Shadows on the Stars Read Online Free

the gift of a friend, the farmer Abelawn, whose fields Tamwyn had often helped to harvest: the very last one from his vegetable garden. Tamwyn had hefted the fruit, thinking playfully how good a snowball it would make if only it were frozen. Then, all of a sudden, the melon turned to ice! In the blink of an eye, it froze between his hands—turning completely white before it shattered, exploding into a thousand icy shards.
    Could the same thing happen now to Elli? Was this feeling rising inside him really just another violent, misdirected burst of power?
    “No!” he shouted, roughly shoving her head away. Elli shrieked and tumbled backward off the Stone. But he could only stare down at his hands, aghast at what he’d almost done.
    Elli slowly picked herself up, brushed the snow off her shoulders, and sat again at the far edge of the Stone. She glared at Tamwyn, rubbing her sore neck. Anger showed in her eyes, but there was also a hint of tears.
    Just as she opened her mouth to speak, the night sky abruptly flashed with light. So much light that the whole sky seemed to be swallowed by flames. Then, just as swiftly, the light vanished, and was replaced by another night sky—one with only seven stars, grouped in an unmistakable constellation.
    “The Wizard’s Staff,” whispered Tamwyn, blinking in astonishment.
    Elli stopped rubbing her neck and just gaped at the sight.
    As they watched, awestruck, the seven bright stars of the Wizard’s Staff flickered, as if some bitter winds on high had made them shiver. Then, one by one, they faded, pulsed with a final gleam of light, and disappeared—just as they had actually done less than a month before. But now, in this vision, when the last star went dark, nothing else remained in the sky.
    All at once, something moved. Both Tamwyn and Elli sensed somehow that what they were about to see had not yet happened—but would very soon. As they watched, strange shapes, even darker than the sky itself, began to flow outward from the vanished constellation. The young viewers squinted, trying to see just what those shapes could be. But it was impossible to tell. They looked misty, undefined, and yet undoubtedly evil, like plumes of noxious gas. Combined, they resembled a vast hand of darkness, stretching deadly fingers toward Avalon.
    Another flash! The evil shapes abruptly disappeared. Yet Tamwyn and Elli couldn’t stop seeing them in their minds, just as they couldn’t stop wondering what they really were.
    Suddenly the sky filled with a procession of scenes, drawn darkly upon the night. Unlike the vision of the shadowy shapes, which belonged to the future, these scenes seemed more present—as if they had recently happened, or were happening right now. Each one came from somewhere in the Seven Realms. And each one spelled some new disaster.
    Elli gasped as she watched a towering stone pillar topple and smash to the ground. Surely that couldn’t be one of the pillars of the Great Temple in the Drumadian compound? Then the scene shifted to an angry mob of people, shouting and hurling stones. Next came a band of eaglefolk, flying out of the smoking cliffs of Fireroot—and straight into battle. But they weren’t fighting their traditional enemies, the flamelons, or even humans: Rather, they were battling other eaglefolk.
    From behind the nearby boulders, Tamwyn and Elli heard a shout of disbelief. Evidently Scree, too, could see the vision. And didn’t like at all what it showed.
    Next came a series of scenes that moved by so rapidly they blurred together. There was a gobsken warrior forging a broadsword; a water dragon’s tail rising out of the waves; and an ancient hand grasping desperately for something, clutching at the air, before it finally fell still.
    And then those images melted into another scene, one that made Tamwyn stiffen. For staring down at him from the darkened sky was the brutally scarred face of White Hands, the wicked sorcerer who had enslaved hundreds of