Ensnared (Sorcery and Science Book 5) Read Online Free

disappearance was nothing new—after all, she’d gone into hiding years ago—but it gnawed at him daily. She was Elitia’s most famed Prophet, a tempting prize long desired by the Selpe and Avan Empires and any other human with delusional fantasies of ultimate power. To them, she was a tool to be drained dry, but to Jason she was so much more. Terra was his childhood friend. His best friend. His only friend.
    The Selpes, those desecrators of Elition treasures, had stolen the Book of Memory, just as Shade had told him. Jason didn’t know how the peculiar old Elition had found out about the Selpes’ theft, but he wasn’t surprised that he had. Shade always knew about these sorts of things.
    The Selpes had hidden the Book of Memory away in some dark laboratory corner in their capital city of Orion. They’d then prodded it, scanned it, and exposed it to any number of odious chemicals in the hopes of uncovering the secret of its magic. It hadn’t worked. Naturally. And Jason had stolen the book from their vault before they could devise even more ways to taint its pages.
    According to Elition lore, the famed Recovery Scrolls would point the way to any Elition alive, no matter how distant. Of course it wasn’t nearly so easy. The scrolls were rare, said to be one of a kind. And because they were powerful, not to mention dangerous in the wrong hands, they were split up into three volumes—the Books of Memory, Vision, and Prophecy—then hidden away at three temples scattered throughout Elitia. And just in case that was too easy, to unlock the texts one needed a key, the Stones of Resonance.
    Now that Jason had the Book of Memory, tucked safely away in Eclipse behind portals known only to its residents, his quest to find Terra had led him deep into the Elition Wilderness. It was a land of old magic, a land where human technology failed to function. The Temple of the Veil itself, shielded by thick, golden-stoned walls, offered no easy entrance. The way was barred to intruders—humanly inaccessible.
    It was a good thing Jason wasn’t human.
    He scaled the smooth outer wall deftly and hopped down into the garden, setting down between a bed of pale green petaled flowers and one of lavender blossoms. Ingredients for serums? Sprinting silently, he came upon the back entrance—the old door used by none but the groundskeeper—and slipped inside. His destination was the library, the archives section. There he was sure to find his mark: the Book of Vision. Jason had already visited Viridescence, the continent’s northernmost temple, where it had once been kept, but it had apparently gone missing just six months ago. The winding, exasperating sliver of a thread of clues had led him here.
    Jason concealed himself behind an open door as he heard two pairs of sharp footsteps approach. He glanced down the hall, where two white coats turned the corner and disappeared from sight. Doctors. Human doctors. He’d seen at least a dozen roaming the halls since entering the temple. The place felt like a hospital. This wasn’t normal. Something out of the ordinary was most definitely going on at the Temple of the Veil.
    He passed the learners’ corridor, where the Elition school children, aged four to sixteen, had their rooms. All doors were ajar, allowing Jason a privileged glimpse into the abnormalites within. Several children twitched with convulsions in their sleep. Some as young as six were bound up tightly in medical bandages hardly able to contain the excessive blood loss. Others were fettered to their beds by heavy restraints as doctors injected them with thick needles. A few were fully awake, sharpening their fighting knives or dressing themselves in camouflage clothing.
    Jason avoided an entourage of human doctors and Elition—no, make that Siennan—priests as he zipped into the library at the far end of the learners’ corridor. The archives, where he would find the Book of Vision, was no more protected than at any other temple.