Read Online CHOSEN by Jolea M. Harrison - Free Book Online Page B

halfway, across from a guest bedroom where a chair stood in an alcove with its high back against the wall. The next instant, Dain was there. He was wearing his sword and Maralt realized Dynan was too.
    “Did you get the gold?” Dynan asked as he approached. Dain nodded, but his expression changed as he looked hard at his brother.
    The surroundings melted and frayed, blending with the stone wall of the High Bishop’s room. Maralt’s body shook as he sat by the old man, trying at the same time to stay at the Palace.
    Dain was tucking away a bulging leather coin purse into an inside coat pocket. He wore a heavy cloak too, and drew on a pair of gloves before stepping up onto the chair. He attached a small spanner to the back, which then sealed the chair to the wall with a click. Maralt didn’t understand why until Dain climbed up onto the upholstered high back, and perched there while he popped the alcove ceiling out of place. He lifted the piece up above the roof beams of the Palace, sliding it out of the way. The next moment, he pulled himself up into the hole. Dynan followed him.
    Maralt meant to stay with them, but his strength failed right as he caught sight of the Palace rafters. Dain was already making his way along a thick beam aiming for the far corner of the building. Maralt wanted to know where they were going, but Dain looked back. It was like getting body slammed and Maralt’s vision blurred. When it cleared, he was sitting beside the High Bishop again.
    “You’ll find staying with them increasingly difficult,” Gradyn said and startled Maralt. “They’ll see you eventually.”
    “Maybe it’s time they do,” Maralt said, and poured a glass of water. His hands were shaking when he held it out.
    Gradyn pushed himself to a sitting position, wincing as he moved, and took the glass. He sipped the water and shook his head. “Not like this, no.”
    “I think Dynan has the talisman,” Maralt said.
    Gradyn only nodded, setting the glass on the table and drew his legs over the side of the cot.
    Maralt knew it was true before this confirmation, but it still came as a shock. “How?”
    “Does it surprise you that enemies of the light have the means to so easily change what we know?” Gradyn shook his head. “I’m too old for these times, Maralt. This shouldn’t have happened.”
    “But it has, and we have to do something to counter it.”
    Gradyn shook his head again. “Some things can’t be changed back.”
    “I can take the talisman from him,” Maralt said.
    “The talon was a catalyst, a way to weaken the boundary so they could break through.”
    “I can stop this.”
    “No, Maralt, you can’t. Not alone. You were never meant to do this alone.”
    “Then with who?” Maralt asked. He didn’t think Gradyn meant Carryn and the old man seemed reluctant to explain. “You said yesterday that someone was gone. Who?”
    Gradyn frowned over it, holding an internal debate visible in his aged face. He said often enough he was afraid of revealing something that could change the future. It was the same reaction he had when Carryn had a vision they had questions about. All his life, Maralt had seen the High Bishop struggle with this burden. He didn’t want to add to it.
    “It’s all right,” Maralt said. “Tell me or not. I’ll take what comes and what help anyone wants to give, or has to give if that’s the case. You needn’t fear for me either way.”
    Gradyn smiled at that and patted his shoulder as he pushed to his feet. He moved to the narrow window that opened onto the central courtyard, a small sheltered square that divided the Temple sanctuary from the rest of the building. He stood there for a time in silence, leaning his hands against the window ledge.
    “The fact of his existence is probably the greatest secret ever kept,” the High Bishop said finally. “There’s a danger, Maralt, in knowing too much. There’s a greater danger in acting on that knowledge. The balance of our