Her gaze blazed with flame, binding Neil with a rope of gold—body and mind, soul and desire.In that moment, he belonged to her so completely, it threatened to break him apart with joy and terror.
She carried something in her hand, her grip loose and restful.Neil still understood, beyond any doubt, that she knew exactly how to use it.
“She has a bow,” he croaked, forcing the words from his lips.
“Who?”Constance pressed.
"The woman with the stars in her eyes,” Neil rasped in return.
The vision who owned his soul raised up her other hand.She held it at the height of her shoulder, palm facing out—a solemn salute that pierced him from across space and time.
Neil lifted his hand in return, mirroring her gesture.
It felt like a promise.
Her gaze was black and wild, howling with rage and justice and hope.
Something itched at the corner of Neil’s eye.He blinked against the feeling, and the woman was gone.
“Neil?”Constance pressed from beside him.
Tears traced down his cheeks, cool against the warmth of the afternoon.Neil dashed at them automatically, then stared down in surprise at the moisture on his hand.
Constance watched him carefully.“Why were you making a mudra?”
“A mudra?”Neil echoed, lost.
“With your hand.”Constance raised her arm, turning her palm out to face him.“Aai taught it to me.This one is for fearlessness—and protection.”
Her gaze flicked to Neil’s shoulder, where Dyrnwyn’s hilt poked up from its scabbard.
Neil reeled.“She did it.The woman.I… I just…”
Constance touched his arm.“What woman?Who did you see?”
His hands were shaking.He stared down at them in surprise as the answer burst out of him.“She was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.And she was terrifying.”
Constance gazed across the ravine as though she could see some echo of what had once been there.“That sounds like… someone I might have heard of before.”
Neil’s mind burned with eyes like flame and a beauty that could have cut through him, bone and flesh and sinew, and still leave him aching for more.
“Whoever she was,” he replied carefully, “I feel rather certain that she has what we’re looking for.”
The columns by the rock-cut chamber across the gorge were cracked and weathered with time.The sunlight was gone.Charcoal clouds roiled overhead as Borthwick’s men moved past the curving shadows of the bones.
Constance’s eyes flashed with determination.“Then let’s get our friends and find it.”
?
Thirty-Six
Ellie leaned againsta boulder at the edge of Borthwick’s camp, her ankles bound before her and her hands tied behind her back.The stream rushed past a few steps away.Ancient tusks and ribs curved overhead between tall thickets of bamboo.Beyond them rose the steep silver bluff of the waterfall.
Borthwick had gone, hiking off with a detachment of his men to start exploring some of the caves.Singh Rao remained behind to organize the others.
None of them paid her and Adam much mind.And why should they?The pair of them were trussed up like geese.
Bruises were already forming on the familiar lines of Adam’s face from his fight with Jacobs.His jaw was scraped, and his soaked shirt sported watery crimson stains.Adam caught her looking at them.
