Hessel was gone—snatched high into the tree line, where he fought against a Bright-Eyed captor.
“Where’s the cloak?” Elowen demanded, holding him in her clutches, her great wings barely visible through the curtains of snow.
“Leave my daughter alone and it’s yours,” Hessel gasped,thrashing his legs through open air in a vain attempt to find purchase. The leather cords of his snowshoes snapped, plummeting the footwear into the darkness below. “I don’t care who has it. I’m not picking a side.”
“Tell me where it is and I won’t pick your spine out through your mouth,” Elowen countered.
“There’s no need for violence,” Hessel protested, his knuckles turning white as he clawed at her grip. “Just stay away from Greer. Please,” he added, his tone softening even as his struggles doubled. “Leave her out of all this.”
Elowen contemplated his offer. The force of her wings threw blinding pellets of snow. “No,” she decided, and hoisted him higher, bringing the soft flesh of his throat to her mouth. She sank her teeth in deep, then jerked away, ripping out his vocal cords to stop the screaming.
“No!” Greer cried out, racing across the clearing as a curtain of her father’s blood rained down. It splattered her face and soaked into her clothing, saturating everything with a slick, coppery heat.
Elowen flapped her wings, gaining elevation as she continued to feast. Hessel, unable to speak but not yet dead, squirmed against her deadly embrace, losing his pack in the process. He floundered, attempting to push the queen from him. But she was too strong, focused on her meal with an unbreakable concentration. Soon his head lolled to the side, and Hessel Mackenzie moved no more.
Elowen soared off into the night, bubbling with dark laughter, and leaving Greer and Finn behind in a drift of red, steaming snow.
40
Greer stared atthe patch of sky where her father had been.
She’d gone numb, stunned at the speed and ferocity with which Elowen killed. By the time Greer realized what was happening, it had been too late.
Nothing moved now but the falling snow. Elowen was long gone. Hessel, too. Still, Greer couldn’t tear her attention from the sky, certain that, if she just kept watch, they’d come back and everything would somehow be undone.
“He’ll come back,” she mouthed to herself. “He has to come back. He can’t be…”
Father is dead.
The thought was loud and forceful, ringing in her head, and she frowned. The words didn’t sound right, as if they’d fallen in the wrong order.
Father…is…dead.
She thought them again, then again, but the repetition did nothing to help them make sense.
Hessel Mackenzie had been a force of nature, bending everything around him to his will. He’d been respected, revered, even feared. How could such a giant of a man meet such an inglorious end?
Father…is…dead.
Shadows moved through the curtains of snow, and Greer’s heart leapt high, beating its hopeful cadence painfully in the center of her throat. When she spotted the gray face of a boreal owl, she turned from the sky.
Hessel Mackenzie was not coming back, and it was foolish to pretend otherwise.
Finn was suddenly beside her, standing too close, and she didn’t know where to look, wasn’t sure what to do with her hands or her arms, and then his fingers were at her jaw, tipping her gaze to his, demanding acknowledgment. Eye-shine met eye-shine as he studied her, concern worrying at his face.
“Greer,” he prodded, and touched her cheeks, holding her face with gentle, tender pressure.
She knew what he was doing, knew he was trying to clear away her fog of disbelief. She knew all of this, and still wished him gone. She wanted to be alone, wanted to have the space to think and grieve and…
Her eyes welled.
Greer didn’t want to be alone, not truly.
She wanted to be wrapped tight in the arms of someone who knew her, who loved her. Someone who understood the complicated tangle of emotions knotting her chest. She wanted the comfort of history and steadfast consistency.
She wanted Ellis.
She could picture him with her now, the sad smile that would mar his face, the heft of his frame as she leaned against him, the trail of his fingers along her back, tracing endless patterns. She’d done the same when John Beaufort had passed, running nonsensical shapes across Ellis’s shoulders, allowing him space but reminding him she was there.
