Page 74 of Suncatcher

“Pearl.”

That tone in that voice usually worked. But not tonight. Pearl was immune to it tonight. Like her mother earlier, Pearl had gone somewhere else.

“Where’re you going?” Sheriff Oak asked as Pearl attached the saddlebags.

“I told you to stop. I told you to let her go.”

Sheriff Oak grabbed Pearl’s arm.

Pearl looked at her without really seeing.

“What’s that thing done to you?” Sheriff Oak demanded.

“Only what I asked her to.”

“I won’t let her take you from me.” There was panic in Sheriff Oak’s voice that Pearl wasn’t used to. Later, it would hurt to recall it.

“She’s not taking me, Ma. I’m leaving you.”

Her words hit true, and the grip on her slackened. Pearl pulled free and mounted. She itched to run, but that was too slow.

She rode into the night and didn’t look back. She didn’t have a plan beyond “find Driz.”

That long-faded scream reverberated through Pearl’s empty chest. The fear of finding Driz bled out as her mother had threatened flashed unbidden through her. So she called back to that fear as she charged into the canyonlands. The scent of the fire followed her.

Where would Driz go? Back to her grotto? Could she make it there? Could Driz even fly?

Pearl called out, recklessly uncaring who or what else might hear her. She was beyond caring for such things. As she blocked out her emotions so they wouldn’t engulf her, she also blocked out the part of her brain that had any sense.

She opened her tin. The last bit of blight stared back at her. She’d already taken a lot earlier, her body still shaky.

Would she need it, once she found Driz? But if she didn’t find Driz, what would the point be? She closed the tin, willing her natural senses to work.

Blood. Spattered on the cliff. Pearl followed the streaks, dark and sticky and making her insides curdle.

She heard Driz before she saw her, stumbling and crashing up a semi-sheer slope and through a patch of stinging brush, her limbs and claws scraping and gouging out bloody rock and dirt.

“Driz!”

Driz glanced back at her but kept going. Pearl cursed because she couldn’t follow directly. She was a slow climber even in daylight, and it was too steep for her mount. She angled around the rise, looking for a better way up.

The howl shivered through her whole body.

Normally a wolf of any kind would steer well clear of a gargoyle. But Driz was injured and bleeding like any other prey. And by the sound of it, the predator knew it.

Pearl urged her horse faster, scanning the dark valley for a way up. When she didn’t find one, she had to make a decision.

Loading her chamber with her two remaining blight bullets, she dismounted, taking her saddlebags with her and slinging them around her own shoulders. She looped the reins off her horse. They were close enough to Salt Bluff that he should find his way home.

Then Pearl started to climb.

21

Broken

Driz heard Pearl calling for her. Everything hurt. Her skin, her wings, her ribs from where she’d crashed into the side of the cliff. And inside hurt too. Perhaps even more.

She pushed onward, half of her demanding she return to Pearl and the rest needing to get away. Far away. Again. For the last time.