Free A Guardian of Shadows (Revenant Wyrd Book 4) by Travis Simmons Page B

into the black air around her.
    Her eyes were larger than her counterparts in the Holy Realm, and all pupil rather than iris; her ears were slightly stunted, turned down at the tips. She reclined on a large violet toadstool. On her lap rested a slender blade.
    “This is such a strange place.” Angelica moved away from the tapestry. “Cat people with machines, dark elves living in some strange high society.”
    “Much more fantastical than the realms we left,” Jovian agreed.
    “And you think all other races should be uncivilized or uncultured, because they aren’t human?” Uthia mused.
    “Not at all, just act more like…” Angelica trailed off with a blush.
    “What? Act more like you envision they should?” If the dryad had any eyebrows, Jovian was sure she would have raised one at that point.
    “That’s what I was going to say,” Angelica said sheepishly.
    “Just because the elves in your homeland live off the land doesn’t mean the ooslebed should. Wasn’t it the differences of First Daughter from the rest of the elves that set her on her path to find her own home? And the frement, what should they do? Scratch at posts all day because they look like pets?”
    “No, I guess you’re right,” Angelica mumbled.
    “Stereotypes,” Uthia shrugged. “I will never understand them.”
    But Joya was moving again, and though there wasn’t anywhere she could go but straight, they all followed so they didn’t lose sight of her.
    They only glanced now and then at tapestries as they passed. The other races depicted on them were ones they had seen on their first day inside the Shadow Realm and the Haunted Forest: pixies, the larger fairies, and dryads. Here and there were more images of machinery that baffled Jovian’s mind. He couldn’t imagine that they were run by wyrd, but at the same time, he couldn’t think of anything else that could run them.
    Before long the sounds of nighttime reached their ears, and Jovian looked up to see the hallway coming to an end at the opening of a cave. They stopped, looking out on the wasted land beyond. A light rain was now falling from a thunderous sky, pattering on the charred grass. Even now smoke rose here and there from the land. The hallway continued out of the cave, but instead of the gray granite they’d gotten used to, this was a black stone road that lead straight up to the tallest tower they had ever seen.
    There were lights on inside the tower, shining through the black air like a beacon, calling them on, welcoming them to the twisting, convoluted structure that reached nearly as high as the clouds above. It was a wicked-looking thing, and just looking at it made Jovian shiver.
    “What is that building?” Joya asked.
    “The Spire of Night, the home of the Realm Guardian.” There was a note of awe in Uthia’s voice.

“Grace, snap out of it.” The voice was familiar to her in its dreamy cadence. It reminded her of times past, good times, friends, laughter. It was a stark difference to the chaos she felt coursing through her body right now, the pain through her midsection where she had been pierced by … what had stabbed her?
    “Don’t think about that now; you aren’t your body.”
    The voice seemed to pull at her, tugging her away from her current inspection of her physical form, searching out the wound she had been dealt, the same wound that had chased her consciousness away and allowed another being to slip in.
    “Let go, come with me,” the voice encouraged. It was so familiar, but through the pain, Grace couldn’t make out who it belonged to.
    “Take my hand, come with me and you won’t feel the pain.”
    “But I don’t have any hands I can work with,” Grace told the voice.
    She felt something tug at her again, more insistent this time.
    “Just let go,” it said.
    “I’m not holding on to anything,” she told the other woman.
    “Grace, you old bitch, let go of your body and come with me.”
    “Rose?” Grace asked, and just like