Diaspor Aspenwind's Arc

Chapter 4 of 11

Diaspor settled into the dark of the alcove and laid his sword across his knees. The moss glowed faintly under him. He watched the mouth of the shelter and counted his breaths. Outside, the dusk thickened into something wrong. Pale flowers along the rocks began to glow too brightly, and a soft mist crept between the trees, lit by light that did not match the moon. The grove outside was waking up to announce her. Then the sound came. A low hum, then a rising drone. Black and gold bodies poured from the trees and stitched themselves across the alcove's mouth. The falconbees layered in tight rows, wings beating in time, stingers pointed inward. Within seconds the entrance was a living wall, striped and humming, sealing him inside. She had come early. She had sent them ahead. The trap had folded over on him. Diaspor stood. He pressed one hand to the amulet under his shirt — the twilight-grove piece he had carried since the library fell, the thing that held the last clean map of every door he had sworn to guard. His thumb found the seam. One hard twist and the stone would crack. He would not let her pull it from a corpse. He breathed out slowly and waited until he heard her footsteps approach the swarm. Then he drove his thumb down and broke it. The amulet split in his palm with a small, dry sound, and its light went out. The hum at the entrance changed pitch, as if the swarm felt it. Diaspor closed his fist around the shards and lifted his sword. He was sealed in. He was unarmed of the one thing she wanted. Whatever walked through that wall of wings next would meet only him, and only steel.