Blood of Mystery Read Online Free PDF

then it was also true they shared a common ancestry. So when were the faunas of the two worlds exchanged?
    Intriguing as that question was, Grace forced herself to shut the specimen drawers and focus instead on the shelves of books. Her reason for coming to the university was simple: to learn something that could help them discover what had happened to Travis and the others.
    She spent days poring through tome after tome. Grace was particularly interested in any book that concerned the history of the southern continent of Moringarth and the ancient city-states of Amún. Morindu the Dark had been one of those city-states, and it was the sorcerers of Morindu who first learned of the world beyond the void—the world Earth—and created the gate artifacts to get there.
    Why they had wanted to find a way to Earth, Grace had no idea. Nor did the Mournish seem to know the answer—at least not any they had voiced—and they were the descendants of the people of Morindu. But it didn’t matter. Grace just wanted to learn more about how the gate artifacts functioned, not why they were created.
    Grace was surprised when, after her first few visits to the university, Beltan asked if he could help her. It wasn’t that she didn’t care for his company; it was simply that she knew the knight’s career had left him little time for more scholarly pursuits. However, once she recovered from her astonishment, she gladly accepted his help.
    Now, as they once again sat at a long table scattered with books they had pulled from dusty shelves, Grace regarded the big man. A hand held his thinning, white-blond hair back from his high forehead, which was furrowed in concentration. His lips were moving, and Grace knew he was sounding out the words scribed by hand on the page before him.
    Beltan was literate, but only barely. Of course, even that was something of an accomplishment for a man of war living in a medieval world. However, Grace had spent some time coaching him, and since then his reading had improved rapidly. His eyes moved eagerly over the page. Whatever Beltan thought of himself, he was not stupid. Still, Grace wondered why he really wanted to join her on her forays to the university.
    Maybe he’s coming for the same reason you are, Grace. To
have something to do that at least seems constructive, even if
it’s a long shot.
    Tired of her own book, and having found nothing in it about gates, Grace rested her chin on a hand, watching the knight. “So, are you planning to trade in your sword for a student’s robe?”
    He looked up with a grin. Beltan’s face was plain except when he smiled, and then it became brilliantly handsome. “I just might at that,” he said, then bent back over his book.
    Smiling, Grace returned her attention to the tome before her. Beltan wasn’t the only one whose reading skills were improving. While it was still easier to read when the silver half-coin was about her person, she found that even without it she could pick her way through just about any book in the library, even those written in archaic dialects. What’s more, she was nearly fluent in spoken Eldhish now, although one day when she experimented with this, Beltan told her she had a peculiar accent.
    “It’s like you’re talking with your nose pinched shut. Underwater. And with a mouthful of bread. But otherwise you sound wonderful, Grace.”
    After that, she stuck to keeping the half-coin in the small pouch at her belt—although it was nice to know she’d be able to make do in a pinch.
    A thought occurred to her. The silver half-coin granted her the ability to speak Eldhish. And she knew the fairy blood Beltan had been infused with, and which had healed him, had also allowed him to speak English when he was in Denver.
    So maybe his newfound skill at reading isn’t exactly a coincidence, Grace.
    As the sun crept across the mosaic floor, and students in brown robes shuffled quietly in and out of the library, Grace worked her way through