His voice is barely a whisper.
“Look.”
I turn.
And my heart stops.
They’re everywhere.
Shadows.
But not like Bob. Not like Mouse or Walter or Patricia.
These shadows havefaces.
Faint. Flickering. But there — eyes and mouths and expressions I almost recognize. Women. Warriors.Sisters.
The Heart of Eternity burns against my chest, and something ancient stirs in my blood. Something that knows them. Something that’s been waiting for this moment longer than I’ve been alive.
Walter hovers at the front, pulsing violet. Mouse stands sentinel beside him. Bob’s massive form anchors the line — but behind him, stretching back across the plateau, filling the snow and the sky and every space between…
Thousands.
More than thousands.
A sea of shadow that swallows the horizon. So vast I can’t find the edges. So dense the dying light can’t break through.
And I feel them.
Not just see —feel.
Their longing. Their grief. Their hope.
Centuries of waiting. Centuries of wandering. Centuries of holding on for something that might never come.
Forsomeone.
They’re looking at me.
Every single one.
And then — like a wave, like a breath, like the world exhaling —
They bow.
All of them.
A tide of shadow sinking to the snow. Walter dips. Mouse lowers his massive head. Bob’s sharp edges soften.
Silence.
No wind. No breath. Nothing but the weight of a thousand souls kneeling before me.
I don’t understand.
I don’t—
“You.”
