Every now and then, voices rise—Rune, Tavi, Soraya, it’s always the same. The words are muted by the wood of the door and the crash of the sea, but my name comes up morethan once. Food appears at random. It’s Rune that delivers it, and each time I see him my chest aches all over again.
Some of my dreams are nightmares, but others are of him. Of the night we shared. Of the clawing, grasping, greedy thing between us that was sated in full. I wake smiling, his song in my head, his infuriating grin still wrapped around my mind.
Then reality sweeps in, reminding me of the only truth that’s kept me grounded.
This isn’t the life I wanted.
I wanted land. Safety. The freedom to shift and fly through endless green. To run, as fast and as far as my legs could take me.
My mother was a soft, hopeful thing. She’d loved so hard she let a man split her soul between soil and sea. In another life, maybe I could have stood doing the same.
In another life, maybe my father hadn’t carved every last piece of her out of me.
SHECAN’T SEE IN THE DARK
33
RUNE
The ruin rises out of the ground, like some half-drowned beast, its gritty exterior painting a picture of old stone that looks like withered bones draped in vines thick as ropes. Bright green moss and ivy choke the decaying surface, spilling down broken arches and crumbling walls.
I flick my gaze to Odi. She stands rigid a few paces away, eyes fixed on the ancient pile of rubble in front of us.
There’s no door, just a vast mouth gaping open towards the sea, daring us to step inside.
It took the two of us a few hours to find this last location, arriving just as the sun hit the highest peak in the sky. The journey had been mostly silent, and easy enough to navigate given it’s just the two of us.
I hadn’t allowed anyone else to join the search party.
Tavi wasn’t pleased, but she just has to deal with it for now. At least everyone is safe on deck. I can handle Odi on my own.
Thankfully, we’d only crossed paths with one red, spotted botang python—as long as my leg and as thick as my arm—and a group of carnivorous apes that were feasting on somethingunidentified but definitely fresh. We didn’t wait around long enough to find out what it was either.
I shove my hands into my trouser pockets, feeling for the smooth shell that’s no longer there.
“One and one may enter,” Odi recites to herself. “One and one may die. Soul the sole preventer, it and the divide.”
What the riddle means is beyond my understanding, yet there is one line that has me concerned.One and one may die. All I know of that is I won’t allow it to be true. Ican’tlet it be true.
She looks at me, and my chest twists. All the fire that used to blaze in her eyes is gone, snuffed out like a flame starved of air. And I know all too well who shoved her into that box.
My dagger sits snug strapped to her thigh, glinting under the harsh light of the sun. It was the best way I knew how to offer a truce. I jut my chin towards it. “Don’t go losing that. I’m going to need it back.”
She rolls her eyes. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Together, we step inside. The cavern stretches enormous, the ceiling lost in shadow. The waxy vine that covers the outside clings to the walls inside too, with sporadic sprigs of tiny white berries scattered here and there.
I curse under my breath. We’d brushed past them on the way in, and I should have known better than to get close. I can still see the white dusting of their residue on the sleeve of my shirt.
The world tilts ever so slightly at odd angles. Soulberries.Damn.Too many and they’ll rot a siren from the inside out, leaving me swimming in visions until I can’t tell sky from sea.
With a sigh, I run a hand through my hair. “I might start seeing things soon,”
Odi whips her gaze towards me. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Hallucinations,” I mutter.
Her brow pinches. “Rune—”
