Diaspor Aspenwind's Arc

Chapter 5 of 11

The shards bit into Diaspor's palm as the swarm's hum dropped to a low, waiting drone. Outside, the glowing grove brightened around something moving through it. He could see her shape now, walking the soft stream path between luminous flowers and pale trees. She did not hurry. She did not even raise a hand. The falconbees parted for her like water. They peeled away from the alcove's mouth in two clean arcs, stingers turning outward, and let her step through without breaking stride. Her dark robes brushed their wings. Not one bee touched her. The wall that had sealed him in opened for her as if it had always meant to. Behind her, on the open ground of the grove, a ring of dark amethyst stones had risen from the soil. They stood in a tight circle, carved with small moons and stars, pulsing faint violet. She had set her place before she ever reached him. The hunt was already over in her mind. Diaspor's free hand went to his chest before he could stop it — to the seam of his shirt, to where the broken pieces of the twilight-grove amulet still lay warm against his skin. He felt the dull, dead weight of them. No light. No map. And he saw her eyes flick to his hand and then away, bored, unsurprised. She already knew. She had known before she stepped through the wings. She had not come for the stone. He lowered his hand slowly and lifted the golden sword instead. The shards he let fall. They clicked against the moss at his boots, small and finished. She stopped at the edge of her stone circle and smiled, and Diaspor understood, cold and clear, that she had come for him.