Many nods issued their collective agreement, and she fought the urge to tug at her skirts.
“I was not supposed to return here. I was to go through the wilderness and find my end there.” She glanced at her father, saw his deepening frown, and realised how that would have hurt them. “But I saw something on my way, and I knew I had to come back.”
Harlow tilted his head. “And what was that?”
And it was easier than she might have thought, to push aside her need to hold to secrecy. And she could imagine a time when it would not prove difficult at all. “We are not alone here,” she told them, trying to keep her voice level and firm. “There are others. Wingless,” she clarified, and they cast each other concerned looks, almost disbelieving that such a people might exist. “And they are coming.”
“For what purpose?” a man toward the back called.
Penryn swallowed. “They bear weapons,” she answered back. “And they are skilled with their use.” She glanced back at Grimult, and he gave her an encouraging nod. “And they know of our kind, and how we might be felled.”
Murmurs rippled throughout the men, and Rezen was looking at her with something akin to horror, and she had no answer to give him. The question was there, heavy and nearly tangible. Had she been hurt by them?
And suddenly all the eyes returned to her, not how she might have thought, but settling on what was absent.
“The sages know of their existence,” she continued, allowing them to think what they willed about why she looked like a land-dweller. “But not their presence here. I must give an account so they can warn each of the clans.”
She did her best to look each of them in the eye at least once, to acknowledge her gratitude for their willingness to accompany her. To support a girl they did not know, but who they accepted all the same.
It was enough to bring another lump to her throat, but she pushed it back quickly. “I want you all safe.”
Doubtlessly there would be more discussion between them. Clan leaders would become involved as soon as news trickled outward. That was good. She did not want the sages to hold all knowledge to themselves. Not anymore.
Not when there was so much more at risk than there ever had before.
But for now, Harlow only gave a sombre nod before approaching Grim, giving direction as to their flight. “We will stay together, as we can,” Harlow assured him. “Somehow I think our numbers will be of some importance.” He glanced down at Penryn, a soft smile as if he looked at a friend rather than a stranger. “No one is going to hurt you,” he promised her. “I don’t know why it was important you stay away, but no one is going to dare complain about it when we’re there to hear it.”
She gave a timid smile in return. And what would happen when they were not?
Grim could not watch her all of the time, and the sages were not the forgiving sort.
She had disrupted their ancient rituals, and they would not easily overlook that trespass.
But that could be resolved later. For now, she allowed Grimult to pull her close, the sound of wings moving quickly and all at once sending a strange thrum through the air, unlike anything she had ever heard before.
The day was grey, but blessedly free of rain to slow their travel and turn it miserable. She had nerves enough to keep a sickening pull at her belly, and she was grateful for the crisp air blowing steadily in her face that kept most of it at bay. She did not want to do this. Not really. Even now, she wondered if it would be better simply to venture to each clan in turn, telling them directly of their discovery.
But they would doubtlessly look on her with far less kindness than the Mihr. She did not belong to them, and she had betrayed her position as Lightkeep by straying from her purpose.
To disappear, silent and ethereal, that was her role.
Not to return, unhooded and give voice to terrors unimagined.
“You are going to bite that lip clean off if you continue chewing at it like that,” Grimult breathed against her ear, warm while the rest of her was cold. Had she been biting it that hard? She had not realised, ceasing her abuse at once, lathing the inner indent with her tongue. “We will stand with you,” he reminded her. “All of us.”
She looked up at him, eyes serious. “And if words fail me? Will you speak when I cannot?”
He glanced at her in some surprise, and she reached up to touch his cheek. “You stay silent, you know. You have seen all that I have, yet you allow me to be the one to speak of it.”
His brow furrowed, and he looked pointedly away from her. She did not press, allowed him his silence, to gather thoughts and attempt to put them into words. “That was not part of my training,” he said at last. “It was yours.”
He did not say it meanly, but she had to suppress a flinch all the same. “I was given words to say,” she admitted. “You know that well.” He certainly did, had learned to recognise when phrases were not her own, and she was getting better and stopping them from coming at all. Maybe someday she could forget them entirely and simply be herself, but that time was not yet. Perhaps not even for a long while. “But not these ones.
