Tracing the Shadow Read Online Free

skull. Pressing a hand to one aching ear, Rieuk reached out to prise out the throbbing stone from its setting.
    But the excruciating sound did not stop. The crystal lay in his sweating palms, still emitting its shrill vibrating cry, almost as if it were alive. His whole body began to judder in sympathy. And now the crystal began to glow with a cloudy white light, so that its brightness made his flesh seem transparent.
    The door was flung open and Hervé de Maunoir ran in. “What’s happening?” he shouted, his voice barely audible above the din.
    “The Vox works. But it’s—tearing me apart!” Someone—something—was trapped inside. Its agony possessed Rieuk until he felt himself sucked helplessly into its frenzy of despair.
    “Where are you?” he cried, his voice barely audible above the wailing cry.
    A slender, translucent figure appeared, sealed within a column of milky-white light. The light was so dazzling that he could not see the figure clearly, he could only hear its anguished cry—a cry that seared all thoughts from his brain but one:
Set me free
.

CHAPTER 2

    A deliciously creamy perfume wafts through Klervie’s dream: she runs through dew-soaked grass, the cool wetness dampening her bare feet. The pale shadow of the unicorn flits in front of her as she pursues it, eager to stroke its silky flanks. It will lead her to the hidden grove where the Faie dance in the moonlight. And if you catch a Faie, it must grant you a wish. White flowers open their petals as the unicorn passes and a delicious scent breathes out. Mmm…vanilla cream…
    A faint, thin cry shudders through the starlit night…
             
    And Klervie awoke. She lay still, clutching the sheet to her. It had been such a beautiful dream until—
    There it was again!
And it was coming from the kitchen, she was sure of it. It was the desolate, desperate cry of a trapped creature.
    “Mewen, you
bad
cat!’ she whispered. The family’s sleek grey tabby had taken to bringing in his prey half-dead, delighting in tormenting it until it expired of exhaustion, or he grew bored. Klervie slipped out of her truckle bed and padded across the moonlit flagstones, wondering if it were a field mouse or a baby rabbit. Could she rescue it in time from Mewen’s cruel claws?
    Yet again the cry whispered through the cottage. Klervie stopped. It made her feel cold and shivery, even though the summer night was close and airless. And it was not coming from the kitchen; it had issued from Papa’s study. And the light she had taken for moonlight was seeping from beneath Papa’s study door. Was he working late?
    Klervie went up on tiptoe to raise the latch. The door slowly opened, revealing a strange radiance that flickered like silver firelight burning from a tray of translucent coals on the desk. The light sharply outlined in shadow-silhouette the two men bending over the tray. They were so engrossed that they did not see her. She just stood staring, bewitched. A little voice nagged at the back of her mind, warning, “
Go back to bed. Papa will be angry if you disturb his work.
”
    And yet she lingered.
    “What
is
it?” She recognized the voice of Rieuk Mordiern, hoarse with excitement.
    “I believe it may be an aethyrial spirit,” said Papa. Both men spoke softly, amazedly.
    “But how did I—”
    “In working with aethyr, it is always possible to encounter forces invisible to mortal man. Even to entrap them. It seems you may have done just that.”
    Klervie heard the words but did not understand them. She must still be dreaming. For there, fading in and out of clarity like a reflection seen in a wind-rippled lake, she glimpsed a face, its features twisted into an expression of such agony that it pained her to look at it. And as she gazed, she saw it fix on her for a second with its anguish-riven eyes.
    Was it a Faie? So translucent was its form, it could have been scratched on glass. And it seemed to be begging her to help it.
    “It’s