That hunger burrowed deep in Greer’s middle, squirming and twisting like a live thing, and when she pressed her hand to her stomach, she half expected it to move, like a babe quickening in its womb.
“Starling,” a voice hissed, rushing high above her, nothing more than a rustle of night air.
She glanced up just as the sky came alive with shapes that were neither stars nor the black spaces between them. They shivered and shuddered, roiling with uncanny movement, falling upon the town with flashing eyes, descending into homes, winking out hurricane lamps and tapered flames as the screams began.
Greer stood atop the hill and knew she ought to move, knew she should try to help, but her feet would not budge. They were stuck to the ground, as if caught in a sluice of thick, squelching mud, and she wasn’t sure whether to be ashamed or relieved.
It wasn’t until a piece of sky landed behind her, plummeting to the earth with all the force of a meteor, that she grew afraid.
Greer looked back and saw nothing but the black of a forest grown impenetrable with mysteries. Then the rusty, reddish shine from a pair of eyes large and set impossibly high off the ground.
A piece of sky.
A Bright-Eyed.
He moved through the shadows on legs strange and wobbling, picking his way toward her, and the sound of his care reminded Greer of the afternoon when a bat had landed in their yard, too sick with the maddening illness to fly. It had traveled through the grass on the tips of toes never intended to be walked upon, its wings folded in jagged angles curious and strange.
That same sort of wings stalked toward her now.
She snapped her gaze back to the town. For all her curiosity, Greer did not truly want to know what this creature looked like. He was certain to be more terrible than anything her imagination could conjure.
“Greer.”
He drew out her name with tender familiarity. This was not the voice she’d heard before, the one from the woods and the clearing and the sky. The one who called her Starling.
Goose bumps ran wild over her arms. “Why are you here?”
“Me?” he asked, surprised, wounded, wondering.
“You. Them.”
She pointed to a family racing toward the Warding Stones, tryingto escape the dark, skittering shadow that followed. The mother—holding her infant son—struck the unseen border and ricocheted back into the nightmare on her heels. Her scream was cut off in a burst of wet splashing. Greer’s stomach heaved but she didn’t move a muscle, too aware of the Bright-Eyed at her own back and his capacity to inflict the same ending upon her.
“Why is the Benevolence allowing this? Where are they? Why haven’t they come?”
Something deep in his gullet clucked like the dry laugh of a loon.
“Oh, Greer.” He sounded sad and sympathetic. “You don’t know.”
“Know what?”
A twig snapped, and Greer felt the creature just behind her now, just shy of the curve of her shoulder blades. The air shifted differently, flowing around two forms instead of one.
Her body, as small and slight as she’d ever felt.
And his…
He was so much bigger than her, so much bigger than any one person had a right to be.
He’s not a person,she reminded herself.No matter how much he sounds like one.
The night breeze stirred, playing over the Bright-Eyed’s wings and haunches, his too-large toes and talons. His breath warmed her neck, fluttering the strands of loose hair there, and though Greer knew this was a dream, a dream she’d had so many times before, it felt real. It felt as though she truly was there now, on top of the hill, trapped against this monster.
His sigh sounded as ancient as the earth, as dry as the paper Greer drew her maps on. His response was nothing more than a murmur, a waft of breath caressing the shell of her ear. “No one is coming for you but me.”
Something brushed the swell of her cheek, and Greer startled. It had been as delicate as a butterfly wing, as soft as a fawn taking its first tentative steps.
“Close your eyes, Greer,” the Bright-Eyed murmured, and she could feel him shift, removing any space left between them. “You don’t need to see this.”
