Diaspor Aspenwind's Arc

Chapter 13 of 18

The healer finished her last knot and looked east, where the sky had gone pale. "Dawn patrol sweeps this ground," she whispered. "They will see the amulet at your throat and the swarm in the trees. Go now, or be taken." Diaspor pulled his sword from the dirt and stood, but his legs would not run. He made the treeline and no farther. A ring of pale standing stones rose from the grass ahead, and a winged guard in shimmering armor dropped from the sky into its center. Her blade caught the first light. Two more landed behind him. "Stranger," she said, "that pendant is unseelie work. Kneel." Diaspor weighed the swarm in the high branches. One word would bring them down on her. One word would end every chance he had to confess. He let the golden sword fall and went to his knees inside the stones. The guard spoke a soft phrase, and pale yellow light wrapped his wrists in glowing bands that held without chain or rope. "Who sent you?" she asked. Diaspor lifted his head and met her eyes. "No one," he said. "I came to give myself up. Take me to your council." The guard's wings stilled. She had expected a fight, not a confession. She nodded once to the others, and they lifted him between them, bound and silent, into the rising day.