Island of Glass (The Guardians Trilogy #3)(97)

“On this day, at this time, the path is only for you.” With her sisters, Celene stopped. “Only you can walk it. What waits at its end is only for you.”

“Brave hearts,” Luna said. “Walk in light.”

Arianrhod set her hand on the hilt of her sword. “And fight the dark.”

And they were gone.

“I’d say that’s god-talk for you’re on your own.” So saying Riley stepped onto the path, started up.

The first quarter mile was paved with stone, lined with trees, a gentle rise. It turned to hard-packed earth as the trees thinned and the rise steepened.

How many miles had they walked together since they’d started? she wondered. She should’ve kept a log.

In places the path narrowed so they went singly. In places it roughened so they navigated ruts, climbed over rock. On one outcropping Riley stopped, turned to look back.

The island went absolutely still below her, like something caught in a ball of glass. All color and shape without movement. A painting spread over sea and sky.

A bird caught in midflight, a wave frozen above the shore.

When the worlds still, she remembered. And so it had.

Then a deer leaped over the path, a bird took wing. The standard on the palace waved in the breeze.

At the end of the path, she thought, lay the end of the journey.

She leaped down, continued the climb.

The path wound, and a little stream bubbled beside it. Water spilled over rock, tumbled into a small pool where the deer drank.

“I ran this far last night,” she told the others. “Part of me wanted to keep going up, but something just told me not yet. I stopped by that pool, the water so clear I could see my reflection, and the moon’s.”

“Let’s hope we get up there, get this done before you see the moon again and go furry.”

Riley shook her head at Sawyer. “Last night was the third night here. But I’d sure as hell like to get it done before dark.”

She fell companionably into step with him. “I was thinking about Malmon.”

“Gone and no regrets.”

“That’s something I was thinking about. She chose him, lured him, seduced him, and turned him into a demon. One who worshipped her. He didn’t just kill for her, he very likely saved her life, at the very least nursed her until she got herself back.”

“And?”

“She did nothing to save him. Because he meant nothing to her. Look, he was a bastard when he was human, as evil and twisted as they come, but she ended that human life. As somebody who knows about change, I’m telling you that change had to be agony.”

“Hard to wring out any sympathy there.”

“With you,” Riley agreed. “The thing is, she didn’t have to change him to get what she wanted out of him.”

Sawyer stopped, narrowed his eyes. “I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right. One hundred percent.”

“She did it for fun. And when he failed, even after he saved her miserable existence, he was just a kind of diversion. Yeah, he tried to kill me, but she sent him in to pave the way for her. And after all that, bang, you’re dead. Thanks to you. Odds are she could’ve given him what Doyle has, instead it’s over like a fingersnap for him. And she doesn’t care.”

“You thought she would?”

“I’m saying if she didn’t give him a thought—someone—something that fed her, nursed her, did her bidding, worshipped her, fucking died for her, she sure as hell doesn’t care about any living thing. Dark or light.”

“I could’ve killed him if he’d still been human, but not the way I did. I couldn’t have just . . . not if he’d been human.”

“I know.” Riley gave him an elbow jab. “That’s why we’re the good guys.”

A few paces ahead on the rugged path, Annika began to sing.

“And that,” Sawyer said.

“And that.”

They climbed while the sun wheeled past noon with the stream rising with the path. Quick, frothy waterfalls poured over ledges of rock, but nothing came to drink. No bird soared overhead or darted through the trees.

Riley scented nothing but the water, the earth, the trees, her companions.

When the worlds still—she thought again.

Then there was . . . something. Something old, potent, alive. But not human, not beast, not fowl, not of the earth.

“There’s something—”

But Sasha had already stopped, was reaching for Bran’s hand as he reached for hers.

“Do you feel it?” Sasha’s words were barely a whisper over the music of the water.

“Power,” Bran said. “Waiting.” Bran glanced back at the others. “Let me have a look first.”

But Sawyer shook his head. “All for one, man. That’s how it is.”

Doyle’s sword slithered out of its sheath. “Together.”

And together they crested the high hill.

There the path ended, and there stood the stones, a perfect circle, graduated in size from one on each side no higher than Riley’s waist to the king stone, taller than two men.

They stood, quiet gray, under the strong afternoon sun, swimming in a shallow sea of mist.

“Not as massive as Stonehenge, but more symmetrical,” Riley observed. “I bet when I measure them, each set is precisely the same in height and width, and an exact ratio.”