Page 52 of Bound By Roses

I awake in a cold sweat.

It’s dark. Too dark.

The fire has gone out, just as it did the last time Abby and I spent a night like this together, but something has changed. She’s right here next to me, snoring softly and seeming relatively at ease in her slumber for the first time in recent weeks. I, on the other hand, am struggling.

It wasn’t a dream that woke me, which is also surprising since my dreams have been the issue since the night the curse broke. It’s fitting that my first dreamless night would be ruined by the sound of distant wraiths screaming. I doubt Abby would hear them if she were awake. Even I have to strain to pick uptheir cries on the wind, but the feeling they bring with them is impossible to ignore.

The invisible sword dangling above my head spins rapidly, teasing and taunting me. There’s something off about it tonight. There’s almost a lure to it. A need to follow the screams and allow the wraiths to lead me to the nearest rift.

And then I realize why I feel the urge to follow them.

Answers. That’s the entire point of this Gods awful trek through the forest I once called home.

If there are wraiths, then there has to be a rift nearby. If I could just find it, I’d know for sure if my life is truly at risk or if this has all been in my head. There’s a very good chance that what Jade did that night wiped the slate clean. My anxieties might be just that. Anxieties.

Before I even realize what I’m doing, I slip out from under Abby’s arm and quietly make my way out of our shelter and away from camp. I’m almost surprised that neither Seamus nor Ellis wake—and part of me wishes they would.

This is the last thing I should be doing. If the wraiths are after my soul, then why the fuck am I moving towards them?

It’s a rhetorical question because I know the answer. It all comes back to Evan. Evan, who appeared to me in the veil and apparently sealed my fate. Evan, who told me to live for Abby. Evan, who is only gone because of me.

I’ve only been walking for about ten minutes when I find it. The rift is smaller than the one we’d found on our way to Marein, and more importantly—it’s empty.

For just a briefest of moments, an unbelievable weight lifts from my shoulders only to come crashing down with greater force when I spot my brother walking towards me on the other side of the rift.

And he looks pissed.

He points in my direction, eyes hard and jaw tight. When his lips move, I don’t miss the two silent words that escape them. “Go back.”

“No,” I tell him. “No, you told me I could live for her. Tell me how!”

If anyone could see me now, they’d think me mad. Shouting into a shimmer of mist at the brother I murdered.

He shakes his head and points again back the way I’d come. “Go back. Now.”

Before I can argue, he turns away from me and disappears into the murky blackness.

“Quinn?”

I whip around to find Abby staring at me. Gods, how much had she seen?

Before I can answer her, a wraith screams and it’s much closer than the cries I’d heard before. My heart slams against my chest, threatening to crack each and every one of my ribs with each panicked flutter. My feet move faster than I can think and the next thing I know, Abby’s hand is in mine and I’m dragging her away from the rift and back to camp.

She must sense the terror I can no longer keep from her because she doesn’t utter a single word in protest as she does her best to keep pace beside me. I can feel her through the bond, but her reassuring caress does nothing against the knowledge that I’m still going to die. Nothing has changed and at any moment, this world could rip me away from her. And worse than that, the wraiths will devour my soul. There will be no afterlife for Abby and I to share. No second chance that she and I might find each other again.

I all but throw myself into the shelter and have to fight to pull air into my lungs. Abby’s warm hands are on my face, and warmer words fill my ears.

“It’s okay,” she tells me. “You’re okay.” I don’t know how many times she says it, but her words bounce across my mind. Each time a wraith cries, Abby’s soothing words follow its chilling shriek. Only when I can breathe again does she release me.

We stay like that for what could be minutes or hours. It might even be days, for all I know.

Only when she speaks again am I able to come back to the here and now. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

No, I can’t. I know this is the time I should come clean, but I can’t tell her now. I don’t want her to feel this. “I just went out for some air and found the rift.” My voice sounds strange even to me, and I can’t begrudge her the suspicion in her eyes.

“You were talking to someone. Was it Evan?”

If she has to ask, then she didn’t see him. “I was trying to. I called to him, but he never showed.” The lie tastes sour on my tongue.

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