Rise of Souls: A Prophecy of the Sisters Novella by Michelle Zink Read Free Book Online

around them, giving them no view of Altus.
    And they did not need one to know what was happening. Not really.
    They heard it all. The screech of swords, the screaming of women, shouting and crying. It carried across the water until Una wanted to cover her ears, to sing aloud, anything to stop the sounds of the island, her island, under attack.
    They did not have a plan beyond this one. No one had ever believed the island would fall. The evacuation plans had only been put in place after the fire at a Beltane ritual had caught the unusually dry grass of a drought-filled spring. That the plans might also someday save them from an invasion of Souls was discussed, but they only went so far as to order the evacuation boats to wait offshore for the all-clear.
    No one had ever wondered what would happen if it never came.
    Lia peered anxiously through the mist, her eyes shadowed and worried. Una knew she thought not only of Dimitri but of her people. The Sisters and Brothers of the island. The Grigori who had enforced the rules of the Otherworlds since the beginning of time.
    She was their Lady. Mistress of Altus itself.
    The safety of the people and security of the island was her responsibility. Una knew that the breach would haunt Lia for many moons.
    Finally, underneath the sounds of battle still raging across the water, Una heard something foreign. She tipped her head, listening, and realized it was water, lapping. Different from the now familiar sound of the current hitting the side of the boats, this was rhythmic and smooth.
    A boat, coming toward them.
    No, not one boat, Una realized. Many.
    “Someone’s coming!” she said to Lia.
    Lia’s eyes were watchful, her body very still, and Una realized Lia had heard it, too, probably even before Una.
    She nodded, glancing at the guides. “Be ready to row,” she instructed softly.
    The guides nodded, adjusting their grips on the oars.
    Una could not be certain she had accurately pinpointed the direction of the sound. The water made it unreliable, causing it to bounce off overly large waves and the boats that drifted on its surface. But Lia was looking in the same direction, both of them staring into the fog.
    A moment later, shadows appeared through the mist, gliding toward Lia and Una like apparitions. The boats were moving swiftly, and soon Una made out the smudge of bodies in the boats.
    Many bodies.
    If it was the Souls, Lia and Una were doomed, along with their precious cargo and the guides who sat at the helms of the boats.
    Una held Brennus tighter, watching as the boats broke through the fog, the oars lifted out of the water as the vessels glided toward them.
    “Lady Amalia?” someone called out. “Is that you?”
    Una let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding. The boats were filled with other evacuees from the island. She watched as they appeared through the fog. When they finally stopped coming, twelve boats bobbed in the water beside Lia and Una, all filled with women and children. Una noticed with a start that even the elderly Brothers and members of the Grigori’s Council had remained on the island to fight.
    She wondered about Fenris. Wondered if he was still alive. If she would ever see his face, have the chance to say the words she had held close to protect her pride, her heart.
    “What do we do now, Lady Amalia?” Astrid, one of the Sisters, asked.
    Despite the fact that the girl was only sixteen, Una had never seen her afraid. But she was afraid now, her face pale as she sat on one of the wooden seats next to her mother.
    Lia looked out over the water. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I suppose we should wait a while longer. That’s what Dimitri—Brother Markov—instructed, what the evacuation plans demand.”
    They remained in the boats, no one talking, each lost in her own thoughts as the sounds of battle slowly changed and diminished.
    And then, through the fog, the acrid smell of smoke.
    It was faint at first, easy for Una to