Disembodied voices, mere whispers on the wind, came at her from all sides.
Mother.
Mother.
Mother.
She stopped dead in her tracks, struggling to stay upright as the ground wavered.
Petrina, unhindered, walked with ease, scanning her from top to bottom. “What’s with you?”
Home now. She’s home now.
Selene’s breath lodged in her throat. “You don’t hear that?”
Petrina shook her head but approached with her gaze more assessing. “What do you hear?”
Birds taking flight. The wind sighing through the upper canopy of trees. Croaking frogs.
A waterfall.
“Nothing,” Selene said with a shake of her head. “I just need water. And rest.”
Petrina’s answering nod was slow, and the pinch of her brows didn’t ease. “This place feels wrong.”
Not wrong.Familiar.An experience she had only one other time—on the dais inside the Ethereal Mountain.
“Probably just the forest shadows,” Selene said. “We’ll feel better once we’re in daylight again.”
Petrina glanced skyward, where the light was more muted. “You’re probably right.”
Selene led the way again, following the sound of crashing water to its end. A bright clearing appeared ahead, and they bounded into the unhindered sunlight, smiles unleashed, frozen in awe.
Water tumbled down from a high cliff into a pool, and a mist rose from where it crashed. An ethereal glow shimmered over lush green ferns and moss-covered stones. The air itself tasted of earth and water, and the ground yielded beneath every step, soft and damp.
Wordlessly, the girls stripped to their skin and dove into the pool.
While her first act was to wash and drink from the waterfall, Selene eventually relaxed enough to take it all in. Snakes coiled on rocks, absorbing the heat. Tiny silver fish swam in schools below, weaving in and out of a…was that a statue?
Selene sank underwater and swam lower through the crystal-clear water. The statue lay on its side, half-buried and covered in moss. Silt hid half the face of the immortalized woman, draped in a robe of smooth stone that flowed like water. Carved into the fabric at every seam were dragonflies—dozens of them, flying upward from her hem toward her heart. One, larger than the rest, sat over her sternum with wings made of gold-veined crystal.
Within a single blink of the eye, Selene stood inside the temple that no longer stands, a beautiful woman welcoming Selene with a smile.“Hello, Mother.”
Selene shot to the surface and dragged in a harsh breath, swiping water from her eyes. She readied herself for Petrina’s questions, but found the assassin climbing atop a low ledge behind the shimmer of falling water. Petrina ran fingers across deep cracks in the cliff wall, then over?—
“These are symbols,” Petrina said, her voice a distant echo.
Selene swam beneath the waterfall for a closer look.
Petrina studied curved lines and shapes with careful fingertips. “Impossible,” she whispered.
“What’s impossible?” Selene asked, gripping the ledge.
Petrina blinked over her shoulder, then swept a piercing glance around. “What is this place, Selene? Why did you choosethisisland?”
Selene wished she could sink like a stone. Instead, she swam away from the ledge toward the waterfall.
“You stupid…,” Petrina began, her head shaking. “You’re as bad as Alexandra.”
