Destiny: Child Of Sky Read Online Free PDF

happened?" Her voice vibrated strangely. Achmed gestured dizzily and curled into a tight ball, lying sideways on the ground. He took several deliberate, measured breaths, the cold wind stinging his burning chest. He noted absently that Rhapsody was still beside him, but had refrained from touching him.
    She's learning, he thought, strangely pleased.
    With the grind of sand in his teeth and a painful growl, he forced himself into a crouch. They sat in silence on the windy hilltop above the crumbling city. When the sun was overhead and the shadows shifted, Achmed finally looked up. He exhaled deeply, then rose to a shaky stand, waving away the offer of her hand.
    'What happened?" Her voice was calm.
    Slowly he shook the sand from his clothes, retied his veils, staring down at Yarim below. The city had come to life of a sort while he had been coming back to himself, and now human and animal traffic shuffled through the unkempt streets, filling the distant air with sound. “There's another one here," he said. “Another child?"
    Achmed nodded slowly. “Another heartbeat. Another spawn of some sort."
    Rhapsody went back to the horses and pulled open one of the saddlebags.
    Mie drew forth an oilcloth journal and brought it back to the rim of the hill.
    'Rhonwyn said there was only one in Yarim," she said, rifling through the pages.
    “Here it is—one in Sorbold—the gladiator—two in the Hintervold, one in Yarim, one in the easternmost province of the Nonaligned States, one in Bethany, one in Navarne, one in Zafhiel, one in Tyrian, and the unborn baby, in the Lirin fields to the south of Tyrian. Are you certain the second heartbeat belongs to one of the children?"
    'No, of course I'm not certain,“ Achmed spat crossly, shaking more grit from his hair and cloak. "And perhaps it's not another child. But somewhere near here is another pulse with the same taint to it, the same clouded blood."
    Rhapsody pulled her cloak even closer. “Perhaps it's the F'dor itself."
KELTAR'SID, SORBOLD BORDER, SOUTHEAST OF SEPULVARTA
    The inside of the carriage was a haven from the blistering sun, dark and reasonably cool. He longed to disembark, to feel the wheels roll to a final stop, so that he could at last step out into the light and searing heat of the Sorboldian desert, where the earth held the fiery warmth of the sun even at the onset of winter.
    From the sound of it, that moment was almost upon him. He stretched the arms of the aged body he now occupied, the human vessel that had been his host for many decades, feeling the weakness that time had rendered upon him. But not for much longer.
    Soon he would be changing hosts again, would be taking on a newer, younger body. There would be a bit of an adjustment, as there always was, a transition he recalled clearly even though he had not made one in a very long time. Just the thought of it made his arthritic hands itch with excitement.
    With that excitement came the burning, the flare of the fire that was the core of him. It was the primordial element from which all of his kind had come, and to which they would one day return. All in good time.
    It was best not to contemplate it at the moment, he knew. Once the spark of anticipation had ignited it became more difficult to hide his nether side, the dark and destructive spirit of chaos that was his true form, clinging to the flesh and bone of the human body only out of necessity. It was at moments of excitement that the malodor was strongest, the stench that clung to him and the others of his race, the smell of flesh in fire. And in the thrill of expectation the color of blood would rise to the edges of his eyes, rimming them red.
    He willed himself to be calm again. It would not do to be discovered on so important a mission. It would not do to be seen as anything other than the pious religious leader that he was.
    He leaned forward as the carriage came to a shuddering halt, then sat back against the pillowed seat, breathing shallowly.
    The