Diaspor Aspenwind's Arc

Chapter 7 of 11

Diaspor walked north through the wet dark for hours. The grove's glow faded behind him. He kept his sword low and his eyes on the ground, watching for sign of the falconbee scouts. Near dawn he found one. A smear of bioluminescent purple on a leaf. He knelt and touched it. The smear pointed south. He followed it slow, sword ready. The trail curved through ferns and then he saw the hive. Dark tendrils woven into a tall, twisted shape, small windows glowing yellow inside it. The falconbees had built it at the pivot point. They had given up his northern trail. They had turned around here and gone back the way he had come. He pushed past the hive and the truth hit him harder with each step. He knew this moss. He knew that split stone. Ahead, a black-stoned pool held still lavender water, ringed by pale seelie blooms. He had drunk from it eight days ago. He had washed Kess's blood off his hands in it. The pool showed him his own face twice over now — once then, once now, thinner. The path climbed a few worn steps to a stone arch swallowed in violet flowers. He had passed under it before without looking. He looked now. Two weeks of leading her northeast, and the falconbees had cut the lie in half. They were not chasing him north anymore. They were sweeping back across ground he had already burned, and every camp he had left, every print he had pressed into the moss, was a map laid out for her. His misdirection was dead. He turned and started back toward his old trail, to erase what he could before she read it.