Why didn’t you save me?
We were so proud, so stupid, so gullible. At sixteen, I was newly eligible, and at eighteen, it was Liora’s second Bloodmoon. We called it an honor. A calling. The chance to serve the gods as Bloodmoon Brides. They said she was lucky.Chosen.
They dressed her in white, painted her lips crimson, and sent her to the lake.
I watched as she and eleven others paddled into the mist, their faces glowing with faith. Then came the red flash. The silence.
I stole a canoe and followed her. If the gods wanted my cousin, they could take me, too. But I was wrong.
The fire rose. The screams began. I found the island no map dares mark. I found the truth.
Bones. Hundreds of them. Charred and twisted, gowns clinging to ash. Flowers turned to dust in folded hands. A graveyard of daughters promised to the gods.
The roar rises again, deafening and endless.
Then the fire closes in, and the shadows devour the world.
I jolt awake, gasping and drenched in sweat. I try to steady my heart, but the air feels too heavy to breathe. My sheets aretangled and damp around my legs. I reach beneath my pillow for my dagger, and the cool hilt anchors me to the world.
“It was just a dream.” My voice cracks.
The scar throbs like a second heartbeat. I pull back my nightshirt to inspect it. Underneath, my skin shimmers faintly, gold flecks glinting beneath the surface. I gingerly touch it, and for one fleeting moment, a flicker of light pulses under my skin.
My breath catches. “I’m just imagining things,” I whisper to myself.
Groaning, I sit up and reach for my nightstand. I strike a match and relight the candle, taking comfort in its trembling glow. Easing myself to my feet, I go over to the washbasin and splash my face. The cold bites through the haze, but as I lift my head again, the reflection ripples unnaturally.
In it, my eyes gleam too bright, their pupils narrowing. The candle beside me stutters, though no wind moves.
Creeaaak.The door opens a finger’s width.
“Rose?” Kat’s voice drifts in, soft and sleepy. “You okay?”
I nod, though she can’t see it. “Yes,” I lie. “Just a dream.”
The door opens all the way, and she pads across the floor, her bare feet whispering over the wood floors. “You were dreaming about that night again, weren’t you?”
My throat tightens. I say nothing as I slip back into bed.
Kat doesn’t hesitate. She crawls beneath the covers beside me, warm and smelling faintly of wildflowers and smoke. For a long moment, neither of us speaks. The candlelight flickers against the ceiling, painting ghosts in gold.
“I believe you, you know. That you saw something,” she says carefully, strategically. The way Father taught her to speak.
“They were killed, Kat.” My voice cracks. “Whatever waits in that mist, it isn’t a gift from the gods, and it isn’t a happy afterlife.”
“It was dark,” she murmurs. “The smoke, the fire, the celebration… Anyone’s mind could’ve played tricks on them that night. And I seem to remember you were drinking with a certain young man?” Her brow lifts, teasing.
I laugh humorlessly, thinking back to the scoundrel I used to call a friend who tried to get me drunk during my first Bloodmoon festival. “Aaron and I sharedonedrink. Not nearly enough to cloud my mind like that. I know what I saw, Kat.”
She frowns. “You came back from the lake half-burned and half-mad. No one knew what to believe. Except Mom.”
My throat tightens.
Kat squeezes my hand. “I remember. The year you were gone…” She hesitates. “I missed you. And then Mom—”
The words die there, swallowed by silence. I don’t respond. Because she doesn’t know what I endured in that temple. None of them do. They have no idea what it cost to come back. What it costher.
A heavy stillness settles between us—thick with memory, with things unsaid. The candle flickers once, casting our shadows against the wall like ghosts that refuse to fade.
