The Soul Mirror Read Online Free PDF
Author: Carol Berg
letter. So she had written it the morning she died. Whatever had happened before or after she returned her magic book to the Seravain library, whatever events she had set in motion must have driven her to the mistake that killed her. How could I ever understand?
Hurt settled like lead weights in my bones. Its barbed edges gouged a raw and ragged wound in my heart. I had once believed no pain could be worse than testifying at my father’s trial, hearing my own words expose his treason and murder and seal his condemnation. But then I had watched my terrified brother clapped in irons and dragged to prison when he was but fifteen. And then I had watched my mother’s fractured spirit decline into madness, and I had been forced to beg her family to confine her in their mountain fortress, lest she harm herself or others. And now this . . . How could a girl of such life and spirit be lost to this world? What had frightened her to her death?
“I’ll try to be bold, little sister. Somehow, I’ll find out what happened to you. I swear it.” Though I had no idea how to go about it.
I poked at her charmed trinkets with a hairpin, as if they might yield me answers. The back of one silver nireal had been engraved with a frog—Lianelle’s, surely. She had once filled my bedchamber with no less than fifty frogs that she claimed to have called to her service with sorcery. The back of the second pendant was engraved with a single olive tree on a hill—a symbol of strength and home. My chest ached as if it might crack.
As I rewrapped the trinkets in the linen and leather, a small triangular scrap of paper fell loose. A single word, andragossa , was written on it. An Aljyssian word, no doubt the keyword for the ring spell. Stomach churning in rebellion, I stuffed the scrap in the packet with the rest.
Though I treasured my sister’s sentiments, not even her wizardly talented Guerin nor her revered Mage Kajetan could persuade me to touch her unnatural gifts. Had poison killed Lianelle, I would not swallow it to learn how. Had she fallen from a cliff, I would not jump after her to discover why.
Perhaps some magic was honest and worthy. Perhaps there existed some true enchantments that could not be exposed as duplicity or explained by natural laws of alchemistry, biology, or physics. I doubted it. But from my earliest memory, the very notion of spellwork—some kind of unnatural energies fermenting inside one’s veins, perverting the natural order of creation—had repelled me. As I grew older, the revulsion had become a physical thing, the merest suspicion of nearby magic unsettling my stomach. Now its pursuit had brought ruin to everyone I loved. I wanted nothing to do with it. My own mundane gifts must carry me on this wretched journey.
CHAPTER 3
1 OCET, AFTERNOON
“ D amoselle, we really must be on our way.” Savin-Duplais hovered in the doorway of the library, poised at the edge of my leaving, as he had been all day, like a gray sparrow ready to take flight at the flick of my hand.
“My parents have lived here for twenty years, sonjeur. I cannot sort out our belongings in a few hours.”
I dropped a magnifying lens into the satchel at my feet, laid my mother’s sketch of Ambrose, Lianelle, and me in the box of her drawings, and riffled through the packet of my father’s years of correspondence with Germond de Vouger. Some collegia would surely treasure these papers, the evolving outline of an entirely new theory of objects in motion from the preeminent natural philosopher in the world.
“The driver is waiting.”
I threw the priceless letters into the empty drawer of my father’s desk and slammed it shut. As I rose from the chair, I surveyed the ranks of books, denying tears for the hundredth time since dawn. These volumes were my childhood, my education, my refuge and delight.
“The books remain with the house, damoselle,” snapped Duplais, as if he could read my thoughts. “If some particular volume has
Hurt settled like lead weights in my bones. Its barbed edges gouged a raw and ragged wound in my heart. I had once believed no pain could be worse than testifying at my father’s trial, hearing my own words expose his treason and murder and seal his condemnation. But then I had watched my terrified brother clapped in irons and dragged to prison when he was but fifteen. And then I had watched my mother’s fractured spirit decline into madness, and I had been forced to beg her family to confine her in their mountain fortress, lest she harm herself or others. And now this . . . How could a girl of such life and spirit be lost to this world? What had frightened her to her death?
“I’ll try to be bold, little sister. Somehow, I’ll find out what happened to you. I swear it.” Though I had no idea how to go about it.
I poked at her charmed trinkets with a hairpin, as if they might yield me answers. The back of one silver nireal had been engraved with a frog—Lianelle’s, surely. She had once filled my bedchamber with no less than fifty frogs that she claimed to have called to her service with sorcery. The back of the second pendant was engraved with a single olive tree on a hill—a symbol of strength and home. My chest ached as if it might crack.
As I rewrapped the trinkets in the linen and leather, a small triangular scrap of paper fell loose. A single word, andragossa , was written on it. An Aljyssian word, no doubt the keyword for the ring spell. Stomach churning in rebellion, I stuffed the scrap in the packet with the rest.
Though I treasured my sister’s sentiments, not even her wizardly talented Guerin nor her revered Mage Kajetan could persuade me to touch her unnatural gifts. Had poison killed Lianelle, I would not swallow it to learn how. Had she fallen from a cliff, I would not jump after her to discover why.
Perhaps some magic was honest and worthy. Perhaps there existed some true enchantments that could not be exposed as duplicity or explained by natural laws of alchemistry, biology, or physics. I doubted it. But from my earliest memory, the very notion of spellwork—some kind of unnatural energies fermenting inside one’s veins, perverting the natural order of creation—had repelled me. As I grew older, the revulsion had become a physical thing, the merest suspicion of nearby magic unsettling my stomach. Now its pursuit had brought ruin to everyone I loved. I wanted nothing to do with it. My own mundane gifts must carry me on this wretched journey.
CHAPTER 3
1 OCET, AFTERNOON
“ D amoselle, we really must be on our way.” Savin-Duplais hovered in the doorway of the library, poised at the edge of my leaving, as he had been all day, like a gray sparrow ready to take flight at the flick of my hand.
“My parents have lived here for twenty years, sonjeur. I cannot sort out our belongings in a few hours.”
I dropped a magnifying lens into the satchel at my feet, laid my mother’s sketch of Ambrose, Lianelle, and me in the box of her drawings, and riffled through the packet of my father’s years of correspondence with Germond de Vouger. Some collegia would surely treasure these papers, the evolving outline of an entirely new theory of objects in motion from the preeminent natural philosopher in the world.
“The driver is waiting.”
I threw the priceless letters into the empty drawer of my father’s desk and slammed it shut. As I rose from the chair, I surveyed the ranks of books, denying tears for the hundredth time since dawn. These volumes were my childhood, my education, my refuge and delight.
“The books remain with the house, damoselle,” snapped Duplais, as if he could read my thoughts. “If some particular volume has
Similar Books
Reckless
Samantha Love
Highland Rake
Terry Spear
Everybody's After Love
Lyssa Layne
The Wrong Man
Matthew Louis
Where
Kit Reed
Paradise Lodge
Nina Stibbe
The Legend of Mickey Tussler
Frank; Nappi
Bette Midler
Mark Bego
