|
. . . Then Aeriel saw wings, very near--great wings descending: a creature with more wings than she could count, all black, all beating fiercely. She felt a faint breeze against her cheek--for all the fury of those terrible wings, the air was too thin to carry more than a feeble gust.
They were jet, those wings, as deep as the sky, as black as Eoduin's hair--no, blacker, for they were dull, unoiled. They gave off no sheen in the light, no gleam to the eye. They drank up the light and diminished it: they were wings of pure shadow. The figure reached the mountaintop and alighted, but barely--his sandaled feet hardly touched the stone. Before him, Eoduin cried out in terror. Though Aeriel knelt not twenty paces from her, the sound was distant, as though it had traveled miles. He held out his arms to Eoduin, abruptly, as in command. Eoduin backed away. The darkangel stepped toward her. Aeriel could see only the vague white shimmer of his garment amid the dark fury of still-beating wings. . . . |
