Lightbringer Read Online Free PDF Page A

fate.” Her eyes were bright with tears that did not fall.
    Sympathy welled in Piotr, coupled with abject horror. Losing one of your Lost was a horrible feeling, one no Rider should ever have to go through, but losing a child to the Walkers was worse. He ached for her loss. “Oh,” he murmured. “Zhal , Lily. I'm so sorry.”
    “There is no sorry,” she snapped, sloe eyes flashing. “Put me down.”
    “Net , I cannot.” Piotr shook his head and started towards the highway. “They almost killed you and were going to chew on us to round out the evening. I won't let you serve yourself up for a second helping.”
    “Let me go!”
    Firmly, he tightened his grip, careful of her wounded leg. “No, Lily,” he said, careful to emphasize the English word. “I will not.”
    “I hope you rot, Piotr.” Then, viper-quick, she punched him in the nose.
    Without meaning to, Piotr dropped her, clapping his hands to his face as the tears streamed down. Piotr heard her limping quickly away, the scrape of her boots loud in the strange, still brilliance filling the courtyard.
    By the time the dots had quit dancing in front of his eyes, Piotr had lost sight of Lily, but, unwilling to let her face the Walkers alone, he raced after, toward the light. Within moments crossing the distance grew difficult; the air had grown thick and syrupy, yet still comfortably warm, like wading through the midsummer surf, tidal in its intensity.
    Just ahead Lily knelt, hands resting on knees, eyes cast forward. Further on by quite a distance the two Walkers cut their way through the air, moving rapidly toward a shining figure, lit from within. Even at this distance, Piotr could feel the heat the creature gave off, and the prismatic fire at its core was near blinding.
    “Lily?” Piotr knelt beside her. “What is it? What's wrong? Are you hurt further?”
    “Piotr,” she breathed, “do you see her? Do you see Awonawilona?”
    “Who?” Piotr touched Lily's shoulder. She was trembling.
    “Awonawilona , Piotr. The bringer of light.” Tears coursed down her cheeks, wetting the curtain of her thick black hair. “I've been here so many years, Piotr. So many years, almost as many as…” She hesitated then forged on. “My people, my shaman, I thought they were all mistaken. They weren't. Awonawilona does exist.”
    Shameless with joy, Lily cried and rocked back and forth on her heels, humming under her breath between words. Passionate and vivid, lit by the light, her voice had taken on a lyrical, musical quality, almost a chanting tone. “I had heard rumors of a creature made of light…but I never believed them. Yet here, now, in this forsaken place, in these grey lands, I've finally found the Lightbringer.”
    Dazzled and confused, Piotr turned to look again. The figure was small, but brilliant, lit up from within by the intensity of the light pouring from every pore. As he watched it raised two arms outward, seemingly embracing the oncoming Walkers. The faster one reached the figure, only the outline of its cloak setting it apart from the light.
    Something about the sluggish way they moved struck Piotr as strange and wrong. The deadly grace of the two Walkers was stripped away, leaving only wooden puppets lurching toward the light like moths…like moths flying straight at candlelight.
    “Lily,” Piotr whispered harshly, scooping the young woman again in his arms, “it's time to leave, da? If that…thing…is a god, I don't know about you, but I don't want to be around when—”
    Suddenly, from the depths of the creature, tentacles of light shot out, spearing the Walker through the chest, arms, and legs. They were horrific to look at—unnaturally long and quick, the fluidly shifting tentacles were spiky with light and energy, pulsing around the edges in a purple nimbus.
    One after another more tentacles, over a dozen in all, burst from the Lightbringer's chest, stretched, and wrapped around the other Walker, downing it in a moment and