Reign of Shadows by Sophie Jordan Page A

it is I come from.”
    We topped the crest. Sprawling bushes rose up before us. I stopped before the thick hedge of nisan.
    â€œWe’re here.”
    Luna reached out a hand to touch the wild bramble.
    â€œCareful,” I warned. “There are thorns.” I squatted, flipping open my satchel. She followed me down, her hand reaching out and gently touching the flowers. A soft smile lifted her lips. Icouldn’t remember the last time I thought about any girl’s smile. Blinking, I looked away. I started to pull at the herb, stuffing it in my bag.
    â€œWait, stop. Don’t pull up the root.” She removed a dagger from the sheath at her waist and carefully began to snip bits of the plant’s flowers. “We want it to regrow.”
    â€œOptimistic, aren’t you? That it will ever regrow with so little sunlight? It looks as though it’s barely hanging on as it is.”
    â€œAnd yet it’s here. Seventeen years after the eclipse.” She worked intently, her forehead creasing as she carefully snipped at the nisan and tucked it into her satchel. “The eclipse can’t last forever.”
    â€œIt can’t?”
    She turned to face me. “There was light before. There will be again.”
    â€œThat’s what the Oracle has been saying for years and it hasn’t come to pass.”
    â€œIt will though. She’s right.”
    The Oracle was not right. Everyone could play tribute at her altar, but not me. She was a puppet for the king. As bad as he was.
    She continued, “Maybe we won’t be lucky enough for it to happen in our lifetime, but it will happen again someday. This happened before. I’m certain you heard the folk tales.”
    â€œYes. So.”
    â€œWell, it happened before and it ended before. We merely need to hold on until then.”
    â€œYou’re a fool to put faith in anything except what’s before you.” Rising to my feet, I snapped, “Come. We need to head back.”
    We moved swiftly, conscious of passing time.
    I scanned the area. Just because it was midlight didn’t mean it was safe to relax. This was the one time of day when people could move without fear of dwellers. Everyone came out of hiding, including the good and the bad, and there were more of the bad. Desperate times brought out the worst in people. Opportunists and scavengers abounded. The good were too trusting. They had perished first, many lost in those early years of the eclipse.
    As we hastened back to the tower, I peered where the branches hung the thickest. Rumors of a curse in the Black Woods didn’t keep everyone out. It hadn’t kept me out.
    We were making good time when suddenly I realized it felt too quiet.
    I glanced at Luna and saw that she had paused.
    Her head was bowed, and she had a look of concentration on her face.
    â€œLuna? What is—”
    She held up a hand, hushing me with the barest shake of her head.
    I waited, my pulse throbbing in my neck in the suddenly weighted air. My hand drifted up, went for an arrow in the quiver behind my shoulder.
    â€œThere,” she murmured. “Do you hear that?”
    I shook my head as if she could see me. “No. It’s quiet—”
    â€œUnder the quiet.” She turned her face in the direction we came from. The tower. “It’s there—”
    I listened longer, and then shook my head again. “I don’t—”
    â€œNo! Sivo, Perla . . .” A stricken look passed over her face. She sprang into a sprint.
    â€œWait!” I took off after her, cursing as she flew down the steep incline we had climbed. She was remarkably quick, taking the same path that brought us to the nisan weed—almost as if her feet had somehow recorded the route and now pulled it out from memory.
    I was fast, but I had to push my legs just to stay behind her.
    â€œLuna,” I growled, acutely conscious of the fact that the forest was deathly still. It