Free URIEL: The Price (The Airel Saga, Book 6) (Young Adult Paranormal Romance) by Aaron Patterson, Chris White Page B

noticed was different now. At the bisection of the blade and the guard, right at the hilt, there was a perfect circle cutting through, admitting light, air.
    I swung it around a few times. It seemed to make the blade faster. Guadagnare. Stocatta.
    I walked toward the door, sword in hand, and it opened. My eyes locked onto the burning black globe I beheld through the doorway. A world on fire.
    I was going home. I was going back to where it had all started, and I would put an end to what was not meant to be.
    Moments later, pain knifed through me. I could feel the extent of my body, the limits of my frame, and it was awkward and weird. My lungs burned—air was being forced down into me through tubes. My eyes opened and I screamed for help.
    * * *
    Independence, Missouri, Present Day
    ELLIE HAD A THEORY she hoped would buy her a little more time. She was already very weak, so it was a last ditch effort even to try it.
    As she dissolved from the couch in her father’s library and scattered to the winds, she isolated the contagion of the Mark in her body, placing it away from her, in quarantine. She knew it was temporary at best, since—and she could feel this—the source it fed upon was her heart, but maybe she could buy a couple of weeks. The Mark’s infection was beyond her powers to overcome. She would do what she could to delay the inevitable as long as possible. Just like any driven human determined to save the world.
    She didn’t know what would happen. When she gathered herself back together under a tree in the parking lot of the Midwest Genealogy Center in Independence, Missouri, she had readied herself for anything.
    She’d thought it might kill her. But in fact, she felt better than she had in a long time, and she kicked herself for not trying it sooner. I feel like a new woman. Like I’ve just had the best spa day ever.
    She walked inside.
    The receptionist looked up at her. “Welcome to the largest facility for genealogies in the world. How may I help y—oh, wow. Can I just say . . . I just love your hair.”
    “Why, thanks,” Ellie said. “I’m kinda partial myself.” She gave a mild curtsy.
    The receptionist, a round, dowdy-looking woman dressed in the full range of browns, giggled. “We don’t get many people around here sporting that look.”
    “Well, I’ve stuck with what works. In and out of season.” For thousands of years. “So, ah. . .” Ellie looked around for a nameplate. “So, Brenda. Where are the C’s? I’ve got some research to do.”
    “Oh, of course.” Brenda peeled her eyes from Ellie’s electric blue mane and shoved a clipboard forward. “Sign in, and then you’ll want to take the elevator to level two. You’re so dang cute.” Brenda giggled again.
    Ellie smiled and registered and went to the second floor. After talking to three different people, she was ushered to a small room with no windows and a computer sitting on a simple desk.
    As she looked through the boxes of documents that traced the Cross family tree upward from Airel to John, the trail ended. John Cross apparently had no parents, no family. No past. Which meant, “Extremely complicated.” Ellie grasped at her pounding chest and coughed. Maybe not two weeks. Maybe two days.
    She needed to get moving then.
    Airel mentioned grandparents—they must have been on her mom’s side.
    She thought back to her son. She always wondered what became of him. He must have had children—otherwise, Airel would never have been born. Without angelic blood, the family line would not have been able to continue. But Qiel was lost and assumed dead ages ago. After Ke’elei, she herself had gone off the grid. She’d thought about it a lot, but never so much as she had in the last few weeks.
    Wait a minute. What if I’m looking at the wrong parent?
    What if it was Airel’s mother who carried the bloodline? What do I even know of my own family tree?
    Ellie cursed. She had to start over.
    She shoved the box aside and moved to