Echoes in the Dark Read Online Free PDF

believe the gong is necessary. Unless
you want to limit and cripple this Exotique to stay near the Abbey, as the
Seamasters crippled their Summoned one.”
    Again
the Singer’s eyes flashed with Power. Her lips thinned. “If the gong is needed,
the gong will sound and be heard!” She raised her hand and fisted her fingers
in a snatching, twisting gesture.
    The
low note of a gong—could it really be the silver gong in the Marshalls’ Castle
so many leagues away?—resonated throughout the chamber.
    The
woman, who’d sat up, flung back her head. A cry came from her throat, but the
sound held music.
    The
Singer’s gaze snagged his again. “How many times?”
    She
knew, he’d reported the damn ritual five times, hadn’t he? “Three.”
    Another
clench of her hand, pull of her elbow. This time the gong note held longer,
echoed loud against the cavern walls.
    Another
long wail from the woman, a thrashing of her limbs. By the time her body
finished shuddering, she’d changed her position, sat cross-legged and hunched.
She raised uncomprehending eyes and stared at him. He was watching her, but the
Singer’s gaze had not left him.
    “She
felt the tuning with my cymbals thrice already,” the Singer said in her musical
voice. “Now you insist that she experience the gong. Do you think she will be
pleased with you?”
    He
forced his stare from the beautiful woman to the Singer. “Doing what is
pleasant isn’t as important as doing what is right.”
    The
Singer lifted both of her hands, fingers straight. She nodded. “As you will,
then. And three! ” She closed her hands.
    The
sound was massive, clanging against his ears. He staggered a step, saw Friends
fall from the corner of his eyes. A long, ululating cry came from the woman,
matched by the warble of the bird.
    There
was a tinkle of chimes, and the mirror in the cavern faded—was it real or
illusion? How much was truly needed for a portal between the worlds?
    Marshalls’ Castle
    R aine staggered
away after the third sounding of the gong, her ears still ringing despite her
hands over them. Faucon had kept her upright with a grip on her upper arms.
    The
huge wooden doors from the courtyard burst open and Alexa, the first Exotique,
and Bri, the healer, shot into the room, along with their men.
    Raine
stared at them in surprise.
    Alexa,
hands on hips, with the aura of the most Powerful warrior in the country, small
and silver-headed, examined the large room in one whirling turn. “Where is she?
Why did you do it?”
    “What
are you talking about?” Raine asked.
    Bri,
medium-brown hair gleaming, creamy complexion pale, rubbed her hands up and down
her upper arms. “I felt it, a great change in Lladrana, in Amee. I heard the
gong!” She glanced at Alexa, who was nodding.
    “A
Summoning,” Alexa said. “Just a little while ago, and now the gong has
sounded.”
    “No
Summoning here.” Raine and Faucon spoke together. He released his grip on her
and she missed it. But Raine knew about sounding gongs, at least. “Tuning an
Exotique to the world,” she said between dry lips.
    “Ayes,”
Alexa agreed. “But you didn’t sound the gong.”
    “No.”
Then in Lladranan, “Ttho.” Raine swallowed. “What’s going on?”
    “I
can guess,” Bastien, Alexa’s husband, said grimly, towering over his mate. “The
last Exotique is for—”
    “The
Singer!” Alexa shouted. “And that sneaky old woman has Summoned her!” She broke
from Bastien’s grasp and ran into the courtyard, yelling for her flying horse.
Bastien followed.
    Bri
sent Raine a look and said, “Sevair and I rode the roc up from Castleton, we’ll
get there quicker. Are you coming?”
    Everyone
had been overprotective of her, and the Marshalls’ Castle nearly a cage. Now,
to leave it in the dark and fly south to the Singer’s Abbey that she’d only
heard spoken of in awed tones, seemed scary. Still, Exotiques stuck together.
“I’ll come,” she croaked. Blossom! she called her own winged