Sea of Broken Glass by Jenna Pine

Author:Jenna Pine [Jenna Pine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paper Cranes, LLC
Published: 2024-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

We have been traveling for hours, but without the sun or a chronometer, I have no idea just how many hours it’s been. My only gauge is the ache in my feet and the fatigue in my bones. We have both been ignoring Sef’s disappearance, like nothing happened. Is El as disconcerted as I am?

“You know, I’ve heard stories about people getting trapped in caves and losing their minds,” El says, breaking the silence.

“I could see how,” I say, my unease sitting like a stone in my stomach. Even now, after such a short time, I can feel the dark pressing in on every side.

“Do you think we should find a place to stop for the night?”

“How do you know it’s night?”

“Okay, well, somewhere to rest, then.”

I glance over her shoulder at the map in her hands. “There should be another traveler’s camp coming up soon. Just one more room ahead.”

El nods, and we press on. We continue for a while longer before finding the place marked on the map. It is a camp much like the one in The Star Court, a simple tarp spread over a section of cave with mats on the ground, and it stands just inside the door to another room, on the edge of a long, crystal clear lake. The ceiling here is low, forcing us to hunch over as we walk, and the tarp droops with the water it has collected. Hopefully, it won’t burst while we sleep.

I take the lantern to the edge of the lake and look down. The water refracts the light in every direction, illuminating the lake’s rubble-lined bed, every stone a uniform gray. There may even be a layer of silt, though it is hard to see from the shore. I can’t judge the depth of the lake, either, not with how clear it is. It could be a couple feet or a couple hundred feet.

I move my gaze out over the lake and squint into the darkness. The water ripples with dripping from the ceiling, and several stalactites dip through the water toward the bed below. The ceiling drops as the distance from shore increases until it meets the surface of the lake and the water disappears farther underground.

“Lox, you have to see this!” comes El’s voice. She sounds excited.

I turn back toward the camp, wondering what has captured her attention. She sits at the edge of the tarp, gazing at something on a stone shelf.

“What is it?” I drop down next to her and set the lantern on the shelf.

She just points, and my breath catches as the light hits four gleaming figures of pure crystal quartz. There is a man and a woman and two girls, one smaller than the other. The girls hold hands, and the woman gazes at the man with such love I can feel it through the stone.

“Mom was here.” I brush a finger across the woman’s hair as if I can reach through time to feel her again. “I know it.

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