Mystic Read Online Free Page B

barony, following the rumor of a wandering Mystic. I found him. I groveled at the hem of his torn robes and begged him to take me as his apprentice.”
    She blinked, not believing what she heard. Could he be lying? She’d learned long ago to weigh his words carefully. But these had a note of honesty about them. “Wh-what did he say?”
    â€œHe kicked me as I knelt in the dirt. He spit snot on me and told me to lick the ground. Said that if I ever spoke to him again, he would strip me of my name and brand me Unclaimed.”
    Pomella’s breath froze in her chest.
    Fathir turned to her and held her gaze. “ That is how Mystics think, Pomella. That is their world. The happy love and Mystical power your grandmhathir spoke of is a dream. It’s time to wake up.”
    He left her and she sat in silence until midnight passed, bringing Springrise at last.
    *   *   *
    Hours later, in the deep silence of the night when even shadows sleep, Pomella sat awake on the floor of her small room, staring at the wall. A trail of old tears stained her cheeks. They’d come at first when she barred herself in her room, but she refused to let them dominate her tonight, or any night.
    A thick tome rested in her lap. It had belonged to Grandmhathir, who quietly passed it to Pomella in her final days. The Book of Songs, she’d called it.
    A symbol of a tree, woven like a Mothic knot, decorated its leather cover. Running her fingers over it, Pomella traced the embossed shape. Unfamiliar letter-runes were stamped into the leather. The shapes were from the script reserved only for the merchant-scholar caste and above.
    She opened the book to a random page in the middle. The leather spine creaked, and her grandmhathir’s scent danced around the room. The first time she’d opened it, Pomella had been surprised to see the book wasn’t a collection of songs. She didn’t know what it was. Grandmhathir had only managed to indicate it related to the Myst and therefore Pomella had to keep it hidden.
    Pomella flipped through the pages, trying again to understand their contents. A hundred illustrations accompanied the book’s hand-printed text, creating a mesmerizing collection of pages. Colorful star diagrams, cross sections of plants, strange letter charts, a trail map of an unknown mountain, and depictions of hand gestures fought for room against the hand-printed letter-runes.
    In the center of the book an elaborate drawing sprawled across two facing pages. The runes above it read, in the common script, The Mystical Hierarchy, and showed stylized rankings of water, flesh, stone, iron, blood, fire, and other essences Pomella did not recognize.
    Most wondrous of all, though, was her grandmhathir’s familiar thin handwriting, scrawled throughout every page in rose-colored ink. Most of Grandmhathir’s notes related to music. Bars and musical notation, along with lyrics and poems, filled the open spaces of each page. Pomella didn’t understand what the original text was meant for, but could plainly see her grandmhathir was leaving behind songs.
    â€œI wish you were here,” Pomella said aloud.
    She studied page after page as the night deepened. The notes bewildered her, but she recognized many of the songs scribbled inside, including “A Sail to Pull the Moon” and “Into Mystic Skies.” She hummed some of them aloud, tasting their familiar sounds. Clearing her throat, she tried again, this time with her whispered voice rather than a hum.
    â€œTurn my heart to rain
    And I will illuminate
    I will illuminate
    The sky”
    As far back as she could remember, Grandmhathir had always encouraged Pomella to sing. She recalled games they’d played together, where Grandmhathir taught her how to run scales and find melody. In recent years, singing had become her safe place. Nobody could take that from her, not even her fathir.
    A gentle tap sounded at her window,