Grail of the Summer Stars (Aetherial Tales) Read Online Free PDF

Mist was Aetherial, didn’t know what he’d been through.
    “Sometimes I’m so angry with Rufus that I could strangle him, but that’s emotion, not justice. To be honest, he still frightens me. But that’s Adam’s fear, not mine. All I ask is the wisdom to deal fairly with him when I find him. I don’t know how humans experience death, but for me it was a sudden striking out of existence, like a curtain falling midscene in a play. Then waking up somewhere dim, peaceful and strange … peaceful until the memories come back, because you know it’s too late to change anything. I can’t leap back in time to prevent the horrors happening. It’s like being severed. First from my true self, three, four hundred years ago? And severed again from being Adam. But you wake up again and the journey goes on.”
    “No fer much longer,” the driver muttered.
    Mist paused, remembering Adam’s beloved sisters, who’d devoted their lives and sanity to searching for him after he’d been abducted by Rufus. They were long dead. And he thought of those who’d helped him when he’d escaped after decades of captivity. Juliana Flagg, the artist who’d inherited Cairndonan House, her niece Gill and their scarlet-haired friend Peta … Mist smiled sadly at the memories. He couldn’t go back, because Cairndonan was in the past and he was someone different now. Had they grieved for Adam at all?
    Had Rufus left them alive?
    Mist’s breathing quickened. The cab’s heat was suffocating and he began wrenching at a handle, trying to crack the window. Instead, the door came open.
    The driver braked, bringing the truck to a violent halt at the side of the road. “All right, pal, that’s it. I cannae take ye any further. Get out.”
    “What?”
    “You’re too weird, even for me! We’re nearly in Glasgow. Last stop before I hit the motorway. Ye can get help here, and man, do you need it. Guid luck, pal.”
    Shaken, Mist thanked him, obediently climbed down from the cab and resumed his walk under the vast grey sky. His feet throbbed inside the ill-fitting boots. The jacket stank, giving bare protection from the wind. Dimly he was aware of gnawing hunger, but he didn’t fight his bodily discomfort, any more than he’d questioned how mad his rambling must have sounded to the driver. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t understand.
    All around him were concrete roads roaring with vehicles. The cityscape was festooned with long ropes of metal, and ugly buildings poured smoke or steam into the sky. Wild hills were still visible in the far distance as he walked into the heart of the city. Mist ignored the exhaustion that was beginning to overwhelm him. His thoughts dissolved into a waking dream, in which roads became murky canals. At some point, he fell.
    A huge deafening sound awoke him. It was like an earthquake above, filled with the rattle and squeal of metal. He found himself lying on cold damp concrete beneath the arch of a railway bridge. Weak street lighting spilled into the darkness.
    “Are ye awright, mate?”
    A grizzled face peered into his, sour alcohol fumes wafting from a snaggle-toothed mouth. The accent, slurred, was almost impenetrable.
    Mist’s first thought was that the old man was after money. Laughing weakly, he tried to pull out the linings of his pockets to show he had nothing. The vagrant stayed his hand, making gravel-voiced protests. “Nae, what, ye think Ah’m going tae rob ye? Wait. Wait. You stay there. Ah’m going tae call the ambulance.”
    This was unreal. Mist’s voice emerged as a faint rasp. “No. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m looking for…”
    “You’re no druggie or alky, that’s plain as day,” the man whispered. Mist realized that his rescuer wasn’t old after all; no more than forty. “There’s a light around ye. Ah know the hidden folk when I see one. God strike me down dead if I don’t get ye some help.”
    *   *   *
    Mist dreamed that he stood on the edge of the world.