Page 34 of What Blooms from Death

Was Ievergoing to find out what this strange, stupid, beautiful bracelet did?

“…Don’t worry,” Zayn said. “You don’t have to answer me. I’m not usually the prying type, anyway.” The grin slid back onto his face as he added, “I prefer to keep my brain as empty as possible.”

I snorted. “I know what you mean; I often find myself wishing my own was far emptier.”

His smile started to droop in the corners, but he quickly changed the subject, his attention shifting to the bag on the bench beside me. “All packed, then?”

“As much as I can be. Though I’m beginning to think this journey might take longer than I’d hoped, and that I didn’t bring nearly enough supplies.”

“We have extra provisions to share. No need to worry about that.”

I frowned. “That actually leads us to a question I had.”

“Oh?”

“The food and water that sustain you have been cultivated and purified through magic, I understand. But if you’ve been here for so long, how have you managed to find clothing and other things like that?”

“An excellent question,” he replied, “and the answer is simple: Just to the south of here is an area we call ‘Mourner’s Rest’. A place full of impressive statues, stone platforms, and basins meant to hold offerings. We stumbled upon it during one of our earliest attempts to navigate these lands. It’s one of the locations, we believe, where living visitors used to leave gifts, back when the roads between the living and the dead world were more easily and frequently traversed.”

“…Gifts those people brought for their deceased loved ones, you mean.”

“Yes. All manner of things those loved ones must have favored in life—fine clothing, weapons, various trinkets…you name it.”

“You stole these things, I’m guessing?”

He gave me an unapologetic smile. “To be fair, the dead weren’t really using them. Their spirits don’t even enter the area. The whole place is a desolate expanse, devoid of any kindof energy—living or otherwise. It’s an unsettling wasteland, to be sure, but nothing besides our own fears prevented us from taking and repurposing what’s there. We eventually overcame those fears out of necessity.”

The whole practice still struck me as deeply wrong. I found I couldn’t convincingly argue against it, however. I was also in no position to choose morals over materials, so when Zayn suggested I search through one of their trunks full of stolen gifts and take what I needed from it, I begrudgingly agreed.

The trunks were stacked in one of the innermost rooms of the outpost. I located them quickly and began sifting through one before I could second-guess myself. I had stolen plenty to survive in the living world; I tried to convince myself this was no different.

Still, as I caught sight of a particularly fine-looking cloak, I found myself hesitating, wondering about the deceased person who had once worn it.

When my fingers finally brushed against the luxurious fabric, an image flooded my mind.

I saw a young woman enveloped in the cloak, her delicate fingers resting on a brooch that fastened it. The brooch was crafted from lustrous silver, featuring a meticulously shaped tree at its center, its branches adorned with red gemstones that glinted like ripe fruit. The filigree border surrounding the piece resembled intricate lacework, a testament to masterful artistry. But as the vision focused more closely on that tree, I realized that not all of the crimson dots were gemstones.

Some were glistening specks of blood.

A gasp escaped my lips—whether it was my own or that of the cloak’s former wearer, I couldn’t tell. In my vision, her pale hand tightened around the brooch, pressing it deeper into the velvety folds of the cloak. In my reality, an unexpected ache blossomed in my chest, as if that same hand had struck me.

I blinked, and the vivid images faded, but the pain in my chest lingered.

Phantom gently took my hand between his teeth and gave a little tug. (What’s wrong?)

“Nothing,” I whispered. “Just…just an odd feeling. It’s passed.”

And it had.

Yet, my woven bracelet with its diamond patterns tingled against my wrist, as if it wanted to be used.

My experience with my innate ability to speak with the dead was limited, mostly confined to my conversations with Phantom. I had never attempted to divine knowledge from objects before, even though I knew this was one possible manifestation of my power.

They said a skilled necromancer could uncover long-buried truths from the past…

Had I just uncovered something?

I heard footsteps. Hastily, I shook out the cloak, searching for the silver brooch. But there was no such ornament within its folds, bloodied or otherwise.

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