Covenant Read Online Free

recognize those unearthly amber eyes anywhere. It was Kim. He was alive.
    A cold hand seemed to clench her heart and squeeze. Angela reached out to at least grab the edge of Kim’s sleeve, but she was a ghost grabbing for another ghost.
    She stumbled forward through snow—and through his ghostly body—and watched helplessly as the door opened to a staggering blackness.
    Kim glanced over his shoulder; he met Angela’s gaze and silently mouthed her name.
    With a heavy sigh like a man defeated, he started his descent.
    Desperation cut like a hot blade through Angela. The other shadow belonged to Sophia.
    Sophia wore the beautiful silver dress from the day she and Angela had first met, but her gray eyes were downcast, and her chestnut curls had also flattened beneath the snow.
    She turned at the threshold of the great door and looked pointedly at Angela. There was decisiveness to the moment. Angela knew without a doubt that this was the last time they would ever be together.
    Angela ran, aware that she was screaming again, and that it hurt.
    She didn’t want to go through the door, but she also didn’t want to be alone in this terrible place. Being without Kim? Or even Israfel? Her heart had gotten used to that by now. But being without Sophia was out of the question—and Angela ran harder.
    Sophia stood her ground before the door. The alien words of Raziel’s Book appeared, moving and twisting across her skin. Her eyes blazed, and her hair whipped from an unseen wind. There was a deadly earnestness fixing her pretty face. She was saying something, but Angela could barely hear. A great roar had started to overtake her from behind.
    A rushing storm and a light raced with her.
    Angela was steps away from Sophia and the door.
    Now, Sophia’s words made themselves heard. “DON’T FOLLOW .” Tears dripped down her delicate cheeks. She appeared inconsolable. But Sophia did the unthinkable anyway, and as the light overtook Angela, as Angela’s soul tore away from her, Sophia entered the blackness and shut the door.

Three
    And my first and last thought was: how could she leave me alone? —A NGELA M ATHERS
    The pain forced Angela to finally open her eyes and come to terms with it.
    Her bones ached. Her muscles felt like they’d been yanked out of her and then stuffed back beneath her skin. But the dim light of her room in the recently minted Emerald House had a soporific effect, and she lay there gazing out the window that first met her reopened eyes, watching in silent bewilderment while the snow fell and the reality that she was still alive sank in.
    Slowly, she inspected the rest of her room, gradually turning her head to the left.
    Her recent paintings of Israfel—all half-finished failures—peppered the area at the foot of her bed. Across the room on a small table, a pendulum clock marked the hour as half past five in the afternoon. Near the ceiling, her doll collection peered down from carefully placed shelves, row after row of them, perfect with their glass eyes, porcelain bodies, and fine lacy dresses. Sophia, looking like a life-size doll, sat by Angela’s bedside and regarded her with a grim expression, her breaths slow, even, and somehow admonishing.
    She wasn’t at all the terrible vision from Angela’s nightmare. In fact, she seemed even more delicate and frail.
    Sophia sighed and offered Angela a glass of water from a tray at her bedside.
    â€œThanks,” Angela said, wincing at the pain in her voice box. She relished the water as it trickled down her raw throat. Then she gave the glass back to Sophia and stared at the girl’s velvet slippers, still thinking of the terrible dream.
    I was dead. That’s the only explanation. After all, I can’t dream anymore—I gave my dreams away in order to be with Israfel.
    â€œLook where it’s gotten you,” Sophia said softly.
    â€œWhat?”
    She can’t read my