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

against a wall as a patrol rounded the corner and marched toward her. Her body tingled with the familiar sensation of becoming nothing more than air, and within a split second, she m erged with the shadows themselves. The soldiers were so close that she could see the pores in their skin, but she was invisible to their eyes, as she was to most anything, save for spirits and other creatures tied to the Realm of Death.
    She had only seen spirits a handful of times, but she always sensed their presence. At first it had frightened her, but now she barely paid them any attention. They gathered in places of death, floating around as balls of blue light, some brighter than others depending on what type of a person they had been.
    Vishka had always been able to sense a person’s spirit , whether they were noble, corrupt, timid, or passionate. Her immortality had also heightened that gift, granting her the power to actually see a person’s soul , or aura, as strands of light emanating from a person’s body. Each aura had a different color. Immortals also had colored auras, but theirs differed in that they were ringed by silver light. Animals, plants, and insects too had auras, usually green, brown, or yellow, the colors of nature. His aura – her master – was the only one she had ever seen glow like liquid moonlight, but she had seen all manner of the rainbow of auras since being in the m ortal realm again, which was ex citing and new at first but quickly grew dull.
    Once the patrol passed, she peeled away from the wall, becoming solid again as she did, and took off in the opposite direction. It looked like the street had not been used in years. She passed a temple where a statue to Erebus, the God of Death, lay knock ed off its pedestal, His head l ying a few feet from the rest of His body.
    She pried her eyes from the sight of His decapitated head and frowned. If only it were that easy to kill a god .
    She quickened her pace and turned at an abandoned stable yard, at last coming to a decr epit wooden fence. Crouching, she felt along the ground. 
    Her fingers t railed only mud , and she growled, beginning to think her lead had misinformed her. False leads and dead ends were part of the job, especially when hunting something as precious and rare as an Immortal, but all the same it annoyed her to no end to think she had wasted more time.
    Her fingers patted furtively. It must be here somewhere. She had never been a patient woman. One would think a century’s worth of pursuing the same task would be enough to teach one a virtue, but alas , she found her fingers racing faster and faster through the slush. At last, they brushed raised metal.
    Found it.
    She dusted the handle off with her hands, revealing a small square with a symbol of swirls and spirals at its center. It appeared to be little more than a few feet across. Fortunate ly, she was slender.
    She hooked her index finger around the loop of the storm drain and tugged the cover off, revealing a shabby rope ladder. Her mouth twitched in amusement. How appropriate they hide like vermin.
    Without hesitation, she swung herself over and descended into the abyss.
    The hole was not as deep as she originally thought. After a few steps, her boots met with something mushy but definitely solid. She let go of the ladder and settled into the muck.
    As she began walking, she found it increasingly harder to keep an even pace because her feet kept sticking to the ground. She closed her eyes and merged with the darkness, becoming nothing more than shimmering vapor, and pushed forward with ease.
    Ahead, the gentle murmur of running water reverberated around the tunnel – appearing as swirling, dancing threads of teal light – as sewer rats the size of her forearm ran alongside her on the bank, lined in auras of brown. When she reached the end of the tunnel, she found it widened into another filled with a steadily flowing stream. The smell of fresh rain water and rust permeated the