Veiled Shadows (The Age of Alandria: Book Two) Read Online Free PDF

unfortunately, the intense expression that came over her face wasn’t easing their minds.
    “Focus. Focus on Kaeleigh,” Hunter said with a commanding tone. Then they all joined in chanting the ancient words combining their strength and energy.
    “Thantül. Kothnyte. Lyn du hasen lan ílleyll.”
    Daegan swung his attention from Kaeleigh to Hunter with a questioning and yet accusatory look on his face. Hunter looked long and hard at Daegan until Daegan lowered his eyes and focused on Kaeleigh. Hunter did not have time to play dominance games with him today.
    Continuing to perform the ritual, sweeping the stick with the hair of her youth and innocence tied to it through each candle specific to the elements, Hunter muttered a word at each pass. Kaeleigh squirmed, moaning and slowly thrashing her head back and forth as if she was having a bad dream. The bulk of her body writhed up off the table as she released a gut-wrenching scream that sounded as if someone was skinning her alive, then dropped back down on to the table in silence. She was too silent. Too still. Wide-eyed, no one moved. No one breathed for what seemed like forever.
    Until finally Chel gasped and turned to Hunter. He held up a hand, interrupting anything she was about to say. Nodding to Kaeleigh, he spoke quietly, “She still breathes. Kaeleighnna is alive... but only just.” He took a deep, saddened breath. “I’m afraid it is now up to her whether she wants to make it back from wherever she has gone.”
    Chel and Finn looked from one to another, confused and lost. Daegan, of course, appeared to be the immovable, untouchable stone that he always was, except for the hidden spark in his eyes that was desperately willing Kaeleigh to live.

 
     
    CHAPTER THREE
     
    Kaeleigh couldn’t figure out where she was or if she even was. She felt weightless, as if floating through clouds. Even though she was upright and her legs gave the appearance of walking, she couldn’t feel the ground. Looking around, she saw nothing but a misty white fog all around her. I’m dead, she thought as she ran her hand gracefully through the light moisture around her. The last thing she remembered was darkness. She had felt trapped, unable to move—cold and alone. There was pain, indescribable pain. Kaeleigh had felt like she was on fire again, like she had on the Bridge of Revealment. This time her skin itched and prickled as though someone had stuck thousands of tiny needles over every inch of her body. Her chest ached and there was a sharp, piercing pain in her stomach; the core of her being was being gutted and her outside was being filleted all at the same time. Almost as fast as it came upon her, it had instantly ceased and she felt nothing... absolutely nothing, and it terrified her. There was no way she could have lived through that. Absolute nothingness was what she imagined Hell to be and now she was there.
    Kaeleigh’s heart hurt and her throat constricted with emotion that threatened to consume her if she let it. She didn’t get to say goodbye to her friends. To Hunter—her grandfather she just found. She had hoped to get to know him and had so much to learn still. To Daegan—what had she felt for Daegan? She didn’t really know, but she had hoped to have gotten the chance to get him to lower those shields that he so carefully kept in place to find out who he really was. She felt sure there was a part of him that she would have liked to know. Lost in her thoughts, as she often was, she felt a light mist spray upon her face that brought her back to her empty surroundings. Looking around, she saw the mist beginning to thin, to lighten into a hazy white someplace—the place that she belonged to now, the place she had been for who knows how long. She was drifting.
    “Kaeleighnna.” A faint voice floated toward her through the mist. A feminine voice. A familiar voice.
    Kaeleigh suddenly stopped drifting and circled about looking for someone... anyone... but no one