Book 16: A Lock of Gold

Lexa

The sun doesn’t rise on the Glade the morning after Chessie’s death. Clouds block the sunlight completely, and it pours.

I take the heavy basket covered in towels from Lis’s hand as we hurry through the city, ducking under awnings to shield ourselves from the spray of the rain. It’s warm. It feels rich and wet, and everywhere we look, children race through puddles, singing and dancing in the face of thunder and lightning that splits the sky into pieces.

“It hasn’t rained like this here in decades,” she says over the pounding rain as the pack house comes into view. “I honestly can’t remember the last time it even sprinkled. It was probably your doing.”

“What?” I whisper, my voice cracking from lack of use. I fell asleep last night curled over Kaleb’s legs, I think. He was my last memory before the world went dark, and my grief swept me into nothingness–a numb, hollow kind of darkness. His hand lay on my hip as he told me about his sister,