“Follow the road through town to the first crest,” he said, pointing. “We’ll meet there. I’ll save you the best parts,” he promised before changing forms as he crashed through the trees after the doe. Greer heard a rush of air as his wings burst from him, and she alternated between admiration and horror. How much of his blood would she need to fly?
Feeling impossibly earthbound, Greer continued through the deserted town.
Most of the remains had been pulled apart long ago, stolen by scavengers or washed away in bad weather, but every so often, Greer caught sight of a length of femur, the wide scoop of a scapula. She even saw a tiny skull peeking from the depths of a gnarled Redcap. Its bleached surface looked like the face of a barn owl. Greer lowered her gaze to her feet, vowing not to look up until she was well outside of Laird.
Even though she knew the brutality had played out long ago, Greer’s chest ached with dread and guilt. This town was not so different from Mistaken, but there’d been no protection from the Bright-Eyeds. They’d had no Warding Stones.
Why should one town be blessed with such favor, such privilege, while so many were not? Greer knew her father and the Stewardswould say they’d been selected because of their goodness, their moral superiority, because they’d taken the initiative to make a truce with the Benevolence.
Had Laird not done so? Or Saint Agnabath? Or any of the other dozens of towns Greer knew had been attacked? It seemed like the grandest stroke of dumb luck to be born in a place like Mistaken, trapped but safe, cursed but protected.
Instinctively, she worried at the beaded stones round her neck. Tears pricked at her eyes as she felt the collective crush of so many lives torn apart. How could the Benevolence have allowed it to happen? If they’d blessed Mistaken, why not the other settlements, too? The people within the Warding Stones were no better than these miners. They’d had lives and loves, families and dreams. Shouldn’t that have mattered?
As she picked her way over a split and moldering cask of ale, a sound caught her attention, drawing her from her dark thoughts. Slowly, she turned. Though she was certain she’d heard the soft padding of footsteps, she saw no one.
Greer narrowed her eyes and took another step.
Faltering just a half-second behind came the sound. She tested it again. And again.
Whatever followed her only moved as she moved, making it next to impossible to determine where the watcher was.
Greer glanced down the road. She only had a few hundred feet before she’d pass the last of the buildings and escape Laird, before she’d be in the wild once more. She decided to press on.
It came again, a rustled creeping, and Greer tried her best to not imagine the worst.
From the periphery of her vision, she spotted movement slipping in and out of the shadows. It darted though the space between buildings so quickly, Greer almost believed her eyes were playing tricks on her.
“Elowen?” Greer dared to ask, even though she didn’t think it was the Bright-Eyed. She wanted to make her presence known. She wouldn’t hide or skulk, even if that might have given her the element of surprise.
No one answered.
Without thinking, Greer ducked into the crumbling remnants of a cabin. The open space was littered with broken chairs and debris.
“She went that way,” a voice whispered outside, catching her attention.
She kept low, hiding under the remainder of a windowed wall before carefully peeking over its top. Two figures crept along the back side of the road, dipping in and out of the ruins, clearly following her. One was dressed in loose, beaded leather pants and a heavy furred cloak. Its hood was pulled up, obscuring his face. And the other…
Greer paused, instantly recognizing the wool coat.
She nearly fell over herself in her haste to flee the hiding spot.
Her joy echoed off the empty remains of Laird as she shouted his name. “Ellis!”
36
The figure turned,and her hope plummeted.
This was not Ellis.
It was a girl, not much younger than Greer herself. Her skin was a rich copper. Her dark eyes were wide with fear, like those of a deer catching the scent of a nearby predator.
With dismay, Greer looked again at the coat’s sleeve. Yes. There, near the elbow, was the patch she’d sewn on after a spark from the bakery’s ovens had singed the wool. She’d carefully darned the hole over, even embroidering a tiny heart into the sleeve. She’d teased that Ellis could take her love with him wherever he went.
Except her heart was now here with this stranger, and Ellis was not.
“Where did you get that coat?” Greer demanded, forgoing any attempt at civility as she braced herself for the worst. She couldn’t imagine a scenario in which, with winter fast approaching, Ellis felt compelled to give up his coat.
The two strangers stood motionless.
