Page 33 of The Reaping Rose

The prison shivers, pulling Idunn’s attention.

“It seems the time has come.” She closes her eyes, tipping her head back with a smile on her face.

Her feet don’t move, but she slips farther away, drifting into the shadows.

“Idunn,” I call out, darkness swallowing her. “Where are you going?”

Her voice is an echo in the descending night. “Do not worry; we shall meet again soon.”

The breath of a laugh turns to a hum as she sinks to her knees in the shadows. The moonlight silk of her dress melts to the ground around her. A falling star in her pitch-black cell as she begins to hum a familiar song. One I heard on the beach when I was fishing with my father. One I’ve heard since, calling me here. It wasn’t a song in my head.

It was my mother.

Idunn’s freckles flicker like stars in the night. She is no longer the mirror of myself I thought she was when I arrived. Physically, we are similar in most ways, but there’s nothing but cold emptiness in her eyes. I’m her daughter, but it seems I could be any creature, and she would view me no differently. She is not my mother in any way but by blood.

Her song is a taunt, echoing around me. But I don’t let it break me. I cling to the one thing I found here when answers were sparse: determination. She might think I’ll fail, but I refuse to give up that easily. I’ll fight the Luminess if it means restoring a fraction of what is lost.

Idunn’s eyes are the last of her to glow through the shadows. She closes them slowly. Two full moons winking out in the depths of the prison. The runes around her cell turn dark, and I wait for a path to be lit in the shadows. For the stairs to form. Or a door to open.

I wait for the prison to let me back out.

My fingers clutch the necklace Callum carved, and I wait for the sky to open overhead—to go home.

I wait. I wait. I wait.

Until the floor beneath my feet slips from under me, and I fall deeper.

Chapter 12

Callum

“I have one more idea.” Letia stops in front of me, out of breath.

Greer glances up from polishing her sword and hitches an eyebrow. “Is there anywhere else on the island to search?”

“Just come with me.” Letia rolls her eyes, not waiting for us to follow as she tugs her cloak tightly around her chin and trudges away.

She knows we’re right behind her, just as we have been every time she’s had a thought over the past two days. So far, we’ve found nothing more than dirt, stone, and rotted branches, but clearly, she’s not ready to give up yet.

If anything, she’s as determined as ever. Locating the graveyard has become her purpose when nothing has cut through her grief lately. She clings to the hope we’ll find the rings. That we’ll have a way for the humans to escape the island.

I understand letting the mission be what keeps you going, so I don’t bother asking questions as I follow her into the trees.

Letia skirts around a thorny bush, moving deeper into the forest. We’ve explored this section of the island, but today, she weaves to her right, where we continued straight last time. I thought it was a dead end, but she points down to a path that’s been buttoned up by vines.

I slice a blade through the branches, revealing a trail we’ve yet to explore.

“Elorie and I used to sneak off to this clearing when we were younger,” Letia says. “We always thought the markings on the trees were related to the markings on the prison. But after seeing the ones in Emual’s journal, I don’t think it was for the prisoners at all.”

We follow the path deeper, Greer at my back as the path narrows. Until we reach a small clearing.

Letia walks to a tree on her left, pulling back the dead vines to reveal dark grooves carved into the bark. The rune of Sarrow.

“To Sarrow the rings must go.” Greer repeats the words from Emual’s journal.

My gaze drops to the ground where a blanket of moss covers the dirt. I wouldn’t think anything of it if I was walking through none the wiser. But the foliage is slightly thicker in certain spots, where most of the rest of the island is brittle leaves and dying trees.

This is definitely a graveyard, but a large one with no indication of where the graves are. We could be digging for weeks and find nothing.