The Turquoise Tower (Revenant Wyrd Book 6) Read Online Free

the leader.
    Russel smiled and nodded his head.
     

Grace hated traveling by rojo. She stood in the underground chamber, surrounded by flickering torches and chattering people, waiting for her turn. If she had her choice, she would have stepped through immediately, but Sara was the first to step through the shimmering portal and into the decimated street of the beyond.
    There was a moment, as Sara stepped through the iron doorway, where her image vanished, and then seconds later Grace could see her again, on the other side of the arch and thousands of leagues away in the Ivory City.
    There was a tall blonde woman standing there waiting for them. Her golden dress hung in velvety folds around her slender frame. If Grace didn’t know any better, she would think Aladestra was made of porcelain, her skin and hair were so perfect and radiant. And though she didn’t really care for the Guardian of the Holy Realm, there was no denying Aladestra had very strong wyrd.
    Annbell stepped to the portal next, and through, her form slipping past the glass-like surface of the portal, flickering out of sight and then winking back into existence on the other side. Before Grace closed her eyes and prepared to step through, she saw her auburn-haired sister hugging Aladestra.
    When Grace stepped through the portal, she couldn’t help but open her eyes. It was the sensation of being pulled violently through space and time that she hated more than the vision. She was among the stars, standing in the void of space, being transported from one place to the next. When she stumbled through the rojo and into the shattered streets of the Ivory City, Grace felt like she’d left part of herself behind. The transportation was so violent that when she appeared on the other side her stomach lurched painfully, and she had to fight to keep her breakfast down.
    “Grace, it is so good to see you,” Aladestra said in her sing-song voice, and hugged the old crone.
    “The pleasure is all mine,” Grace lied.
    As the rest of the group — Mag, Astanel, Rosalee, and Dalah, as well as Flora and her charges — came through the portal, Grace took a look around. This side of the rojo emptied out onto a cobbled street, on the opposite side of the constable barracks. There was obviously work being done, but Grace couldn’t see proof of it. Through the rubble and debris she heard the shouts of workers to other workers, and the sounds of heavy stones being moved. Directly across from where they stepped out Grace could see the ruined gate of the dungeon where they’d kept the verax-acis. It was now empty, and the thought made Grace shiver.
    To her right Grace could see nothing but towering stones and debris.
    “This is where the academy came down?” Grace asked.
    “Part of it,” Aladestra nodded. “We’ve had the glass and smaller rubble swept away; now there’s only the larger stones to break up and dispose of. We were able to clear a path this way.” Aladestra pointed to Grace’s left, where there had been a path cleared through more rubble. From her time in the towering city of ivory, Grace knew this corner well. It was the one where the central city started, the home of all the offices of state and the wyrder’s academy.
    “Shall we?” Aladestra asked, and Sara nodded.
    As they made their way through the rubble, Grace kept to herself, admiring the staggering size of the city. It was said, though Grace didn’t believe it, that none of the buildings here were constructed with wyrd, but she just couldn’t understand how towers and apartment buildings could reach so far into the heavens without the aid of some kind of wyrd.
    They turned right once out of the rubble, and Grace looked ahead of them. Every time she saw the cobble street winding up the hill to the Ivory Tower at the apex, it took Grace’s breath away. The sun sparkled majestically off the crystal observatory at the tip of the tower, where Aladestra was able to stargaze at night and practice