Free Rise of Souls: A Prophecy of the Sisters Novella by Michelle Zink Page A

was staring into his eyes, as green as any Sister’s. She wondered, then, if he was a Brother, or perhaps the son of one of the Sisters, though, of course, she would never be allowed to ask.
    She steered the boat through the fog, instinct her guide. The island was a part of her. She felt it as part of her own soul. It was not always that way. When she had first come to Altus to answer the call of guide—leaving her mother and sister behind in Dublin, both of whom had no interest in their ancestry as part of the Sisterhood—she got lost more times than she could count. She spent hours training, drifting through the soupy fog, trying to discern her way back to the familiar shores of Altus before one of the seasoned guides, inevitably, came to her aid.
    But little by little, Altus wound its way around her heart, through her soul. She came closer and closer to finding it on her own, drifting aimlessly through the sea and peering through the fog less and less. Finally, she had felt the tug of it pull her forward, a cry of surprise rising unbidden to her lips when she broke through the mist, the island rising up before her.
    She had done it, all on her own.
    She smiled with the memory, pausing as a twinge of alarm ran along her back, the tiny hairs on her arms rising in silent alarm.
    Had she heard something in the water, hidden from view by the murky haze?
    She lifted the oars, allowing the boat to glide silently through the water as she listened. But no. She was mistaken. There was nothing but the sound of water lapping against the side of the boat, the distant screech of the gulls circling above the blanket of fog.
    She resumed rowing, allowing the island to pull her forward as if on a string, adjusting direction as she went to allow for the current.
    As she came closer, there was a sense of homecoming. A sense that she was almost there. She could not have explained how she knew she was looking in the right direction. She simply did. She felt the island like a newborn kitten seeking its mother.
    She stopped rowing and closed her eyes, allowing the words of the ancient tongue to find her lips, the music of them washing over her as she greeted the mist, thanked it for its protection, and asked it to let her—one of the Sisterhood—pass.
    When she opened her eyes, the fog was a wall behind her, Altus shining in front of her. Her spirits sang.
    Rocky cliffs rose high on either side of the island, their peaks lost to the mist, sheltering the beach used for ceremonies and the pier that was Isleen’s destination. The low-lying buildings of the Sanctuary stood sentry above the beach, walking paths winding in and out of visibility like a pale serpent. Apple groves dotted the landscape, the trees casting ghostly silhouettes through the wispy morning fog, their twisted branches heavy with the ripe red fruit, which grew year-round.
    Isleen steered the boat toward the pier, anticipating a breakfast of fresh fruit and hot tea brewed from the orange blossoms that grew on the other side of the island. She was still some distance from the pier when she caught something in the water to her right.
    Lifting the oars, she peered across the water, her eyes seeking the source of movement she had seen in her periphery only moments before. And then she saw it, there, right where the fog began, enshrouding the path she had just taken from the mainland.
    It was another boat, though this one was not steered by a Sister.
    She was still questioning the truth of what she was seeing when something else caught her eye. She turned her head, her gaze landing on yet another boat, steered by a man very much like the one commanding the other boat.
    A man very much like the one sitting at the other end of hers, acting as if it were not at all unusual to be followed through a primeval, mystical fog to an island that did not, for all intents and purposes, exist in the real world.
    Panic rose in her like a tide as she scanned the mist, her eyes finding not one or