Read Online Bone, Fog, Ash & Star by Catherine Egan - Free Book Online

jumped from the ledge to the staircase, wondering whether to go up or down. There was a rush of wings up ahead of her and so she went up.
She had been climbing for quite some time when she rounded the final curve and almost hit her head on the solid stone ceiling. The staircase simply stopped, going nowhere after all. She sat down on the steps to catch her breath. She felt something crawling inside her sleeve suddenly and shook it. A bee flew out and straight up, disappearing through the ceiling. Eliza nearly laughed. When she touched the ceiling, two stones parted quietly. She climbed through the narrow space and into a broad, circular room lit with lamps. Lying huddled on a divan, teeth chattering, clutching a book to his chest, was Malferio, once King of the Faeries.
She had barely a moment to take in the stacks of books, the jars of powders and liquids and the boxes of talismans that cluttered the room. Malferio looked up at her and screamed, a scream of pure terror. He threw the book he had been clutching at her. The Urkleis gave an awful wrench in her chest. Eliza turned tail and ran back down the spiral staircase. Malferio’s screams chased her, echoing in the dark passage. She rounded a curve and ran straight into a body, which knocked her back onto the stairs.
She landed badly. Pain shot up her back from her tailbone. Kyreth’s face loomed over her.

Chapter
~5~
“Eliza,” said Kyreth in his beautiful, sonorous voice. “What a pleasure to see you. Welcome back.”
The brilliance of his eyes lit up the stairway. She noticed immediately that they were between two floors and so the nearest ledge was quite a long drop down. There was no way past him.
She scrambled to her feet painfully. Ravens gathered behind her, lining the stairs.
“You have no reason to fear me,” he said, with a nod at the ravens. “I have only ever wanted your safety. Even now, I would protect you against any who wished you harm.”
“What’s your idea of harm?” asked Eliza, her voice trembling with rage and fear. “Does killing somebody I love count as harming me? Because frankly I’d prefer a more direct approach.”
Kyreth smiled thinly. Malferio’s screams from above were dwindling into sobs.
“What are you doing to him?” asked Eliza.
“Isn’t it obvious?” asked Kyreth. He reached towards her with his hand, as if to touch his fingers to her chest, above her heart. Eliza backed away up the stairs, slipping a little. The ravens drew closer around her, cawing.
“You still bear the Urkleis,” he said. “It is a burden.”
“Yes.” She took another step back and added, “If you try to touch me again, I’ll kill you.”
Kyreth acted as if he had not heard this. “I am going to lift your burden, Eliza. You pretend to be used to it but you will never be used to it. You feel within your very flesh and bone the hatred and the hunger for freedom of she who sought to annihilate you. In that room above lies the key to Nia’s Immortality. Under her Curse he wishes only to die, and so he shall. When that happens, the Xia Sorceress will die too, and you will be free of the Urkleis.”
“You’re going to kill Nia?” asked Eliza. In spite of everything she felt a bewildering wave of sorrow. “Your own daughter.”
“She is no daughter to me,” said Kyreth, his terrible eyes boring into her. “Rea is my daughter.”
Eliza said nothing.
“What we love is the same,” he said to her in a low voice. “What we hate is the same. What we wish for is the same, Eliza. This is where you belong. It is good that you have returned.”
“You lied to me,” said Eliza bitterly. “You lied to me about everything.”
“Don’t be childish, Eliza. When did I lie?”
She turned her eyes from his, for there was something in them that sought to hold her or consume her. “You told me my grandmother was dead,” she said.
“There are many kinds of death, Eliza Tok,” murmured Kyreth.
“There are nay many kinds!” she shouted, looking