Page 25 of A Land So Wide

G reer stared at the forest Ellis had ventured into after somehow breaking the Warding Stones’ hold. He’d wandered away, and the Bright-Eyed had swooped after him, leaving a trail in the brush that was wide and ragged, like a mouth snarled with screams.

Greer wanted to scream as well.

How had Ellis gotten past the Stones? It was a certain impossibility. No one could leave Mistaken after sunset.

But he had.

She’d seen him do it.

“Did you see that?”

Beside her, Lachlan’s voice was hushed with awestruck horror.

Dragging her eyes from the tree line, Greer glanced at him, then their hands, still worryingly knotted together.

She’d never seen Lachlan so stricken, stripped of his confidence and ease.

Everyone in Mistaken treated him like a god, imbued with strapping charisma too powerful to ignore.

Now after seeing a Bright-Eyed, Greer knew she would never again think of Lachlan as the apex of anything.

“Was that…what…what was that?” he whispered, sounding like a little boy woken in the thrall of a night terror. His hand trembled, tightening painfully around hers. She tried to loosen his grasp, but it was as if an iron vise had clamped around her.

“Lachlan,” she prompted. “Lachlan, your hand.”

He didn’t hear, his focus still sharp on the trees ahead of them. Greer had seen that look once before when hunting with Hessel, a doe sensing their approach, frozen with anxious vigilance. A sheen of sweat broke over Lachlan’s brow despite the cold.

He’s just realized he’s not the predator but the prey.

“Lachlan,” she tried again, pushing herself to her feet. She needed to break him from his spiraling thoughts. They needed to act fast if there was any hope of saving Ellis.

Ellis .

Just the thought of his name stopped all momentum.

Her heart ached, and she wanted to burst into tears.

How had this day gone so dismally wrong?

They should be at Steward House, starting the Joining Ceremony, becoming husband and wife.

But she was here, with Lachlan Davis of all people, and how had Ellis gotten past the Stones ?

She yanked at Lachlan’s arm, jerking him from his tortured reverie. “We need to go. We need to find the Stewards. We need a plan.”

“A plan?” Lachlan repeated slowly, doubtfully. “A plan for what?”

Disbelief colored her laugh “To form a search party. To go after Ellis.”

Even as she said it, Greer knew it wasn’t happening.

Not tonight.

Not until dawn’s rays broke the horizon and the Warding Stones’ hold loosened.

As if hearing her thoughts, Lachlan stepped toward the Stones, dragging Greer along with him. “How did he do it? How did Beaufort do it? Is the boundary gone?” With his free hand, he reached out, feeling at the invisible wall.

Greer shook her head, wincing against the inevitable onslaught. “It’s not, it’s still there, it’s still—”

The wind rose up, hitting them like an explosion of thunder. They were cast back, nothing more than leaves caught in a storm. Lachlan tried again, choosing another spot. Again, the wind howled. Again, they were thrown. Again and again and again and again.

“Stop it!” Greer howled, bruised and bloodied. Every bit of her ached, and she wanted to scream at how stupid he was. “The line is still there. It’s not going to let us through, no matter how many times you run at it!”

“Then how did he do it?” Lachlan snarled, whipping round on her. “I’ve never been able to cross over that damned line, not once in my life, but then fucking Beaufort somehow does it? How? How? ”

“I don’t know!” Greer admitted, fighting tears. “You saw it happen. He just…He stepped into the forest. No wind. No barrier. He was just…”

“Gone,” Lachlan supplied the word she would not say.

“Yes.”

He turned back to the forest, fresh horror growing over his face. “Do you suppose it can cross the line, too? The Bright-Eyed? If Beaufort could, then…”

A shudder ran through Greer.

Lachlan fell to his knees as he struggled to draw breath, finally releasing his hold on her.

Greer surprised herself by kneeling beside him.

She rubbed circles across his back, recalling how Ailie had so often done this for her, talking Greer through times when the world felt too loud, when all the sounds and noises threatened to rise up and overwhelm her.

“Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth,” she coached. His chest sounded wet and ragged, and he trembled beneath her touch.

“It can’t be, it can’t be,” he whispered, over and over, until the words ran together, bleeding into one long stream of panic.

Greer pressed against his curved frame as she tried to catch his eye, tried to give him something to focus on through the haze of dread. “What? What can’t?”

When he finally looked up, something in his stare made her insides curdle.

“If the Benevolence let that thing go after one of us—even if it was a Beaufort—then Mistaken’s truce must have broken.”