Page 121 of A Land So Wide
It would be just her and the dark.
And the Gathered.
Finn tapped at Ailie’s cloak with meaningful insistence.
She bit the side of her thumb, worrying her teeth back and forth against the skin as she studied her mother’s cloak, watching the way it shimmered in the moonlight.
The fabric felt wrong in her hands, wrong in this place. It was toolovely and too fragile a thing, a dew-dotted spiderweb, the first skim of hoarfrost on a pond.
“Greer,” Finn all but growled, his whisper hot in her ear. “Put on the damn cloak.”
“Where is Elowen?” she hedged. “Why is she waiting?”
“Why are you?”
It was an impossible question to answer. She knew with utmost certainty that putting on the cloak would alter her forever. Nothing—no matter how strong a case Finn made, no matter how Greer accepted its benefits and inevitability—could tempt her to hasten that moment.
“Is that a Starling I hear?”
Elowen’s voice echoed out of the mine, and Greer sank against Finn with relief. Elowen had made the opening gambit, and they could sit back and decide upon the next move. Beside her, Finn drew a finger to his lips—a warning, a reminder.
From deep in the tunnel, a pair of flickering eyes approached the entrance, coming out of the darkness like fireflies.
Other Bright-Eyeds appeared. Two walked upright, flanking Elowen, while the eye-shine of some was positioned impossibly high off the ground. Distorted bodies crawled along the ceiling with a curious scuttle, picking their path with hooked claws at the joints in their wings. They emerged upside down, their necks snapped at nearly impossible angles to scan the yard.
Just like bats,Greer thought, as she got her initial glimpse of the Gathered.
At first glance, every creature looked the same—pallid skin, luminescent and riddled with dark veins; shoulders so hulking and muscular they curved the spine; arcing, membranous wings; cavernously large ears; faces truncated with too many teeth—but as Greer studied the motley tableau, she noticed the differences. Tufts of feathers, tawny as an owl’s; skin brittle with scales and patches of molt. Some had tusks, others horns.
She counted five, then six, as Elowen stepped into the moonlight, her eyes as sharp as those of a fox.
Greer’s breath caught as she saw the smaller figure nearly hidden,tucked away in the curve of the Elowen’s wings. She hadn’t seen him in the tunnel because he cast no eye-shine. He was still wonderfully, wholly human.
Ellis.
Everything in her wanted to race to him, but a swift shake of Finn’s head held her in check. They remained in the shadows, watching, waiting.
One of the Bright-Eyeds beside Elowen surveyed Sandry’s remains, his massive tusks swinging from side to side as his orange eyes took in the yard. “There’s no one here,” he announced, his voice deep and gravelly, a veritable nightmare.
“I told you,” Ellis said, sounding exhausted. “She’s not coming. She’s trapped in Mistaken; she can’t leave, she wouldn’t follow me.”
“Why isn’t he back in the roost with the others?” questioned the tallest of the guards. “He shouldn’t be out here.”
“I want him to see this,” Elowen snapped. “I wantherto see him.”
Along the rock wall, one Bright-Eyed snorted; his slitted eyes were wary, mistrustful. “See what? Yousaidshe was near.” He gestured to the empty yard. “Where is she?”
“That’s no way to speak to your sovereign. We all heard the voices,” the tusked guard growled. With a powerful sweep of his wing, he pushed Ellis from the group. Ellis stumbled forward, slipping in the snow; he landed on his knees with a painful crack. “Find her,” the guard demanded.
“There’s no one to find!” Ellis spelled out, each word drawn long with fraying patience. Impossibly, he retreated toward the Bright-Eyeds. “This is pointless. It’s freezing. I’m going back in.”
“Stop him,” Elowen ordered, and the two guards stepped together, blocking the tunnel.
What are you doing, Ellis?Greer wanted to shout, but Finn gripped her arm, waylaying her before she could even think to move.
He shook his head, his meaning clear:Not yet.
“Stop these stupid games,” Ellis went on, taking another faltering step toward the guards. “I came to you as a sacrifice. Willingly. For Mistaken. Eat me or turn me or do whatever—just end it.”
