Demonkin Read Online Free Page A

Byn. She detailed Melyssa’s cure for the Demonkin curse.
    She knew Sera would not use it but they deserved to know. She signed it with Melyssa’s name — they would never trust hers — and slid it into a weatherproof parchment tube from the library.
    Finally, she strapped her quarterstaff across her back and took up travel pack, tube, and sack. She walked for the Terras gates. The sun closed on the horizon and a stiff wind rose as she stepped off the academy grounds. It chilled even through lined leather.
    She pulled out the weatherproof tube. It had a long metal spike on one end. She jammed that spike into the ground as hard as she could, driving it until she was certain it was secure. It would not blow away or come free and anyone returning here could not miss it.
    One way or the other, Sera Valence had her cure.
    Jyllith straightened. A long road waited and she would walk it without any friends. Kara had endured much as Jyllith and Cantrall hunted her, but she had people she loved, relied upon, trusted. Byn Meris. Sera Valence. Aryn Locke and Jair Deymartin.
    Jyllith had no one. Everyone she loved was dead. Her family was somewhere wonderful, but even if she stopped this cult and saved the world she would never go where her family was.
    She would go somewhere else.
    Jyllith stopped at Jair’s grave. She and Melyssa had buried him beside the Terras gates a week ago. She almost imagined she could feel him standing by, watching her.
    “I don’t know if you can hear me.” Jair had been a Soulmage as well, and he had given his life to give Kara hers. “I don’t know how I’m going to do this. It doesn’t seem possible.”
    Jair had been under Cantrall’s thrall for a brief time, done horrible things for reasons not his own. She imagined he understood her, just a little bit. He had been a kind and patient soul.
    “Watch over me,” Jyllith whispered. “Don’t let me fail.”
    She looked out over the empty gray earth and made herself stop feeling anything. She made herself numb. She had to once more become the hard, vindictive woman she hated.
    She had to deliver Melyssa’s severed head.
     
     
     
    ARYN LOCKE HALTED on the meandering muddy road and cursed under his breath. A horde of people surrounded him, but he could make out nothing but their shapes in dream world orange. With his skin charred black and his eyes gone, dream world sight was all he had.
    “There he is!” one man shouted. “The thief! The monster! Don't let it escape!”
    Why couldn't anything ever be easy? Aryn was going home — he needed to go home — and this stupid mob stood in his way. What if he just sprinted past them? Would anyone actually try to stop him?
    He stood on a muddy, wheel-cut road drawn in the jagged black lines of the dream world. It ran between a mess of orange oak shapes, interspersed with what Aryn assumed was grass and wildflowers. The mob hemmed him in, the dead black sticks in their hands ranging from torches to pitchforks.
    Aryn pulled his cowl closer around his blackened, ruined face and stood straight. He had no hair, no fine clothes, and barely enough copper left to buy bread, but none of that mattered now. He was of noble blood and no mere peasant could question his honor.
    “I'm no thief.” He spoke with every ounce of eloquence he could muster, drawing on years of training in public speechmaking. “I'm just a traveler on his way to seek work in Locke.” He tried to remember life before fire burned away his skin. “Do the honorable stonemasons of Dane greet all travelers like this?”
    Aryn had hoped to bypass their little village, starting his journey as soon as the sun set. Dane was a quarry town in the shadow of the Ranarok mountains a few day's walk from Highridge Pass. It was only on the most complete maps and its stonemasons were not well known. Sometimes flattery worked.
    “Liar!” an orange dream form shouted, this one holding a pitchfork. “He stole apples from my orchard not an hour after