Page 131 of Bull Moon Rising

“Hey,” Lark tells her softly.

“What?” Mereden looks over at her, her expression weary.

“I need to get something off my chest just in case we don’t get out of here.”

Mereden sits up, her focus on Lark. “What?”

Lark leans in and gives Mereden the lightest, sweetest kiss on the lips. “That.”

“Oh.” Mereden touches her mouth, but she’s smiling.

They make me ache with how cute they are. I bite back a smile of my own as they link their fingers, and I wonder about Hawk. Does he miss me right now? Or is he furious at me for disappearing right before the Conquest Moon after I’d promised him?

I wanted to keep that promise so badly, too.

With a miserable sigh, I shake out my now-torn skirts and stretch my legs, eyeing the crypt. Everything is awash in crimson shadows, making it seem far more ominous than it truly is. It’s just a crypt of Old Prell, I remind myself. Where they honored the dead. Gwenna walks briskly to the far end of the crypt and leans over the open sarcophagus, and then turns back to me, her expression stunned.

Oh gods, what now?

“Aspeth? You need to see this.”

FORTY-ONE

ASPETH

Imove to Gwenna’sside, my heart hammering with dread at what she’s found. Kipp crawls up to the corner of the sarcophagus, peering in, and I can hear Lark and Mereden stirring from their position by the door. My thoughts race as I try to figure out what it might be. More ratlings? The corpse of a fae? But no, they’re all gone. They left this land when the god Milus was destroyed by the other gods. Maybe it’s a spider. Maybe it’s a whole nest of spiders.

But when I get to the side of the sarcophagus and peer in, the sight inside is strangely calming. It’s a woman, a thousand years dead, her hands clasped over her heart in a benediction to Lady Asteria of the Skies. Her skin has withered tight against her skeleton, her long hair spread out about her in a decaying tangle. Her head is covered with a faded fabric and circlet, and her dress is of the same faded blue that must have been vivid and beautiful once. Her expression is serene, as if she’s finding the afterlife as calm and enjoyable as promised, a hint of a smile on her tight, narrow lips. Preserving lichen coats the inside walls of the sarcophagus and is dusted over her corpse.

“She’s beautiful,” I say, and to me she is. She’s slept here, undisturbed, for over a thousand years. Longer, because she would have been buried before Old Prell fell into the earth. “The blue of her dress is called Asterian blue, and they wore it in funeral rites so Asteria would smile upon them—”

Gwenna nudges me. “Save the history lesson. Look at her hands.”

I look. I don’t see it at first, because I’m too busy noticing all the wrong things, like the embroidery on the cuffs and the fact that her belt is crusted with jewels and her shoes probably are, too. She has bracelets on each wrist, and each one has glyphs on it, and I want to pull one off and interpret it even though that seems a terrible thing to do—

—and then I notice the ring.

Her hands are folded over her heart, one under the other. The one hidden underneath is wearing a ring, and the ring glows with a faint reddish light. It’s the same shade as the rest of the light, which is why I didn’t notice it at first.

I suck in a breath.

“Is that the same ring?” Gwenna asks. “The match to the one we have?”

“It could be.”

But I know it is. I just know.

“Who do you think she was?”

“Someone important. She was buried with her jewelry instead of it being passed down to the family, which means they had plenty of wealth. Her dress is one of nobility, too.” The inside of the sarcophagus has more glyphs along the edge, and I run a finger over them, deciphering as I go. “ ‘My beloved wife. My other half. We will be together in Asteria’s paradise. Wait for me.’ ” I touch the final symbol. “This is probably their family name, but it’s unpronounceable in our language.”

“How beautiful,” Gwenna breathes. “He must have really loved her.”

I eye the little smile of the dead woman and stupidly, foolishly, think of Hawk again. If we’d had time, would he have loved me like this woman was loved? I’m an idiot for even thinking about it right now, but I can’t help it.

“May I see?” Mereden asks, getting to her feet and keeping her weight off her ankle.

Gwenna and I exchange places with Lark and Mereden, and as I lean against the slab, I run my fingers over the glyphs on it. I know they say the same thing.

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