Read Online Venom and Song by Wayne Thomas Batson - Free Book Online

leaving two gawking young lords.
    â€œI didn’t know Jimmy was that smooth,” said Jett.
    Tommy just shook his head. And all I can do is shoot arrows .

    Luminary Hall was cavernous and perfectly round. Braziers lit with dremask flickered brightly every seven feet around the perimeter wall. Their eerily beautiful silvery light glimmered on the ceremonial armor of flet soldiers posted at every door. Six of the seven young lords stood in front of seven high throne chairs arranged in a half circle near the middle of the room. Directly across from the thrones, seven smaller seats waited with a robed Elf standing statuesquely behind each one. Massive multitiered seats rose up around the center like a coliseum, and above those, wide balconies clung to the walls like caterpillars inside a jar.
    â€œIt looks like every single seat is filled,” Kat said, staring.
    â€œThat’s a lot of Elves,” said Tommy. “Think they can even see us from way up there?”
    â€œYou can see them, can’t you?” asked Jett. “This is great, like being in the Super Bowl.”
    â€œJust makes me nervous,” said Kat.
    â€œHey, look a’ that!” Jimmy exclaimed, pointing beyond the seven robed Elves to a low-level section of seats. “It’s Miss Finney, Regis, Goldarrow, Grimwarden, and the others.”
    â€œEdward is there, too,” said Kiri Lee.
    â€œI wish this ceremony was just in front of them,” said Kat. “I don’t like being the center of atten—”
    â€œKat, look!” Tommy pointed to a section of Elves seated off to their left.
    Kat gasped. What caught her eye was more remarkable than anything she had ever seen. Not their clothes. Not their hairstyle. It was their skin . “They . . . they’re just like me.” Kat held trembling fingers to her mouth. She remembered Mr. Wallace and Anna telling her about the Berylinian Elves, how they all had bluish skin like hers, but that had been back on Earth right in the midst of learning so many strange and unbelievable things. To see them in person filled Kat now with overwhelming joy, a kind of snuggling warmth that radiated through her body. Tears beaded and then rolled down her cheeks. Blue men, blue women, blue children . . . different shades, too . It was overwhelming. I’m not a freak, she thought. If only Mom and Dad could see them . She covered her face with her hands, shook with something like soft coughs, and cried tears that like a cleansing rain washed away years of silent suffering.
    Anna appeared at Tommy’s side. “What’s happened? Kat, is she all right?”
    â€œYeah, she’s cool,” said Tommy. “Really cool, I think.” He nodded toward the Berylinian Elves.
    Anna understood immediately. She touched Kat’s shoulders. “You see,” she said, “you are beautiful. You always were.”
    And why wouldn’t she think she’s beautiful? Tommy wondered. Girls totally confused him sometimes.
    Kat looked up to Anna with grateful, glistening eyes, but she couldn’t find words. Then to Tommy. Did she hear me just then ? He blushed.
    In that moment, the young lords’ attention was drawn to the center of the great room. A tall Elf wearing a long black robe with ornate forest green accents at the collar and sleeves strode forward. His hair was the color of iron, and his large, peaceful eyes smiled. He lifted his arms, showing the deep green lining of his cloak. When the hall became completely silent, he called aloud, “I am Alwynn Belkirith, High Cleric of the Tribes of Berinfell, successor of Elrain Galadhon.” His voice was high like that of a tenor and as clear as a bell’s toll at midnight. The acoustics of the hall carried his sonorous voice even to the highest balcony. “On this, the twenty-third day of Arduin in the year 1422, eight hundred years after our city and our hope were stolen from us, the Lords of