Read Lichgates: Book One of the Grimoire Saga (an Epic Fantasy Adventure) for Free Online Page A

its giant ears flicked around to absorb the trolls’ hulking movements.
    The fox trotted over and sniffed the torn hem of her jeans before looking up with its striking blue eyes. She reached out with her bound hands and gently scratched its chin. It hummed with pleasure. Kara grinned.
    “At least not everything here is scary,” she said.
    The little fox popped its eyes open and stared at her for a moment before it changed shape. Its fur melted away into the wet scales of a red lizard with a single black stripe running down its spine. Kara yelped as the fox-now-lizard creature scurried over the wood and out of sight. She covered her face with her hands and cursed beneath her breath.
    She stifled a sob. “I want to go home.”
    “Ourea isn’t the sort of place you can leave. It always drags you back,” Braeden mumbled, awake now.
    “More comforting words of wisdom?” she asked, peering through her fingers to catch his bruised and battered gaze.
    “No. You hardly seemed fond of that.” He stretched his fingers out behind him, and drops of the black liquid fell faster from around the cuffs as he moved.
    “What’s wrong with your hands?”
    “These shackles have poisoned spikes.”
    She whistled. “Wow. Can I do anything to help?”
    “No, but thank you.”
    “Is that black stuff the poison?”
    “I guess you could say that.”
    “Is that a yes?”
    Braeden frowned. “It’s my blood.”
    “Wait, your blood is black?”
    Well, it wasn’t the weirdest thing she’d seen in the last twenty four hours. She had yet to recover from those stupid roots and the book that turned its own pages.
    “You know, blood is kind of important, Braeden. It’s not usually a poisonous thing.”
    “It’s a long story.”
    She gestured at the cage. “I’m not exactly going anywhere.”
    “I think everything will become painfully obvious if we are headed for the same place, which I hope we aren’t.” His expression darkened, his eyebrows casting a shadow over his eyes. He looked up at her, and a chill crept down her neck.
    “Wow. It’s been a pleasure talking to you, too. To think, I was going to take those cuffs off you.” She leaned against the cell wall as they took another bend in the road.
    “As kind an offer as that is, only the person who put them on can take them off. And I meant only that you will not want to go where I’m being taken.”
    “Oh,” she said. “Sorry.”
    He shrugged and stared at the floorboards. “I’ve been running from Carden for a long time. I always wondered when he’d catch up to me.”
    “Who’s Carden?”
    He glanced past her. “I think you’re about to find out.”
    Deidre appeared at the end of the cage. “All right, kiddies, we’re home.”
    The prison skidded to a stop. Its back doors swung open on their own, slamming against the metal bars with a bang. Several gray guards climbed in and grabbed her arms and waist with sweaty hands, pulling her to her feet before she even had a chance to stand. Her cellmate stifled several sharp cries of pain from behind her as other soldiers shoved him forward as well.
    The guards steered her out of the cage and toward a flight of steps that led to the main doors of a castle. Black spires and spiked battlements soared on either side of the palace, stabbing the overcast sky while mountains and a dark forest crowded the horizon.
    The soldiers cleared a path so that Deidre could lead the procession into the castle. Guards hurried Braeden through after the brunette, but he didn’t resist. He watched the floor, furrowed creases distorting the skin around his eyes.
    A guard’s grip tightened around Kara’s arm, and his breath tickled her neck, making her shudder. He laughed and forced her through the doorway into a throne room teeming with hooded figures and gray faces.
    Black marble layered the walls and floor. Thick, evenly-spaced columns dotted the vast hall and supported a giant stained glass dome above, which cast red and gray light