Witch's Pyre (Worldwalker #3)(102)

“It’ll be a miracle if she’s there already,” Lily mumbled.

“Maybe not,” Rowan replied. “The Woven are capable of incredible things.”

Lily looked at him, surprised. “That almost sounded like respect,” she commented.

“Don’t get carried away,” he said, pursing his lips around a smile. He bent down to build a small fire at Lily’s feet.

She touched the speaking stone and reached out to Pale One. Her mind dove into the fast-moving river of the relay, whipping past thousands of miles of country, and finally rested inside one of the yellow-hued speaking stones on the Ocean of Grass. She called out to her claimed and felt her excitement. Pale One yipped and danced in circles.

Lily pictured the Pack. Where are they?

Close. Tending their meat.

Lily saw the seemingly unending herds of bison. She asked Pale One if she could join her inside her skin again. Pale One allowed it.

Lily felt the packed earth under her paws, and just below the surface she felt the gophers in their underground city. She telescoped out and felt the miles and miles of land pressed flat beneath its twin brother, the sky, and it dawned on her that once, long ago, water had covered this land as the sky now covered it. The pressure of the ancient inland sea had pushed the land down, muffling it. The Ocean of Grass still held on to that watery silence. Its vibration was a dull, sleepy thud.

She gathered the heat of a fire as fuel, called out to Rowan’s willstone, and jumped them to Pale One’s location.

She heard Rowan exhale a tensely held breath as he opened his eyes. “That is still unbelievably strange,” he told her, taking in their surroundings.

Pale One let out a series of whines and yelps as she came toward Lily with her head down. Rowan jerked backward, but Lily held out her hands to Pale One and she was greeted with a flurry of licks and nuzzles. Lily could feel she was hungry. She fed Pale One’s willstone with energy, and while she did, Lily felt Lillian reach out to her.

I did it! Lillian told her in mindspeak. I teleported to Salem and then I was able to bring someone back with me! I’m ready, Lily.

Wait for me, Lily replied. I’m gathering more forces.

From where?

Lily hesitated. She thought of how deeply Lillian hated the Woven. You’ll see. Just trust me. Give me one more day, she asked.

I may not have one more day, Lillian replied testily, and then cut contact.

“Lillian is ready to jump her army now,” Lily told Rowan.

“She knows she needs your army or she can’t win. She’ll wait for us,” Rowan said, but his tone was less than certain.

“She doesn’t intend on winning,” Lily reminded him, keeping her voice lowered. “All she needs is to get close enough to detonate. Or so she thinks.”

Lily looked at Pale One. Take us to the Pack, she asked.

Pale One bounded forward, flooding Lily with images from her journey as she went. Her excitement was quickly curtailed as she caught a scent on the breeze. Pale One stopped right in front of Lily, blocking her way and forcing her to stop as well. She howled into the darkness and the lonely sound was answered from a source close by.

They waited, Pale One tensing into the darkness at something the humans couldn’t see, until Lily felt Rowan stiffen. He unsheathed his long knife, thrust out an arm, and tried to put Lily behind him, but as he spun around in a circle she felt him deflating. They were already surrounded.

It’s a trap, Rowan said in mindspeak.

Then Lily saw them—dozens of pairs of softly reflective eyes staring at her. She didn’t know how far back into the gloom the Pack stretched, but Lily could feel that the darkness all around her was alive.

Not hunting you, Pale One assured Lily. They are afraid. And angry.

Lily wasn’t sure if that was any better. Can you tell them I mean no harm?

Speak, and they will understand.

Lily hesitated, not sure she understood Pale One correctly. Mindspeak was one thing, where concepts were passed along as much as words. The times when Lily had doubts that her Woven claimed could understand her all she’d had to do was picture what she wanted and pass the images along, as they did with her. Speaking aloud was different. Language, and the ability to understand it, was different. She hadn’t even attempted speaking aloud with Pale One yet, thinking it might be too complicated for her.

Speak with sounds, Pale One urged. They lose trust for you.

“I come to ask for your help,” Lily said, trying to sound confident. She heard growls as a response.

“Lily, what are you doing?” Rowan asked. “They can’t understand you.”

“We understand the witch,” said a low, raspy voice.

Rowan said something in Cherokee that was no doubt a swear word, and then a different raspy voice said something in Cherokee back to him. Rowan went very still.

I don’t believe it, he whispered inside Lily’s mind.

“Have you always been able to talk?” Lily asked.

She heard something like a bark and a laugh coming from the dark. “Of course,” growled another member of the Pack.

A different voice picked up the dialogue. “We have always had language and the use of tools,” it said.

“Why wouldn’t we?” asked a fourth voice.

“We are more like you than we are like wolves,” purred a fifth.