To keep the boat hidden, Rune had lowered the sails. But when she looked, not only did she find them hoisted, but she saw Aurelia drawing up the anchor.
“What are you doing?” she called, treading water.
Aurelia reached into the pocket of Gideon’s jacket. “I found this on the boat shortly after we left the island.” Pulling out some small object, she threw it in Rune’s direction.
It plopped into the water.
A jewelry box.
“If I showed you, you would have gone back for him. And I couldn’t let you do that.” Aurelia pulled the anchor over the side, dropping it in the boat’s interior. “I can’t let them catch us again.”
The tiny box bobbed on the waves before starting to sink.
“What are you talking about?” Rune grabbed the box before it descended too deep and couldn’t be retrieved.
“I’m sorry.” Aurelia sat down at the rudder. From the way her voice trembled, she sounded truly remorseful. “I have a child to think of. I need to get Meadow somewhere safe.”
And before Rune could think of how to stop her, Aurelia turned the boat around and started sailing out of the fjord. Abandoning Rune.
She watched, dumbfounded, as Alex’s boat—her escapecraft—disappeared into the distance. She’d risked her life to get Aurelia and her child to freedom, andthiswas how the sibyl repaid her?
What am I going to do?
She could steal a horse and ride for Caelis. Or perhaps commandeer one of Soren’s boats. But the prince’s sailboats were large, sophisticated crafts requiring whole crews to manage. Rune doubted she could handle one by herself.
The sea’s chill was seeping into Rune’s bones, and her teeth began to chatter. She needed to get out before hypothermia set in. She could figure out the rest once she was on dry land.
So, with the jewelry box clasped in her fist, she turned and swam for shore.
Wading out of the water and onto the rocks, Rune pushed back her sopping hair, held up the tiny box, and opened it.
A folded, waterlogged note sat inside. As Rune unfolded it, a small coin dropped into the sand, catching the light.
She picked up the coin, holding it up to the sunlight. A hole was punched in the silver, and a thin chain was fastened on.
A penny. But not just any penny.
A word stamped into its surface warmed Rune’s shivering body.
Cascadia.
She flipped it over. Queen Althea’s face stared out at her, pressed into the silver.
Althea had ruled over Cascadia for a quarter century, during a period of peace and stability. She was the last queen to commune with the Ancients—or so some believed—and legend had it that Wisdom could often be seen walking with her in the royal gardens.
After the revolution, coins like this one had all been melted down. Like the old maps that had to be burned, there were tobe no reminders that witches once reigned in the New Republic. The Good Commander wanted history erased.
Someone must have kept this contraband, or found it—at the back of a drawer, perhaps, or between the cracks in some floorboards—and turned it into a necklace.
But why?
She glanced at the note in her other hand. The wet paper was translucent, and Rune had to squint to make out the words written in washed-out ink.
Rune—
I hope you find the freedom you’re looking for.
Yours, Gideon
