The Shadowglass (The Bone Witch #3)(113)

“Rise up.”

I could no longer feel the darkness. I could no longer touch the runes. My chest felt bare without the weight of my heartsglass. Wasn’t that what I wanted? I thought, and hysterical mirth bubbled from my lips, desperate for an outlet. Didn’t you want normalcy, to be free from the burdens of the Dark?

“Rise. Rise. Rise! Rise!” I pounded the ground with fury. “Rise! You promised me! You promised you would crawl out of your grave! You promised me, and I…and I—”

The bones of other skeletons watched me silently, and the waves crashed against the shore.

I spent two nights by his grave, unable to move as the sun turned into moonlight into day. By the third sunrise, I had lost all sense of self. Perhaps the elder asha expected this when they abandoned me here. Perhaps they knew that the most fitting punishment was to die by my own hand.

Let me prove them right for once.

I waded out into the cold deep. The tide had arrived, and soon the waters had risen to my chest.

It would be so easy. To immerse myself in the quiet, to close my eyes, to let out one final breath.

It would be so easy to die.

It would have been easier to have never known the Dark. It would have been easier if Mykkie had never found me, if she had left me to live and die in Knightscross, never the wiser so that I could never be the fool.

Life without the Willows. Life without being an asha. Life without Polaire or Mykaela or Likh or Kance or Khalad…

Life without ever having known Kalen…

I surfaced abruptly, gasping for air, expelling salt water from my lungs. I staggered back toward the shore and fell to my knees before Kalen’s grave, sobbing harder.

I had to live. I had to live for Fox. He was all I had left.

But when I opened my eyes, I saw a vision.

I saw Kalen, alive and well, standing before me, holding a light so bright and lovely. He smiled and extended his other hand toward me, eyes full of love. I had my heartsglass once more, the silver having given way to black. But instead of the dark and matted luster I had feared, it was as bright as an ebony night filled with pearly stars. It was beautiful.

“Are you scared?” he asked me gently, and I laughed. Once upon a time, my sister Lily had promised me a prince.

“Never when I’m with you,” I whispered to the fading vision, as it gave way to black sands and the roar of the surf.

I should not have had that vision. My heartsglass was now locked away by the elder asha to prevent me from touching magic. So what did this mean?

I felt a warmth against my breast, a familiar weight. I looked down.

Hovering above my chest, small but growing in size and form, was the beginnings of a heartsglass, bright and black.

? ? ?

There was a cave along the Sea of Skulls, small and cool, hollowed from heavy stone. I stood by the entrance and watched as the figure approached. His face was wrapped in a heavy scarf to keep out the sun and shield his face from view, but I knew him by the way he rolled his shoulders and leaned forward to squint.

“You’re late,” I said softly as he neared.

Slowly, Khalad pulled back the head covering. “How did you know?” His eyes drifted to where my half-finished heartsglass glowed in the glass case I had compelled a passing merchant to sell to me. “I thought… The elders—”

“My strength is not up to par yet. I can scry upon those who wander close to the beach, but the Dark grows in me every day. How is Likh?”

Khalad’s eyes looked tired. “She hasn’t woken up. Not since the elders brought us back. I… Nothing I did could wake her.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

He seemed taken aback by my quiet, gentle tone. Had he imagined he’d find a madwoman lurking along the Sea of Skulls, haunting her lover’s tomb like a forgotten ghost? “Yes and no. I was worried about you.”

“Do they know where I am?” Does Fox know where I am? was what I meant, and he understood.

He shook his head. “No one but the elders. They knew well enough to swear me to secrecy, in exchange for Likh’s treatment. They know I never break my oaths, and I know they could not afford to spare me, now that Master is gone.”

I murmured my sympathies.

He continued. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to come. The only reason I knew you were alive was because of Fox. He believes that I don’t know where you are. I said nothing because of my oath. I…I told no one about Altaecia either. No one’s seen the oracle, but people think she’s ill. I said nothing about her as well. I couldn’t… I knew I had to talk to you first.”

“You made the right choice. Druj might have given up her disguise as the oracle, but she is still dangerous.”

“I’m not even certain there isn’t a spy on my back tailing me. My leaving Kion would make the elders suspicious.”

“They have someone. I turned him away at the borders, sent an illusion of you down to Amarai for him to chase.”

He stared. “You’ve gotten stronger.”

“Black heartsglass takes in more of the Dark, or so some Gorvekai say,” I said.

His gaze traveled to my regenerating heartsglass again. “How?”

I smiled brightly, bitterly. “Aenah knew something the elders didn’t. Black heartsglass will always come back to you, she told me once. That is why the Faceless prized it above all. No matter what spells they cast, my heartsglass will always come back to me. It has been two months, and perhaps it will require another two before I take back all that is rightfully mine.”