Lost Ones-Veil 3 Read Online Free PDF

wanted to make promises about the future of the Legend-Born, there’s no one better to talk to than that old woman. All of the faithful will listen to her.”
    Jade eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about, cousin?”
    Coyote grinned. “Isn’t it obvious? Uncle has a plan to free the Bascombes. Your friend Oliver may survive this war, Legend-Born or not. I wonder if you’ll be happy to see him, should you come face-to-face. Even better, I wonder if he’ll be happy to see you.”
    Kitsune set the book down and slowly rose to her feet. “You never know when to be quiet, do you?”
    “Gets me in all sorts of trouble,” he agreed. “So, what now, cousin?”
    Her anguish lay revealed for a moment, and then she composed herself, her expression turning grim.
    “I don’t know. But if Oliver’s going to be free, then it’s time I freed myself as well. It’s time I did something to burn away my regrets. But we’ll stay away from him, cousin. It gnaws at me, but I don’t ever want to have to see my reflection in his eyes.”
    Coyote nodded appreciatively. “The truth. It’s usually so unbecoming in a trickster, but it works for you.”
    Kitsune strode toward him. “It’s our nature to be selfish. But this is too much. I’ve used your weakness to shield me, but the Atlanteans have slain too many of us, and they mean to murder the rest. They won’t stop until all the Borderkind are dead. It’s time to fight or die, Coyote.”
    He raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure? I was hoping to put it off for a while.”
    “I’m sure. But we have another task before we can go to war.”
    “And what’s that?”
    “There are others like you, hiding, or simply trying to stay neutral. They’re fooling themselves, thinking the war isn’t theirs to fight. The time has come to disabuse them of that notion.”
    Coyote sighed.
    It had been a perfectly lovely, lazy day. Now Kitsune wanted him to play hero—a role never designed for a trickster.
    “Shit,” Coyote said. “Couldn’t you have simmered in your self-loathing for a few more days?”
    Kitsune smiled and slid a hand behind his head. She pulled him toward her and their foreheads touched.
    “Good dog,” she said.
    He cursed at her, and she laughed as she preceded him from the cave. Despite his pique, he was elated to hear that sound. Kitsune had been her own prisoner for too long. Now she would run free, and wild.
             
    Wayland Smith walked between worlds. He had always done so and hoped that he always would. This was his power and his legend. The Borderkind thought him one of their kin, and he never argued the point, but he was not like them. They could walk in two worlds, while he could travel in many.
    Yet over the ages, it had become more and more difficult for him to cross those borders. What the sorcerers had done in creating the Veil was unnatural, and it had begun to erode his ability to pass from one world to the other. This alone might not have alarmed him, but he feared that it would only be the beginning.
    There were myriad other realities and worlds layered one upon the other—a great many of which he had yet to explore. If the magic used to create the Veil could wear away at his magic, he worried that he might one day find himself trapped in one of them, unable to journey beyond. Perhaps those unaware of the existence of the worlds beyond could be content with such restriction, but he was the Wayfarer, and it would be his death.
    The Veil had become his bane, and long years ago, Smith had made up his mind to bring it down.
    Now the Atlanteans and their damned ambitions were interfering. Whichever members of the High Council were behind the actions of Ty’Lis, they wanted to seal off the legendary world from the ordinary forever, to exterminate the Borderkind and destroy the Doors. Wayland Smith simply could not allow that.
    Whatever it required, he had to see that King Hunyadi was victorious and that the Bascombes survived to fulfill