is a foolish thing you’re doing!”
“Don’t forget about us, Tiger Ty!” Wren called in reply.
The Wing Rider scowled at her for an instant, then kicked
Spirit lightly. The Roc lifted into the air, wings spreading against
the wind, rising slowly, wheeling south. In seconds, the giant
bird had become nothing more than a speck in the fading light.
Wren and Garth stood silently on the empty beach and
watched until the speck had disappeared.
CHAPTER
6
THEY REMAINED on the beach that first night, heeding the
advice of Tiger Ty to wait until it was daybreak before
starting in. They chose a spot about a quarter of a mile
north from where the Wing Rider had dropped them
to set up their camp, a broad, open expanse of black sand where
the tide line ended more than a hundred feet from the jungle’s
edge. It was already twilight by then, the sun gone below the
horizon, its failing light a faint shimmer against the ocean’s wa-
ters. As darkness descended, pale silver light from moon and
stars flooded the empty beach, reflecting off the sand as if dia-
monds had been scattered, brightening the shoreline for as far
as the eye could see. They quickly ruled out having a fire.
Neither light nor heat was required. Situated as they were on
the open beach, they could see anything trying to approach,
and the air was warm and balmy. A fire would only succeed in
drawing attention to them, and they did not want that.
They ate a cold meal of dried meat, bread, and cheese and
washed it down with ale. They sat facing the jungle, their backs
to the ocean, listening and watching. Morrowindi lost definition
as night fell, the sweep of jungle and cliffs and desert disappear-
ing into blackness until at last the island was little more than a
silhouette against the sky. Finally even that disappeared, and all
that remained was a steady cacophony of sounds. The sounds
were indistinguishable for the most part, faint and muffled, a
scattering of calls and hoots and buzzings, of birds and insects
and animals, all lost deep within the sheltering dark. The waters
of the Blue Divide rolled in steady cadence against the island’s
shores, washing in and retreating again, a slow and steady lap-
ping. A breeze sprang up, soft and fragrant, washing away the
last of the day’s lingering heat.
When they had finished their meal, they stared wordlessly
ahead for a time-at the sky and the beach and the ocean, at
nothing at all.
Already Morrowindl made Wren feel uneasy. Even now,
cloaked in darkness, invisible and asleep, the island was a pres-
ence that threatened. She pictured it in her mind, Killeshan
rising up against the sky with its ragged maw open, a patchwork
of jungled slopes, towering cliffs, and barren deserts, a chained
giant wrapped in vog and mist, waiting. She could feel its breath
on her face, anxious and hungry. She could hear it hiss in
greeting.
She could sense it watching.
It frightened her more than she cared to admit, and she
could not seem to dispel her fear. It was an insidious shadow
that crept through the corridors of her mind, whispering words
whose meanings were unintelligible but whose intent was clear.
She felt oddly bereft of her skills and her training, as if all had
been stripped from her at the moment she had arrived. Even
her instincts seemed muddled. She could not explain it. It made
no sense. Nothing had happened, and yet here she was, her
confidence shredded and scattered like straw. Another woman
might have been able to take comfort from the fact that she
possessed the legendary Elfstones-but not Wren. The magic
was foreign to her, a thing to be mistrusted. It belonged to a
past she had only heard about, a history that had been lost for
generations. It belonged to someone else, someone she did not
know. The Elfstones, she thought darkly, had nothing to do
with her.
The words brought a chill to the pit of her stomach. They,
of course, were a lie.
She put her hands over her face, hiding herself away. Doubts