Heir to the Sky Read Online Free PDF

“The rebellions should have been quashed by now, not spreading. And if they’ve learned of this!”
    Learned of what? And who has read the early texts? Too many questions flood into my mind at once. I think of the unrest Jonash mentioned, the one my father hesitated to mention in front of me. Is it so serious as to pit the tempers of Aban and the lieutenant against each other? The Elite Guard and the Elders have always worked together to serve the lands of Ashra. All our roles build the Phoenix together to protect its beating heart, our people. And what the lieutenant suggests is ridiculous. Even the Elders can’t read the earliest texts.
    None of it makes sense. But if the unrest is bad enough to worry either group and make them accuse each other, then there is more happening than my father has let on.
    My thoughts muddle with confusion as I peek over the tops of the annals. Aban and the lieutenant have stopped at a small desk on the other side, where the Elders occasionally place the annals to study them. Aban reaches around his neck and produces a small key on a string. I’ve never noticed a key around Aban’s neck before. He turns toward a cupboard near the desk and fits in the key, turning it with a creak. He rustles through the darkness and produces a bloodred tome with gilded pages. It looks just like the rows of annals on the shelf, and every volume is accounted for. Why would there be one locked in the cupboard?
    Aban lifts it onto the desk with an echoing thud and begins to flip the pages.
    â€œI’m telling you,” the lieutenant tries again. Aban whispers to himself in what sounds like a foreign tongue, his eyes scanning the words as his finger runs down the page.
    My hand goes to my open mouth. He’s reading the ancient script. He’s reading the early annals.
    There’s an illustration on the page, but I can’t make it out from here. I can only see where the block of text ends and the fanciful sketching begins.
    The lieutenant leans over, impatient. “Well?”
    Aban falls silent, his finger stopping at one paragraph. “It’s just as they’re saying,” he says, his voice nearly a whisper. “The barrier, the generator...word for word, it’s what’s on the flyer. Show me again.”
    The lieutenant reaches into his pocket and flattens the crinkled piece of paper. Aban compares the information on the paper to the lines he’s pressed his trembling finger against in the annal. He nods, his face ghostly white.
    The lieutenant snatches the paper back and balls his hand into a fist. He quickly turns back to Aban. “And no one has seen this annal but the Elders?”
    â€œAnd the Monarch, and you,” Aban says. My father knows of this secret tome, as well?
    The lieutenant holds the edge of the paper to the candle that flickers on the desk. The flame licks up the side as the paper curls in on itself and burns. “Are there other copies of the book?” he asks.
    Aban closes the massive tome with effort, and I stare over the tops of the shelved books to glance at the volume number. It glints, a single line golden in the dim light. The first of the annals. But that’s impossible. Another copy of the first volume hidden under lock and key? It makes no sense.
    â€œOnly this one,” Aban says. “And the one on the shelf, but it was dealt with nearly two hundred years ago. I believe the others were burned.”
    Burned? Dealt with? Quietly as I can, I slide the first volume of the annals off the shelf and crouch down, placing the heavy book on top of my red skirts. I flip soundlessly to the image of the Rending, staring at it. What could be different about this volume than Aban’s special copy? What was “dealt with” two hundred years ago?
    Then I see it, though I’ve looked at this drawing so many times before. Now that I know something’s wrong, it jumps off the page at me. The Phoenix is a