Page 65 of The Arrow and the Alder

Abecka inhaled deeply. “I am standing in the ruins of Süldar’s throne room. Mist crowds the air beyond the crumbling dome, and I am alone. There is a thin layer of white over everything. It floats from the sky, and at first, I think it’s snow, but when I touch it, I realize it’s ash.” She paused here, her forehead creased. “A raven suddenly swoops down through the shattered rooftop and lands upon the seat of a broken throne. It has three eyes. Two are closed but the third is glowing, and as I look, the glowing eye floats out of the raven like a star and comes to me. I grab it in my palm, marveling at the pure light and warmth, and the raven cries three times. After the last cry, the earth trembles and the sky grows dark, and then I wake.”

Seph felt heavier and heavier with each word. It was so similar to Milly’s—too similar. “The ruins are the present, and the ash signifies the end of Light’s people. The raven is Demas’s intervention, and the three eyes portray his three Fates.” Seph stopped to gather her thoughts. To process all Abecka had shared, and what it meant. “The glow is light returned, given back to you by a Fate, and the three cries of the raven signify that you have three months to return light to the land before the curse consumes us all.”

Seph’s profession was met with a profound silence.

Three months. It was like a punch in the gut. Seph had nearly forgotten Milly’s vision, in all that’d happened since, butsaints. Even if Seph decided to wait near the Rift, she had only three months before there wouldn’t be a Harran to return to.

“The coat,” Abecka said, standing, as if struck by revelation. “That is what has changed.Thatis the power I feel radiating from its fibers, protected by enchantments that are not of my making. Itislight given back to us.” Abecka spoke faster and faster as if everything was drawing together to form a clear picture. She started pacing and clasped her hands while Seph fought to keep up. “Yes…the day Jakobián sacrificed his life for Raquel, when the Fates sealed the veil…they accepted his sacrifice and restored our light through the coat.”

Seph frowned. “But why put the light in the coat?”

“There is no other medium that could hold it, not on your side, at least…” Still, Abecka paced while Seph followed with her eyes and ears. “Jakobián must have known this, which is why he held on to it all this time. For the right moment and for the right person to give it back to our world.” Abecka stopped and looked straight at Seph. “Thatis why Massie wants the coat. To take that power for himself—with it, he would be unstoppable, and the curse would be athisdisposal. With it, he would have the power of a god.”

There were many parts to this that Seph didn’t understand, nor could she figure out her role in all of it, but the one question that pushed through all the others was, “If the light is truly in my grandfather’s coat…then how do we get it out?” Because the sooner they got it out, the sooner they could heal the land, stop the war, and Seph could go home.

Abecka stopped. “I don’t know. As far as I can tell, the enchantments—ones I did not place there, mind you—protect the integrity of the coat and the power within it. However, there are several symbols I have never seen before, and if I can unravel their meaning, perhaps they may give us something to go on. Regardless, we need to figure that out before Massie finds us, or before our time is up.” A pause, then, “There is…something else you should know.”

Abecka raised her palm. The skin was angry red and bubbling.

“What—” Seph started.

“The coat.” Abecka turned her palm and gazed over it. “I can’t touch it. None of us can.” Her gaze landed on Seph again. “Except you.”

Seph recalled when Alder—as Marks—had dragged the coat up and out of the pit, and she’d thought she’d heard him hiss. She remembered the gloves he’d discarded—gloves that had probably saved his hands—and he hadn’t touched the coat again after that, Seph realized now. Always keeping it buried at the bottom of his satchel. Even when he’d tossed it before Serinbor, he had tossed the satchel. He hadn’t removed the coat.

“I didn’t want to show you,” Abecka continued. “I didn’t want to put any more pressure on you, but if what you say is true, about my dream, we are quickly running out of time. And the Fates do not do anything by accident, my Josephine. If you are the only one who can touch it, it is by their design, and if Massie ever gets ahold of the real coat, he will start searching foryou.”

Seph held Abecka’s gaze, feeling as though the sands in the hourglass of her life were starting to fall. Perhaps they’d been falling all along, but Seph had just pretended not to see them.

“Stay, Josephine,” Abecka said quietly. “Assume your position as my heir, and learn to connect with youreloit.Perhaps you might even join Prince Alder on the surface as he tries to root out Massie’s intentions—either way, help us find a way to restore the light and end this war once and for all.”

Seph would have been lying if she said most of this did not appeal to her—it did. Completely. To be actively involved in this way, to help cut the head off a snake that had destroyed so many lives was difficult to turn down. What was her other option? To hide near the Rift until it was safe to pass through? To survive?

That’s what she’d always done, and Seph was so weary of just surviving.

She wanted tolive.

She wanted her mama and Linnea and little Nora to live too. And Abecka was giving her a chance to make that happen. It was a much better chance than waiting on a hope and a prayer that the battle would clear just enough for her tomaybepass through, but then again she only had threemonths. And she couldn’t deny Abecka’s other claim: that—for some unfathomable reason—the Fates seemed to have chosenherfor this task.

The answer seemed suddenly obvious, but what kept her from saying yes was Alder.

She would be fighting alongside him, and she didn’t know if she could do it, even if they wanted the same things.

Abecka must have sensed the storm within Seph, the one that roared and crashed and cut lightning through her heart, because she took a step closer, and her expression softened just a little. “You are more kith than you realize, Josephine, and your kith side will only strengthen the longer you’re here.”

When Seph didn’t respond, Abecka added, quietly, “I should go. There is much to be done and precious little time. You may give me your answer in the morning.” She started to turn but paused. “Please know that though I am partial to your staying, you have my blessing either way.” Abecka looked as though she wanted to say more but inclined her head instead. “Get some rest, my dear. Good decisions are never made on a lack of sleep.”

Mist pressed in like the tide, reaching its serpentine fingers into the chasm where Rys worked, chiseling into the rock. Sweat glistened upon his forehead and clung to his dirtied brow as he swung the pickax around. Again, and again. Ax struck rock in a chorus of misery, a timpani of pain.

And the mist came alive with shrieking.

Shadows swirled behind the murky veil, making it froth and boil. One of those shadows swooped down and clutched Rys by the tunic, digging its claws into Rys’s flesh.

And it tore Rys’s body apart.

Rys screamed in agony as the depraved turned its head, bearing Alder’s face.

Seph sat up with a gasp, her brow damp with sweat. The room was dim, the bedside candle low and struggling. She sagged back against her chair and shut her eyes, but all she could see was Alder.

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