Greer collected what she could of this poor girl, reuniting pieces of her body. She covered the remains with gathered stones, creating amound of fist-sized rocks, and then sat back on her knees, examining her work.
“I’m sorry this happened to you,” she began. “I’m sorry you thought there was no other way. I’m sorry for your last minutes. I hope they were quick.” Greer frowned. “I don’t know if you knew what would happen…if you knew your death would be payment for our truce…but…you’ve helped to keep Mistaken safe. ‘Thank you’ doesn’t seem enough, but…”
Greer touched a stone, wishing there was more to be done, knowing there was not.
With reverent silence, she put on her pack and continued north.
23
The sound ofthe river was maddening.
All day long, Greer had listened to its rushing susurrus, but she had yet to come across a single sign of it. She checked the maps and then the compass again, uncertainty creeping in and souring her stomach. She’d always prided herself on knowing exactly where she was on any given map, but here, in this unfamiliar land, she felt lost.
Shewaslost.
“Perhaps the scale is wrong,” she muttered, not wanting to admit her predicament. A faulty cartographer was easier to blame, even if it didn’t fix the problem. “I’m not at the river yet because the measurements are off.”
When she spotted a rock formation rising through the canopy, she dumped her rucksack at its base and began climbing, eager to see above the tree line. So far up, she should be able to survey the land, see its entire sprawl as if she were a bird in flight, and find that damned river.
When she reached the top, Greer wanted to cry.
There was so much land between her and the mountains, so much wild space full of dangers unseen and unimaginable. It was desolate and vast, so much bigger than anything she could have ever guessed, peering at the world from the cliffs of the Narrows.
How could such a small corner of a map span so wide?
The impossibility of ever finding Ellis crashed over her.
She felt like a fool. Setting out into the wilds, she’d been so full of certainty and confidence. She’d pictured reaching Ellis in record time, easily able to double her pace over his, ready to take his hand and save him.
Every bit of that fantasy now made her cringe.
She’d been so naïve. So stupid.
But she wouldn’t be any longer.
Greer held out the map before her, lining it up with the view of the mountains as she saw them now, and attempted to do the math. She counted trees, converting their numbers to yards, the yards to miles, and then she looked at the map again and pinpointed where she was.
The river was not far, half a day’s hike, maybe less if she pushed herself.
Greer took one last look, studying the miles of wilderness, looking over the trees and ravines, the starting foothills of the mountain range, over the snowcapped behemoths themselves. She cupped her mittened hands around her mouth and cleared her throat.
“Ellis!” Her cry echoed like a gunshot.
She fancied that the wind was on her side, and imagined it taking her words straight to Ellis’s ears. He’d stop in his tracks, eyes wide with surprise, and turn.
“Ellis Beaufort,” she tried again, wishing with all her might that she could summon the power that had magnified her scream before. “Can you hear me?”
Seconds ticked by, filled with the chatter of a flock of birds who were hiding somewhere in the trees below.
“Ellis!”
Nothing still.
“I’m coming for you!” She shouted her promise to the sky, to the trees, to anything that might be listening.
“Why?” came a voice, camethevoice, somehow here with her now, even in the middle of this stretch of solitude. That awful, impossible voice.
Greer startled, then scanned the forest floor below. Nothing stirred. She looked through the branches around her. Was it roosting in a tree?
