Bound by Scars & Secrets: Realms of Magic Book 1 by Sienna Archer

Author:Sienna Archer [Archer, Sienna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mystic Cove Press, LLC
Published: 2023-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 23

Iwhirl a stolen black cloak from Vis’s chamber over my shoulders as I race out and into the palace hallway in search of my sister. The dark of the cloak bleeds into the night shadows.

In my hand, I clutch the shimmering linen.

Can a paper shatter bones?

Talia.

Everywhere Mother shouldn’t be, she is. Her name in the baya’s bedroom, on a key-gate. Slinking at the corners of a memory with not Mama. What was she to Vis? What was this realm to Mother? And most of all, how could she hide it from Soli and me?

I dart down a hallway to a splash of light. Perhaps Soli is here, storing up on food, making ready for when we open the gate and go in search of Mother.

If we do find her, if she is still alive, I’m going to wring her neck myself.

From a closed door, a pair of armed guards march outward. I paste myself to the wall as they hurry past. Two of Rexar’s soldiers. Perhaps they now answer to Daesen, if he and Lidja did as planned, and Rexar is locked in the cage below the palace.

I plunge ahead, down the narrowing corridor—and find my sister slumped at the base of a doorframe. Golden light streams from the room behind her.

I drop to my knees at her side. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything.”

I search her for signs of injury, for opened stitches at her side, but find none. “I thought you were healed.”

“I am.” But her voice—I’ve never heard my sister’s voice like this. Wooden. Hollow.

“Then what’s wrong?”

Still, no response.

I take Soli’s hand, and squeeze. “Soli. I found it.”

My sister says nothing. Does nothing. No reaction at all.

“The key-gate to Denrathri, Soli. I found it. We can open it now.”

Amber eyes meet my own. Not the calm of glass, not the cool of autumn leaves. This, in my sister’s gaze, is fire. “I found something, too.”

I glance over her shoulder, into the room beyond the threshold. Inside, millions of tiny glass balls line the floors, the walls, stacked in invisible towers. Devoid of fireflies, the room pulses with soft gold just the same.

“What is it?”

Like my voice shifts the air, the vibration slides, changes. No longer low, the hum comes in waves, higher and lower and layered all at once. Voices. Thousands and millions of voices. These are not the dimmed hum of a memory but clear, like the chime of a newly forged bell.

Soli unlocks her clenched palm. “A new memory.”

In the center of her scar, a glass orb no larger than the tip of a chisel flashes.

“A new—” But my voice dies as I reach for her palm, as the voices in her palm separate, until only one stands out.

A voice full of light and promise and lies.

Mother.

“A new memory,” I repeat. “New.”

“I was looking for you, and then I heard something in this hallway, and I found this room, and I heard her voice. It opened to me, and…Ala, she’s alive.”

Alive. And in this new memory, which means…we could find her.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.