Repairer of the Breach (Stones of Fire Book 4) by Sarah Ashwood (free biff chip and kipper ebooks .TXT) 📕

exactly easy. However, a sense of urgency filled me. Daylight couldn’t last forever. Here I was alone, up in the hills, following a strange bird to who-knew-where, and there Carter was, alone, back on the beach.

I’ve got to finish this and get back to him.

I slipped and fell a few times, scraping my palms when I caught myself on the rough, stony ground, as well as bruising and skinning my knees. Just when I was getting tired and cross and pretty stinking worried that I’d gone off the deep end and was making the worst decision of my life, up ahead of me I spied a massive jumble of stones, into which crept a faint footpath. The footpath then led to a dark recess, like a cave. The owl drifted down from overhead, perching on one of the stones. There it sat, staring at me, blinking.

“Is this it?” I asked aloud.

The bird twisted its head around towards the cave then twisted back to me. It blinked. I sighed.

“Either I’m going completely nuts or you just told me this is it. Okay, thank you for your, uh, help. I guess I don’t have any choice except checking it out.”

No response from my guide. As I swept past it I paused to ask, “Will you still be out here when I’m ready to leave?”

It looked at me but didn’t blink or nod. That stare could’ve meant anything. I shrugged and went on.

Oh well. Guess it got me here.

Not that I knew where here was. As I stepped into the shadowy entrance of the cave, bits and pieces of Greek mythology I’d learned in school, coupled with movies I’d seen that were based on it, floated into my head. Dark caves weren’t typically great places to visit, especially alone and without a weapon. What if some sort of monster waited inside? Like the three sisters with the vat of stewed humans and the one eye they shared between them? Or Medusa, the lady with snakes for hair, whose stare turned people to stone? There were already elements of Greek mythology intertwined in the shifters’ background, and seemingly in this new world. How did I know a nine-headed Hydra wasn’t waiting on me?

The truth was, I didn’t. Yet I also refused to believe I’d been brought this far without a reason. The visitor down on the beach, the owl, now the cave…it couldn’t all be coincidence, surely.

Reminding myself of this, I took heart and crept inside, slowly, looking around, watching for danger. The first thing I noticed was how cool it was inside. I’d long ago tied my wrap around my waist, since I was sweating, huffing, and puffing from the climb. Now, the perspiration on my skin left me chilled. I untied the wrap and draped it around my shoulders like a shawl for warmth. Next, I noticed the sound of water, a gushing in the back of the cave. There was little light to guide me, but I followed my instincts and the sound of the water, creeping around rocks strewn across the floor of the cave and rock formations that were a part of the cave, with my hands out in front to help me feel my way along.

As I approached the water, I began to see a soft, gentle glow that intensified as I approached. Like a beacon, it drew me in until I was standing on the edge of a pool into which a waterfall—about ten to fifteen feet high—poured. The waterfall itself didn’t seem to be anything spectacular, except for the soft glow underneath, almost like it was backlit by electric lights. I sure couldn’t see any electric lights, although I admit I glanced around in case somebody was going to flip on the lights, yell, “Surprise!” and reveal this whole thing was a giant hoax.

No such luck.

Instead, I kept going until I was standing on the brink of the pool, watching the water. I clutched the borrowed shawl around my shoulders with one hand, shoving my glasses further up the bridge of my nose with the other.

Okay, I’m here, I thought. What do I do now? How is any of this supposed to help Carter?

The universe or whatever powers that lived in this place must have heard the silent question.

“Somewhere in-between,” a voice said.

“What?” I gasped, jumped, spun. “Who said that?”

“Somewhere in-between,” the voice repeated.

Nervous, I did a double, triple take of my surroundings, but still didn’t see anything.

“Listen, listen,” the voice insisted.

That was when I realized it was coming from below, from underneath. My gaze dropped to my sandaled feet at the water’s edge, then to the water itself. Like a beacon, it honed in on something I hadn’t noticed before, a whirlpool in the center of the pool. Not a big one: it wasn’t more than a couple feet across. But it spun in circles, rapidly, and the glow there was much brighter than from the rest of the water.

“They are somewhere in-between, all of them,” stated the voice. It was whispering, watery, yet strong and compelling. “The Repairer of the Breach will cross the ways and open the fissures. There is hope for peace, but oftentimes peace is found at great cost.”

The strength of the voice had faded by the end of this sentence. Shivers rolled down my spine.

Peace, but at great cost? What cost? What kind of peace, and for whom? For Carter and me? For the people who’d once lived in this city but were gone? For the shifters back home, Carter’s people?

“Take me,” the voice whispered, so softly that I could barely hear it over the rush of the waterfall. “Take me to the Repairer of the Breach. And take this. He will need them both.”

Take what?

Again, my innermost thoughts seemed to be read. From the midst of the whirlpool an object appeared. Fingers, a hand, a wrist, an arm reaching up from the spinning watery circles. I stiffened, sucking in a gasp. The hand wasn’t alone. It was holding something.