Sloan Sinclair's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Sloan Sinclair had spent three weeks searching Ravenwood for her twin sister, and today the trail ended at a cave. She wanted one thing: a safe place where she and Lyric could stop running. But she couldn't build that home with half of herself missing. So she climbed the crystal mountain, boots slipping on ice, and followed the only clue a trapper had given her. A girl with green eyes had gone inside and not come out. The cave mouth glittered with purple and blue crystals thick as her arm. Cold breath rolled out of it. Sloan pulled her coat tight and stepped in. Her voice bounced off the stone. "Lyric?" No answer came. Only water, dripping somewhere deep. She went down. The walls opened into a wide grotto. Gems studded the rock, red and gold and green, catching what little light she carried. Clusters of purple and green mushrooms glowed along the floor. And there, near the far wall, someone knelt in the dirt. Sloan froze. The girl's brown curls fell exactly like her own. Same freckles. Same set of the shoulders. It stopped Sloan cold, like looking into a mirror that moved on its own. "Lyric." Her sister turned. Green eyes, wet and wide. "Sloan?" Lyric's voice cracked. "You found me." She stumbled up and threw her arms around Sloan's neck. Sloan held on hard. She had rehearsed this moment for weeks, and now she had no words at all. She just gripped her sister and breathed. "I've been looking everywhere," Sloan said. "Why didn't you come home?" Lyric stepped back. She wouldn't meet Sloan's eyes. That was new. Lyric always led with her heart, always looked right at you. "I couldn't," she said. "I'm not alone here." Sloan's stomach tightened. "What does that mean?" Lyric reached into her coat. She lifted out a flower Sloan had never seen. A single glowing petal shaped like a drop of light, shimmering at the edges. "I found this deeper in the cave," Lyric whispered. "It kept something alive. Something that was dying." She looked toward a low tunnel behind her. From it came a soft, huffing breath, too big for any dog. Sloan stepped forward and saw it. A white cub, small and shivering, with faint stripes and the wrong kind of teeth. Not a house cat. Not any animal she knew. It lifted its head and looked at her sister like a mother. "People are hunting it," Lyric said. "They followed me here. They think I stole it." Her hands shook around the glowing flower. "Sloan, if I leave, they'll find it. I can't." Sloan had come to bring her sister home. She had the answer to three weeks of fear standing right in front of her. But home was farther now than it had been an hour ago. She looked at the tunnel, then the cave mouth above, and knew someone was already climbing up behind her.