Page 90 of The Wild Moon
It was impossible to picture what he was describing. The world I looked upon now was the complete opposite of what Vir described. Dark, always so dark, covered in blackened rock.
“Whathappened?” I asked in a hushed whisper. “Everything is so bleak. And crunchy. The rock is so messed up.”
Vir looked down at our feet. “That is not rock upon which you walk,” he explained.
“It’s not? What is it?” I asked, taking a step, more non-rock crunching underfoot.
“Bone.”
I gagged. “What?” I hissed, staring at my feet. Then around me.
“Layer upon layer of bone.” His words were hard. Angry even.
“So many,” I whispered. “Whose bones? There weren’t that many shifter gods. Not to cover this much space.”
Vir shook his head. “We don’t leave bones when we die.”
I swallowed nervously, remembering his warning at the tunnel about how our presence would have attracted attention. “Vir,” I said, my voice shaking, “whodoesleave the bones?”
“They do,” he said.
“They?”
“The enemy,” he said with a shrug. “The ones that come from beyond the Gates. From another realm.”
“Which realm do they come from?” I asked.
It’s not like I was an expert on other realms or anything. Until this morning, I’d thought Earth was theonlyrealm. Now I knew that not only were the shifter gods real, but so were the ancient Greek gods, the ancient Roman gods, even the Egyptians seemed to be represented with his mention of Horus.
That left alotof possibilities, and I was going to go out on a limb and say there were probably others I’d never heard of.
Vir opened his mouth to answer. Simultaneously, his eyes locked on to something in the distance, and his body tightened.
“We must go,” he said quietly. “We’ve lingered for too long.”
“What happens if we linger?” I asked, nervous anticipation filling my chest. I had a suspicion what his answer would be.
“They’ll come,” Vir said. “For both of us. You have to go. I can only hide you here for so long.”
He picked me up, careful to avoid my wounded side, though it barely hurt anymore.
“Wait!” I yelped, suddenly realizing what he was going to do. We were going to poof again. “Wait-wait-wait!”
Vir didn’t wait.
Chapter Forty-Seven
This time, I lost the battle.
Seconds after we reappeared, I emptied what little there was in my stomach all over the ground.
“Sorry,” I croaked. “But you’ve really got to learn to warn me before you do that. This is all your fault.”
“You have to go.”
No apology, no remorse, nothing but stony dismissal from Vir.
“I just got here,” I said. “Shouldn’t we try to figure out why before you dismiss me?”
