Page 93 of Bound By Roses

I read it aloud. “We are out of options. There is no choice that will avoid the evil that will come. Even if Sierra did as she was told and birthed Tideus’ Chosen, it would not have prevented this. I told her to run. To take Evander and flee because she needs to survive in order to produce the next weaver. There is only one way to close the rift and I will not survive it.” My eyes shoot up to Quinn’s. “The rift?”

“Keep reading,” he urges.

“Lunae will come. Their army is powerful and even with Sierra saving who she can, enough lives will be lost to tear a hole in the veil wide enough to free the shadows. He will grow like a festering wound on this land and his army of wraiths will destroy it—unless I stop them.” I gasp. “Shadows. You think she meant—”

“Void. That’s why he’s aging so rapidly. Imelda may have had a child, but I think whatever came out of the veil is alive within him.”

I shake my head. “But your grandmother stopped it. That’s what the book says.”

He taps a line with his finger repeatedly. “There is no choice that will avoid the evil thatwillcome.That’swhat the book says. She wasn’t trying to stop the shadows, she was closing the rift to keep the wraiths in. Or most of them, anyway. She sent my mother away so that Kaylee would exist. Kaylee is the only one who can tell us how to stop Void.”

My mind whirls with the revelation. “And Imelda would have known that. That’s why she went to the Spider. It wasn’t just to ensure she would have a Chosen child. She needed to protect that child. Her mother was a weaver. She would have known thata single choice can alter the path. She’s been playing this game from the very beginning.”

“And we’ve been playing right into her hands.”

A loud splash sounds from the main passage of the cave and Quinn has his sword drawn before I can even turn my head in that direction. “What was that?” The heartbeat in my ears is louder than my words, but I know Quinn heard them.

“Stay here,” he whispers back, but I’m already at his side with a dagger drawn.

We move for the door, Quinn only a step ahead of me. The blade in my hand trembles ever so slightly, but his is as still as could be. Even with all the guidance in the world, I don’t think I could ever be as sure of myself with a weapon as him.

A flash of something appears in my mind. A vision of myself and Quinn at the far end of the cave. The flash of steel in sunlight as Quinn raises his sword.

“Don’t!” I cry just before he rushes into the open. I see Quinn hesitate, both with my eyes and Fern’s.

The small brown wolf bounds through the water and onto the rocky floor if the cave. “Fern!” Quinn gasps, hastily sheathing the weapon. “What are you doing here?”

He can’t hear her response while he’s in this form, so she turns her gaze to me.‘We followed you.’

“We?” I crane my neck through the mouth of the archives and see a boy, his blue tail raised up out of the water behind him. The water is shallow, so his belly is pressed against the cave floor as he waits for Fern. I hadn’t realized it when she and this same boy rushed to us inside the tunnels, but he’s the same child I gave my fish to that first morning in Marein. Quinn follows my stare. “They followed us here.”

He lets out a heavy sign. “You know better than that. It’s dangerous out here.”

“It is not,” the boy says. He pulls himself out of the water and his tail morphs into legs. His matching blue robes fall around him. He slips past Fern and into the room. “I cannot believe you found it.”

“You knew this was here?” Quinn asks.

The boy nods as he reaches for a book. My heart sinks a bit as he takes it off the shelf, only to replace it. “Only weavers are supposed to be able to find it, but many believe it does not exist. Do these books really tell our history?”

“They do,” I say, stepping forward before he can grab another book off the shelf. “And they aren’t for your eyes.”

He gives me a look. “They are more for my eyes than yours.”

He may have a point, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to risk him damaging one of these journals. Quinn seems to have the same idea because he joins us and kneels to the ground so that he’s level with the boy. “You said many believe this place doesn’t exist, but you knew, didn’t you?”

The boy only nods, but there’s distrust in his eyes.

“You don’t have to be afraid of us,” Quinn tells him. “We’re trying to help you. That’s why we’re here. But maybe you can help us. What do you know about the rift?”

‘Quinn!’

He ignores my objection and keeps his attention on the boy. No one but the weavers are supposed to know anything about this, never mind a child.

The boy shifts nervously and looks over his shoulder to Fern. She nods to him encouragingly.

“You can tell me,” Quinn says softly. “You’re quiet in the water. So quiet that I didn’t hear a sound until Fern followed you inside.” The wolf snorts in objection, but Quinn ignores her. “This isn’t the first time you’ve followed someone. My guess is you do it often. I won’t tell a soul, but I need to know what you know about the rift that opened the first time Lunae attacked.”

“Erwyn and Aurelia were talking about it.”

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