he had been close to death anyway. She had only sped up the inevitable.
    Oh, well. At least he had experienced happiness for a short time in his wretched life. 
    She flattened her body