Dance of Souls (The Venatrix Chronicles Book 4) by Sylvia Mercedes

Author:Sylvia Mercedes [Mercedes, Sylvia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: FireWyrm Books
Published: 2020-01-07T16:00:00+00:00

The baker’s daughter pulled the donkey cart to a halt. She lifted her nose, and her eyes widened. Her head tilted slightly to one side. Inside this new host body, her unnatural senses clamored, still adjusting to the confines of these foreign limbs.

Without all the proper ceremony and procedure, body jumping was often an ugly affair. But Ylaire had done it so often by now, she’d nearly made an art form of it.

By channeling her shade’s senses carefully, she controlled this new host well enough. Ahead, her mortal eyes viewed only more of the straight paved road leading to the gates of Dunloch Castle, more of the well-tended, parklike grounds surrounding the Golden Prince’s home. But her shadow perceptions detected something more.

A song spell. A barrier.

Ylaire cursed, spitting the words out into the air. Beside her in the cart, little Nilly du Bucheron shuddered and hung her head lower. The front of the child’s gown was still stained with droplets of blood from the old farmwoman’s host body, which now lay hidden in a ditch a quarter mile back.

The witch spared a quick glance at the girl, then focused ahead once more. She shouldn’t be surprised at the presence of a barrier spell. The venators would be cautious on a day like this, even if they truly believed Inren to be dead.

Licking her host’s plump, full lips, Ylaire considered. She could wait, of course. No doubt, once the wedding guests cleared out of Dunloch, once the king returned to his stronghold and the prince and his new bride had gone off on their wedding journey, the barrier would be lowered once more. She could wait until then. She’d waited all this time. What were a few more days? A few more weeks?

Too many. Even a few more hours would be far too long.

She needed to find Inren. Now.

“Stay here,” Ylaire growled to the little girl, her voice sounding strange in her ears, coming through that youthful mouth. It was so good to be in a young body again! In the past she would have scorned to wear a frame so uncouth and homely, but now the strength and health of these solid limbs felt glorious.

She climbed down from the cart and led the donkey off the road, concealing beast, cart, and little girl behind a dense hedge. “I’ll be a few hours,” she said. “There’s food in the back. Eat if you’re hungry. But don’t leave this cart, do you hear me?”

Nilly nodded, tears streaming down her face.

Ylaire paused briefly to consider, then dug into the pocket of her gown and withdrew the oblidite anchor. If Inren was, as Ylaire suspected, somewhere on the other side of that barrier, she’d need an anchor on this side in order to escape. Ylaire pressed the bauble into Nilly’s hands. “Hold onto that,” she said. “Don’t let yourself or it be seen.”

Nilly clutched the anchor in both small hands. Behind her tears, her eyes glimmered with shadow-light as her shade gazed out from inside her.

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