RUNE
RUNE WAS DREAMING OF Gideon again.
This dream, though, couldn’t have been more different from the first. Instead of in a hot, steamy boiler room, Rune stood in the rain, the damp cold seeping through her clothes.
Across from her stood Gideon. Water glistened in his dark hair and trickled down his face.
Rune was overcome with an urge to go to him. To press her cheek against his chest and listen to the beat of his heart while he held her.
Before she could, Gideon raised his gun. Rune froze, her pulse pounding.
Surely he wouldn’t. Not after everything they’d admitted to each other. He cocked the gun, aiming it at her chest.
I’m sorry, his eyes seemed to say. I wish it didn’t have to end like this.
But hadn’t she always known it would?
There was nowhere to run. There was no escape. Nothing to do but accept this.
BANG!
 |
RUNE GASPED, BOLTING UPRIGHT. Her chest heaved as she gulped down air. She glanced at her chest, pressing her hand to her thundering heart, where she’d felt the dream bullet go in.
There was nothing there. No blood. No pain. She was fine.
Just … soaking wet.
Glancing around, Rune found herself lying on a smooth, flat stone inside the summoning circle, the other stones towering around her. At some point, a storm had come through and drenched everything, but it was gone now, taking the night with it.
The sun was high in the sky.
Rune’s shoulders sagged with relief.
It was only a dream.
She still saw his face, though. Full of apology. The bang still rang in her ears, and a strange heat burned in her chest where the bullet had lodged.
It felt like her vision of Gideon and the three children. Like a glimpse into the future.
Rune shivered.
Aurelia walked across the circle toward her. Only the hem of her skirt was wet; the rest of her was dry. From the sleepy look in her eyes, she’d just woken up.
Before falling asleep, they had all taken shelter in a dugout beneath some broken stones beyond the summoning circle. So what was Rune doing here, inside the circle?
“Bad dreams?” asked Aurelia, studying Rune’s eyes, as if recognizing something in them.
“Something like that.”
Rune wiped the rain off her face and got to her knees. How much time had passed? She glanced up, searching for her spell’s signature overhead.
But the once bright-red moth had vanished. Rune frowned.
“Looks like your spell faded,” said Aurelia. “Maybe I didn’t cast it right?”
Should she have collected some of Cressida’s blood, instead? Would that have made for a stronger spell?
“It’s possible,” said Aurelia. “It’s also possible the ancient magic protecting this Roseblood from my Sight protects them from being summoned.”
They waited a few more hours.
When Meadow woke and started to cry, Aurelia tried to soothe her, pacing and rocking the girl in her arms.
“She’s hungry.”
But they had no food to give her.
We need to get back to the capital.
Rune glanced around the empty circle, trying to swallow her disappointment.
Why hadn’t anyone come?
Aurelia’s probably right, she thought, trying to console herself. And if I can’t summon the Roseblood heir, neither can Cressida.
Or so she hoped.
Right now, Rune needed to focus on the tasks at hand: finding Meadow some food and getting them all off the island.
“Gideon is expecting us to escape aboard the Arcadia,” explained Rune as she went to fetch their horses. “Which means the Blood Guard will be watching the main harbor—and the Arcadia in particular.”
“What’s your plan, then?”
“They won’t be looking for a smaller vessel. If there’s only three of us, a sailboat will work just fine.”
Aurelia looked skeptical. “It’ll take a week to cross the Barrow Strait in a sailboat.”
“Five days, actually,” Rune corrected her. “If the wind is with us.” “And you have a boat?”
“Sort of.” Dawn’s Aria was sitting unused in the harbor. “It belongs to … to a friend of mine. He won’t miss it.” She glanced at Meadow, yowling with hunger. “We’ll need to stock it with provisions first.”
