Then Fallen Succubus stepped forward, and Aether looked up and saw her face.
She was pale. Paler than he had ever seen her. Her dark eyes were fixed on the sleeping creature with an intensity that bordered on dread, and her slender hands trembled where they hung at her sides.
"Aether," she said. "Listen to me carefully."
"What is it?"
"I can read the shape of a soul. You know that. It is the one thing I have always been able to do." She swallowed. "That child's soul signature is ancient. Older than the academy. Older than any of the royal bloodlines. Older than anything in the old records I have ever read."
"What species?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I have never seen anything like it." She took a shaky breath. "And there is something else. Something worse."
She knelt in front of the crystal and lifted a trembling hand toward the creature, stopping just short of touching the surface.
