Grave Ghost (The Darkness of Djinn Book 2) by Tia Reed

Author:Tia Reed [Reed, Tia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

The pull back into his own body was violent. Levi fell to his knees on the rocky path down the snow-capped peak.

“I will be whole again.”

“Majoria,” one of the concerned mahktashaan who accompanied him murmured.

Levi growled. He had not meant to speak aloud. “Leave me,” he commanded, his voice gravel. He brushed away the proffered hand. So rapt in his ecstasy was he, he failed to notice who it was. An unimportant detail. His soldiers were insignificant next to him, majoria, favoured of Mahktos.

Light-headed and overjoyed, Levi looked straight into the clear sky. The offering he had made before entering the Crystalite Mines had borne fruit. A day past the Temple of the Rift, it was fitting Mahktos should have gifted him this vision here, so close to where he had sustained the injury in His name. He waited until his mahktashaan dipped out of sight below a ridge. Then he pulled the gilt statue of Mahktos out of his pack. He had taken it from pride of place in his private rooms in the mahktashaan lair. There, on a solid gold pedestal he had demanded of the shah, it served as a constant reminder of his due. Here, carried all the way from Terlaan, it was his direct link to the god. He set it on a patch of crisp snow and made fervent obeisance before it.

Before this statue, in a ruined, overgrown temple that once served a hamlet in the barren central province of Quorn, he had first seen a mahktashaan. He had been hiding from his father’s dominating rage at the Vae for neglecting to send rain. The mysterious traveller’s meticulous tending of the neglected statue had intrigued him. It could have been no coincidence as the hooded and cloaked figure left, the heavens poured. Without a qualm, eleven-year-old Levi returned home, avoided his mother, his siblings, and the colourful bruises his father was dishing out, and packed provisions. He left without a word to anyone, collecting the statue from the temple on his way.

For almost two weeks he tramped northeast, drinking from muddy puddles and chewing grass like the beasts, living on prayer until he reached Tarana and sat outside the marvellous carved walls of the palace, asking for apprenticeship to the mahktashaan whenever the guards came out to turn him away. They had laughed at him. He hadn’t cared. Day after day, he stood before them and repeated his demand, until one mahktashaan deigned to notice him from atop his midnight mount. Quick as a squirrel despite the gnawing hunger, Levi made obeisance and demanded his right. Hooded, cloaked, a purple crystal around his neck all that distinguished him from the mysterious traveller to Quorn, the mahktashaan reigned in his black horse.

“The lad’s been calling every morning for nigh on an eightday,” the guard said.

The mahktashaan looked down on him with serious, purple eyes. “Why do wish to serve?”

Levi stared straight into the hood. “Mahktos is more powerful than the Vae.”

“You speak with conviction for one so young.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.