Page 99 of A Land So Wide
He froze, every muscle in him going still. “We?” he finally asked. “We are going? Together?”
Greer wanted to say no. She wanted to say no and cast him and every trace of her wild wantings to the horizon.
But she nodded. “You’ve been following me for days. It seems silly to stop now.”
Finn’s mouth curved, his grin as every bit as wicked as it had been in the dream. “Oh, Greer Mackenzie, I’ve followed you for so much longer than that.”
1761
The longing beganwith a bit of silk ribbon and the sound of sobs echoing through windswept trees.
The queen was dead.
The guard had felt her passing with an acute slice through his center. Her absence was sudden and glaring, a jarring hollow, a carved wound.
The moment the loss was realized, he took to the sky, leaving behind his lonely cordillera roost to race toward the little scrap of land where the queen had lived for two decades. He passed over the mine, his old home, where Elowen and the false court now reigned. His wings carried him down, across fjords and forests, lakes and marshes, until he came to the village.
The guard could feel the town’s ring of protection even from so high overhead. The Stones formed a perfect barrier, a thick line nearly impossible to cross. Within the rocks were sharp scatterings of irondeposits, which held him back, pushing him away like a compass needle gone wrong, pointing anywhere but true north.
But even as he felt the Stones cast him aside, he was drawn closer, pulled along like a wave toward the moon, like salmon to spawning grounds, like moths to a flame.
He needed to see her.
The queen’s daughter.
He needed to see this one small part of Ailie that still existed in the world.
Greer.
The guard flexed his wings, catching a draft to circle the town border, feeling for her. He was in luck. She was in a clearing outside the Stones, a spot he knew well. Ailie had often taken her there as a young girl, for leisurely afternoons, for picnics and play. He’d even joined them on occasion, shifting into small animals sure to delight a child: a curious hare, a spotted petrel, a large-eared ermine.
Now he swooped down soundlessly, falling through the forest, thinking which form to take. He’d watched Greer from afar for years and knew all the ways the queen’s blood worked within her.
The stars across her cheek.
Her curious mind.
Her sharp ears.
As he approached cautiously, he shifted to a sleek, smaller body more suitable for creeping through tangled brambles on silent paws. He let his fur grow gray and dusky, the better to hide within the shadows.
At the edge of the clearing, the wolf paused, unable to take another step. Now that he was here, so close, he wasn’t sure what to do.
The queen’s daughter was crying, sunk down on her hands and knees, as great sobs racked her frame. Her anguish filled the air. The pitch and power of her sorrow withered the last of the autumn’s wildflowers, curdling their petals to husks, and leaching color away from the tall grasses till the entire meadow was a sea of amber and brown. Even the clouds above seemed to respect her mourning, turning dark and somber. Too consumed with her grief, she did not notice.
The guard swished his tail through a cluster of formerly yellowarnicas, overwhelmed with wonder. The blooms were now shriveled and black. That Greer could have done this with only the register of her voice…
Had she bested her mother, assuming the sovereign’s powers?
The guard didn’t think so. Ailie wouldn’t have wanted the duel here, so far from their roost, from the court. And Greer’s countenance had not changed. He saw no telltale flash of eye-shine as she looked to the sky, howling.
This power, this remarkable power, was hers and hers alone.
The guard longed to go to her and let her pour her sorrows onto him, but he couldn’t move. His body trembled against warring impulses.
Before the queen left, she’d made the court swear a new oath of fidelity, promising to remain faithful no matter how long her return might take. Elowen had promptly broken it, going off to serve her own desires before Ailie had even reached Mistaken. But the guard had not. He could not. He’d hold fast to his sovereign’s commands until her final plan was carried out.
Only…
