Read Online On the Isle of Sound and Wonder by Alyson Grauer - Free Book Online Page A

unobtrusive way of simply keeping him company. It was so unlike anything he’d ever known before, and he felt as though the cares of his recent times were fading away.
    “As long as it’s just you and me,” Aurael told the little girl, “I’m happy. Just you and me and your doll, and the island.”
    “And Father,” added Mira cheerfully. “Father’s here, too.”
    “Right,” agreed Aurael. “But I don’t want to visit with him. I only like talking to you.”
    Mira beamed at him, patting the trunk of the tree with one small hand. “I like talking to you too, Orryell.”
    “It’s Aurael,” he said dryly.
    “That’s what I said,” she answered, and began to draw in the sand again.
    A few days later, he startled awake just before dawn, feeling some sort of buzz along the trunk of his tree. The roots of his prison hummed with the echoes of something powerful nearby, and Aurael remembered the way he had felt the magic resonate when Corvina had been nearby. This felt similar, but amplified, as focused as light passing through a magnifying lens.
    “Who’s there?” he called, defensively. “Who are you?”
    The birds had not yet begun to sing in the woods, but there was a rosy glow in the east that reflected across the clouds and the tops of the waves. Something moved beyond his tree, in the shadows. Aurael pressed against the tree bark, trying to see more clearly.
    “I can hear you, you know,” he growled.
    “I know,” answered a man’s voice, and Mira’s father came walking out of the dark, the staff in his hand covered in faintly glowing sigils and signs. The dim gleam of bluish magic reflected in the man’s eyes, his expression bemused.
    Aurael shut his mouth, a chill sweeping through him.
    “An elemental,” mused the man, “trapped in a tree. Fascinating. I suppose you’re not in there by your own choice.”
    Aurael said nothing. If this man was as powerful as the vibrations would have him believe, Aurael did not want to confess anything that might prove to be useful against him.
    “That’s all right, you don’t have to speak. Yet.” Mira’s father came closer, studying the tree. “Hm. Someone quite strong put you in there, I see. Someone old. And . . .” His eyes fell to the ground in front of the tree, the exact spot where Corvina’s body had fallen in death. The man raised his eyebrows. “Ah. Interesting.” He turned to face Aurael’s tree with a wrinkle at the corner of his grayish eyes. “Very interesting.”
    “Who are you?” said Aurael, his own eyes narrowing.
    “Someone who thinks we might be able to help each other.” The man leaned on the staff thoughtfully.
    “Oh, really,” answered Aurael flatly.
    “Yes, really,” replied the man. “You’ve been stuck there a long time. You’d like to get out. And I’d like to let you out. In fact, I’m quite certain I can free you. But in return . . . I’d need your assistance with something. A long-term sort of project.”
    Aurael was silent, his eyes fixed on the man’s face. “You want to hire me,” he said, slowly. The man smiled, and it was a kind smile, which made the coldness in his eyes all the more chilling, even to Aurael. But he was desperate.
    “I’m listening,” said the spirit, and the man with the staff smiled a little wider.

Stephen Montanto lay face down in the dark, the earth beneath him warm against his skin. One by one, his senses came back to him from the blackness of sleep, the first being the feeling of the hard ground and the hot sun bearing down on him.
    He felt as though his entire skull had been detached, used as a bocce ball, and reattached haphazardly in something of a rush. By and by, feeling returned to the rest of his limbs and torso, along with the aches and pains of the worst hangover he had ever had in all of his fifty-some years. His body felt simultaneously hollow and full of sharp nails, prickling with discomfort as he fought to shake his mind free of the dark and remember