Free Leoht (BloodRunes: Book 3) by Laura R Cole Page A

the
telling, but now she looked up at her. “What are they planning on
doing with him?”
    Kai’s mental presence appeared in the back of
Layna’s mind and though he wasn’t actually speaking to her, the
closeness of his aura allowed her to ‘feel’ what he was thinking.
There was something about this woman. Couldn’t quite put his
proverbial finger on it…
    “They want us to find the place where they
imprisoned the body and we’re supposed to find out more about this
sword and where the Bloodstone might be now.” She held up Leoht for
them to see and Charles took it to examine it as she continued.
“They feel that after all the havoc that has been wrecked by the
Bloodstone’s presence in the world, it will only stop if it is
destroyed and the source is removed. They haven’t exactly been
clear with me about what they mean by that, but I know that we
first need to find where the prison is.”
    Aileen’s face seemed to pale a bit.
    “Any idea ‘o where to start?” Charles asked,
tossing the core of his apple into the field and putting the tip of
the sword into the earth and leaning against it. Layna’s eyes
bulged a bit at his treatment of it, but she said nothing.
    “They told us it was in the midst of the wild
magic to the north,” Gryffon said, “So Katya has set out across the
Ferryn Plains, and Layna and I are supposed to be doing research to
try and find a more exact location to give her. I’m not sure why they couldn’t just give it to us…”
    Layna bristled, “They don’t really know our
world very well anymore, they’ve been gone from here a long time.
We weren’t supposed to need them anymore. When they come back as
they were planning to collect him, they’d be able to ‘feel’ him.”
Aileen’s gaze was drawn upwards, and Layna’s followed, noticing the
clouds descending on their sunny day before dismissing them.
    “You sent that poor girl ‘cross the Plains by
her wee self!” Charles gasped in his usual melodramatic manner,
“She’ll be killed!”
    Layna smiled, “Something tells me she can
take care of herself.”
    “We needed to come back and tell the council
information that Katya had about the army that’s set to invade, but
we also needed to get to the source as quickly as possible.
Splitting up seemed like the best thing to do.”
    - How are you going to reach her with
information? Or join her when she finds it?- Echo asked.
    “The Three showed us how to makes stones that
will allow us to communicate over long distances and will help hone
in the transportation spell to get us there.”
    “You’re planning on transporting into the
chaos of the Ferryn Plains?” Aileen asked incredulously. Layna felt
another strange twinge from her guests.
    Gryffon answered, “They assured us that it
would be safe once Katya had prepared an area for us.” He paused
and added, “Hopefully they’re right.”
    “Why do they want you investigating the
sword?” Aileen asked almost nervously, once again giving Layna the
impression that she was distressed about something.
    “They said that they think its properties
will help to contain the Bloodstone’s power while enhancing ours,
and they seem to think that something,” she paused, looking for the
right word “special had a hand in creating it. So, the more we know
about its history, the better we can hope to use it this time to
finally rid ourselves of Nuko’s foul curse once and for all.” After
a moment of silence, she spoke again. “Any ideas where we should
start trying to find out where an ancient prison that’s holding the
body of a dragon is? Or about a sword made and wielded by a
mysterious man who came and went from history in a day? Or better
yet, where the Bloodstone disappeared to?” Layna asked
sardonically.
    “I think so,” Aileen said softly.
     
    *
    Katya wasn’t all happy about leaving Gryffon
and Layna for reasons she couldn’t completely rationalize to
herself. But she also didn’t want to stay and