Read Online Unsouled (Cradle Book 1) by Will Wight - Free Book Online Page B

while the clouds zoomed around like zealous fish in the ocean of the sky. Grass tickled his feet through his shoes, and he tiptoed around to avoid it. The ground must not have liked that, because it finally had enough and slapped him in the back of the head.
    He came to in a wrench of returning sensation, lying flat on his back in the garden and staring up into the sky. His arm had begun to ache again.
    Over him, Kelsa was flexing her palm. “Too slow. The motion has to carry the madra, you can’t rely on transmission through contact. Stand up, I need to try again.”
    Lindon crawled to his feet, still dizzy. “Wait. I think it’s worse on me, because I can’t—”
    She hit him again.
    After the garden stopped partying without him, he spoke from the ground. “I’m not standing up again. I’m not.”
    Kelsa was moving at half-speed, stepping forward into a slow palm thrust. She repeated the first step a few times, working something out in her head. “Then you’ll be worthless for the rest of your life,” she said casually, but the words were like a spear to the ribs. “You don’t want to shame the family? Stand up.” She didn’t so much as glance at him, as though she didn’t care whether he stood or not. “I’ve almost worked it out…it has to transmit all at once. Not like a stream, but a gust of wind.”
    Lindon stood up again. And again.
    Eleven more times.
    By the end, the earth never stopped spinning, even when the effects wore off. He tried to rise again, but up and sideways seemed to have swapped places, and he stumbled into the cloudbells. Their stalks were sharper than they looked.
    Kelsa reached in and hauled him out with ease, steadying him with a grip on his shoulder. Ten breaths passed before he could take a step without swaying.
    “Rally yourself,” she said. “Step forward and shove in one motion, focusing madra in your palm. Release it in one breath like a gust of wind, being sure to exhale and cycle to the rest of your body for stability. Understood?”
    Lindon was trying to determine if his senses were back under control. Was that flickering shadow a sign of lingering madness, or a leaf blowing in the wind? “Please, I need…I need a moment.”
    Kelsa rarely had the patience to wait around, and though she allowed him his rest, she did so reluctantly. She paced in the garden, studying Heart of Twin Stars as she did. “Let’s return to an earlier subject,” she said, without looking up from the book. “The fruit. Have you finished cycling it?”
    “Almost all,” he said, sensing the tingling sparks that lingered in his core. “I haven’t noticed much of a change.”
    She squinted at the page. “I can’t see clearly. Bring out your light.”
    Lindon looked around at the bright morning light. “Do you need me to find a healer?”
    She used the manual to point at his robes. “You’re my disciple for the day. Pull out your light.”
    To his sister, Lindon would have protested. To his master, Lindon would have obeyed without a word. He spent a few seconds deciding which she was, and eventually reached into his pack to produce a palm-sized board.
    The board was covered with an intricate three-layered script circle, and when he fed his madra into it, it burst into white light. The runelight was much stronger than from an ordinary script, and remarkably steady. That was this script’s only purpose: to produce light on command. It would last as long as the user’s spirit did.
    Lindon held the board over the book with the shining script down, though it made no discernible difference among the bright sunlight.
    Kelsa didn’t thank him, but spoke as she read. “I finished processing the orus last night. It was quite the experience. Did it feel as though you’d swallowed a thunderbolt? Mine did. But as I continued cycling, I didn’t feel much else. It was as though the fruit vanished. I wondered if Mother was mistaken, and this wasn’t the miraculous spirit-fruit she