Glyphbinder Read Online Free Page B

After him came Breath’s child-slim silhouette, rippling in a fog that rose from her marble pedestal. Beyond her stood Land, his bald, chiseled figure hewn from glyphed rock. Finally, Ruin watched over them all, a nebulous outline inside a black void.
    Kara shuddered. Ruin represented the end of all things, ceasing to exist, and ceasing to exist made her colder than a grayback in the woods or a man covered in blood. That wild man had warned her of demons, and demons were Ruin’s domain. Forbidden.
    Soon they reached Solyr’s cafeteria, and Kara could breathe again. Unlike the modern buildings that bordered the Commons, its plain rock walls would fit into a mountainside anywhere in Mynt. It was dark brown and round as a hive, hardened with time and age.
    Solyr’s histories said its first Earther battlemage had raised the cafeteria as a tribute to Land. The histories also said there had been four more buildings like it, one raised to pay tribute to each of the Five. They had all been destroyed in the All Province War almost seventy years ago.
    Kara hadn’t been alive in that time, but the histories of Solyr were legion and she had read them all. Magic academy fought magic academy and Demonkin walked the land. Torn Honuron, High Protector, had stopped all that. A legend among legends. He had sacrificed his life to save their world.
    Kara and her friends eased into the short line filing into the cafeteria and entered a wide room with a smooth domed ceiling and striated walls. Years after the elders formed the cafeteria, they had hung trays of bluish phantom fire from wooden beams above. Their bright light lent the otherwise cavernous space a warm, open feel.
    Tonight Solyr’s chefs had prepared honeyed meat slices, cheese squares, and bowls of spiced mushroom broth. It was a feast fit for a king, but students ate far better than where Kara had grown up. Practically everything in Boon was fish related. They each took a glass of the academy’s red wine and found an empty table to share.
    Byn ripped into his meat like the wolves he sometimes scribed, ravenous as always. Kara slurped her soup, not caring who noticed. She could be ravenous as well.
    “Drown me.” Byn slammed down his bowl. “I was so happy to hear they released you, I just forgot.”
    Sera frowned at him. “Forgot what?”
    “His royal Lockeness visited while you were sleeping. A total ass, of course, all feigned concern. You’d think he already won your triptych duel.”
    “I knew it!” Kara slurped more broth and savored the warmth in her stomach. “Let me guess. I faked my injuries. I was scared to face him, knew I’d lose, so I chickened out. Is that about it?”
    “I’ve been hearing that nonsense all day. It’s been all I could do not to punch someone in the face.” Byn thumped the table and the silverware bounced. “Aryn’s games won’t fool the elders. Elder Halde knows why you couldn’t duel him, and we do too.”
    Kara wasn’t so sure about that. Aryn was her last remaining competitor for the post of royal apprentice and his father, Mayor Dupret Locke, visited often with Mynt royalty. Her triptych duel had been her chance to prove she outmatched Aryn, and she had missed it the day she almost died in the Lorilan Forest.
    The Thinking Tree’s acorn was the second to last of many reagents Kara needed to complete an incredible new glyph: Transference. To complete that glyph she needed magesand, powder made from the ground up bones of mages long dead. It was priceless and only available in Mynt’s capital of Tarna. She would never see it if Aryn took the post of royal apprentice.
    “Find him for me.” Kara took a big bite of honeyed meat. “I have two days before Selection Day. I’m going to challenge him.”
    “Nonsense,” Sera said. “You need to heal.”
    “I can’t just run away. You know why I need to duel him.”
    “Bah,” Byn said. “You’ll crush him when you’re ready.”
    “You need to recover,” Sera said.