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Chapter 421: The second hands:
Dawn came gray and cold. A thin pearly light spread along the eastern hills, and the mist on the Silverrun turned from silver to rose to a pale, clean white. The stars faded one by one. The river ran quick and clear, black over its stones, and a pair of ducks paddled in the shallows, entirely unconcerned.They broke camp quickly, without much talk. Gabriel scattered the ashes of the fire and covered them with sand. Ivana saddled the ponies, with the air of a girl who has not slept and is not going to admit it. Elder Alonso walked alone along the bank to the place where the pale thing had come out of the water. He stood there for a time, looking down at the wet stones. Then he stooped and picked something up.It was a single thread of gray silk, caught on a pebble. It lay across his palm, fine as a hair, and as he watched, it curled, and shriveled, and was gone.“Father?” Gabriel called.“I am coming.”He returned, and swung into the saddle with a grunt. Boulder, who had slept soundly
Chapter 420: Believing the wells:
They told stories until the stars began to pale.Elder Alonso told them about the first time he had gone down into the deep shafts of the blue crystal mine, as a boy of nine, with a rope around his waist and a lantern in his teeth. He told them about the cave-in that had trapped him for two days with his uncle and a talkative miner named Orrin, who had sung every verse of every song he knew until even the rock seemed to wince. He told them about the spring his grandfather had taught him to read the veins. Gabriel told them about the book he had once found in the loft, a battered history of the first seers, with a margin in an unknown hand that said only Do not trust the ones who are certain. Ivana told them what Flint had said about clouds.Somewhere between the third story and the fourth, they began to talk about Ilsabet.It was Gabriel who raised it, hesitantly, as though stepping out onto thin ice.“Father. May I ask? What was she like?”Elder Alonso was silent for a long moment. T
Chapter 419: The Ghost of the West:
“It is clever.” Elder Alonso said. “That is a different thing. The ones who made it knew exactly how to test a seer. What do you fear most? What do you wish most to hear? And then offer it.”“A trap for the gifted.” Gabriel said.“A snare.” Elder Alonso said. “With a very sweet bait.”They sat for a long time around the rekindled fire. Elder Alonso fed it with driftwood and spoke very little. Gabriel, who had stopped shaking, crouched beside the drift of silk and examined it without touching it, his head tilted, his lips moving. Ivana sat close to her father, with her hand knotted in his sleeve, and Flint settled on her knee.“The silk.” Gabriel said at last. “Do you see it?”“I see.”“It is not ordinary. Look at the weave. A double thread, one silver, one gray. Twisted together. I have read about this.”“Where?”“The Ledgers. A passage about the Lacemakers. A order of the old Veilhalls, who spun thread from the breath of the dead. The thread was used for binding. To hold a spirit in
Chapter 418: The veil by the sea:
The river began to talk again.It was a small, shocking sound, after so much silence. The black water shivered, and rippled, and began to run, and the stars, which had lain unbroken on its surface, shattered into a thousand moving fragments. A breath of wind came off the water and stirred the mist. The coals in the fire pit, which had been dead and dull, flickered, and one of them glowed a deep, ordinary orange.Elder Alonso stood where he was, with the staff still raised, breathing in great ragged gasps. His shoulders were heaving. His face was gray, and his lips had drawn back from his teeth in a rictus that he did not seem to know he wore. Slowly, very slowly, he lowered the staff, and its blue glow dimmed and went out.“Papa.” Ivana said.He did not answer.“Papa.” she said again, and ran. She crossed the sand in four steps and flung herself against his chest, wrapping both arms around his ribs, burying her face in his coat. He stood rigid for a moment. Then the staff fell from hi
Chapter 417: The dangers of dooms:
“Vandel.” the snake said, and a faint dry laugh whispered through the air. “No. Not exactly. But you will do very well as a message. Tell the star bearer, he has been noticed.”“We will tell him nothing.” Elder Alonso said.His voice was hoarse, and it came from a throat that seemed to have been scraped raw. But it was steady. He had lifted his head. The tears still streaked his cheeks, but the glaze had gone from his eyes, and what had replaced it was something Gabriel had never seen on his father’s face. It was a flat, cold, quiet rage.“You have spoken in my daughter’s voice.” Elder Alonso said.“I have.”“You have shown me her face.”“A kindness.”“A cruelty.” Elder Alonso said. “And I have been cruel to myself long enough. I do not need the help.”The snake swayed. “Old man. You cannot hurt me. I am not here. I am a thought. A breath of a thing. You may strike what you see, but I will not feel it.”“Perhaps.” Elder Alonso said.“I will not even bleed.”“Perhaps not.” Elder Alonso
Chapter 416: The watchers from the valley:
“I know.”“It wants something.”“I know that too.” Elder Alonso said. He moved, so slowly that it seemed he scarcely stirred, and set himself between his daughter and the advancing thing. His big shoulders blocked the starlight. He lowered the staff until its crystal tip pointed at the snake’s head. “Gabriel. Take your sister. Back against the rock.”“Father.”“Now.”They scrambled backward, pressed against the cold stone. Flint flew up to Ivana’s shoulder, ruffled and shrieking, a thin, high, urgent cry. The Messenger launched itself from its ledge with a rush of wings and circled once above the fire, then dived. It struck at the snake’s head, talons spread, and the pale thing flicked aside with a speed that was almost impossible, and the hawk went tumbling past with a loud, angry scream.“Messenger!” Ivana cried.“Stay back!” Elder Alonso roared.The snake rose. It lifted its great head a full six feet from the ground, and its coils tightened beneath it, and the green flames in its
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