Dark Requiem (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 3) Read Online Free

in front of her. Before her was an
earthen pot along with a small cloth bag. The blade of a knife
glinted in the emerald grass. Like the brown mare, she had been
waiting for me.
    She looked up, her gaze as
shrewd as it had been in life.
    You forgot
him .
    There was no need for her
to utter speech in this place. She reached into the cloth bag,
pulled out a handful of salt and sprinkled it in a circle around
her.
    Yes, I replied . Thank you—for summoning
me. I can remember nearly everything.
    She inclined her head
forward in a bow, a small mark of reverence. She looked up again,
her gaze intense.
    Good. Then you know what
you must do.
    She now placed a mixture
of things in an earthen bowl, some herbs, what looked like
crystals, cowie beads and more salt from the bag .
    Yes. But how?
    She looked away from the
earthen pot and pointed to the trees. I followed the line of her
thin brown arm and saw that the woodland around us had been swept
away. Instead I saw a tumbled-down shack that was almost swallowed
by the surrounding foliage. I knew it was somewhere in Mississippi
and that one of its occupants was what appeared to be a
sixteen-year-old girl. She had braids and was wearing a yellow
summer dress the last time I saw her, the night I found that
journal.
    Find them, Mama Akosua commanded .
    Maryse? She won’t do
it.
    No, she will not.
But he will.
    She went back to the task
before her and the woodland slowly ebbed into view again as she lit
a match and threw it in the earthen pot. Its contents burst into
strange lilac flames.
    How do I know you really
are Mama Akosua? How do I know you’re not...?
    I couldn’t finish, only
look toward the chapel. The light was almost gone, giving the old,
hulking building an air of smouldering evil and of something that
whispered of death and decay.
    A hint of a smile passed
over her lips.
    You don’t. But you know
you must be with him, don’t you?
    I nodded.
    This is the only
way.
    She picked up the knife
and slit a line down her palm, releasing a thin stream of blood
into the earthen pot. The flames leapt up again, seeming to lick at
the blood trickling into the pot.
    This is where it began and
this is where it must end. You cannot fail.
    I won’t...Mama.
    The chapel, the
clearing—along with the knowing that was returned to me in this
dreamscape—began to melt away, leaving behind only one
thing.
    Avery.

Chapter 2

    New York 2012
     
    I was wide awake in the
dark bedroom. I sat up with a start.
    I’d forgotten
Avery.
    A torrent of emotion
overcame me. My throbbing head and nausea paled in comparison to
the wrenching pull I could feel in my stomach as memories of Avery
flooded my mind.
    Tears filled my
eyes.
    I remembered Avery’s cool
hand loosely holding onto mine as we moved through Central Park,
his face pale in the bright sunshine as I stared up at him, his
expression distant, his eyes dark and mournful.
    And the time he found me
in a nightclub when I was fourteen, his arm around my waist in a
firm but distant hold as we stood outside. His jaw was set in an
angry line, his eyes blazing with a blue fire as he searched the
dark street for a cab.
    I also remembered the last
time I saw him in the clearing at the Holbert plantation. His
intense gaze was on me as I stood with my hands pressed against the
sides of his head, his eyes reflecting the anguish he must have
seen in mine. I remembered the way he held onto my hands a moment
too long when he pulled them away from his head and let them fall,
the sorrow in his eyes seeming to consume him for a few seconds
before he was able to push it back.
    Tears spilled onto my
cheeks at the memories.
    I had seen him for brief
moments throughout my entire life, and he had always been
unreachable, his thoughts caught by something far, far away from
me. That last encounter with him was the first time I felt I had
his entire attention. And it was as if he couldn’t tear his gaze
away from me, his dizzying blue eyes focussed on me with