The Twilight Saga Collection part 2(21)

The way he stared at her! It was like a blind man seeing the sun for the first time. Like a collector finding an undiscovered Da Vinci, like a mother looking into the face of her newborn child.

His wondering eyes made me see new things about her — how her skin looked like russet-colored silk in the firelight, how the shape of her lips was a perfect double curve, how white her teeth were against them, how long her eyelashes were, brushing her cheek when she looked down.

Kim’s skin sometimes darkened when she met Jared’s awed gaze, and her eyes would drop as if in embarrassment, but she had a hard time keeping her eyes away from his for any length of time.

Watching them, I felt like I better understood what Jacob had told me about imprinting before — it’s hard to resist that level of commitment and adoration.

Kim was nodding off now against Jared’s chest, his arms around her. I imagined she would be very warm there.

“It’s getting late,” I murmured to Jacob.

“Don’t start that yet,” Jacob whispered back — though certainly half the group here had hearing sensitive enough to hear us anyway. “The best part is coming.”

“What’s the best part? You swallowing an entire cow whole?”

Jacob chuckled his low, throaty laugh. “No. That’s the finale. We didn’t meet just to eat through a week’s worth of food. This is technically a council meeting. It’s Quil’s first time, and he hasn’t heard the stories yet. Well, he’s heard them, but this will be the first time he knows they’re true. That tends to make a guy pay closer attention. Kim and Seth and Leah are all first-timers, too.”

“Stories?”

Jacob scooted back beside me, where I rested against a low ridge of rock. He put his arm over my shoulder and spoke even lower into my ear.

“The histories we always thought were legends,” he said. “The stories of how we came to be. The first is the story of the spirit warriors.”

It was almost as if Jacob’s soft whisper was the introduction. The atmosphere changed abruptly around the low-burning fire. Paul and Embry sat up straighter. Jared nudged Kim and then pulled her gently upright.

Emily produced a spiral-bound notebook and a pen, looking exactly like a student set for an important lecture. Sam twisted just slightly beside her — so that he was facing the same direction as Old Quil, who was on his other side — and suddenly I realized that the elders of the council here were not three, but four in number.

Leah Clearwater, her face still a beautiful and emotionless mask, closed her eyes — not like she was tired, but as if to help her concentration. Her brother leaned in toward the elders eagerly.

The fire crackled, sending another explosion of sparks glittering up against the night.

Billy cleared his throat, and, with no more introduction than his son’s whisper, began telling the story in his rich, deep voice. The words poured out with precision, as if he knew them by heart, but also with feeling and a subtle rhythm. Like poetry performed by its author.

“The Quileutes have been a small people from the beginning,” Billy said. “And we are a small people still, but we have never disappeared. This is because there has always been magic in our blood. It wasn’t always the magic of shape-shifting — that came later. First, we were spirit warriors.”

Never before had I recognized the ring of majesty that was in Billy Black’s voice, though I realized now that this authority had always been there.

Emily’s pen sprinted across the sheets of paper as she tried to keep up with him.

“In the beginning, the tribe settled in this harbor and became skilled ship builders and fishermen. But the tribe was small, and the harbor was rich in fish. There were others who coveted our land, and we were too small to hold it. A larger tribe moved against us, and we took to our ships to escape them.

“Kaheleha was not the first spirit warrior, but we do not remember the stories that came before his. We do not remember who was the first to discover this power, or how it had been used before this crisis. Kaheleha was the first great Spirit Chief in our history. In this emergency, Kaheleha used the magic to defend our land.

“He and all his warriors left the ship — not their bodies, but their spirits. Their women watched over the bodies and the waves, and the men took their spirits back to our harbor.

“They could not physically touch the enemy tribe, but they had other ways. The stories tell us that they could blow fierce winds into their enemy’s camps; they could make a great screaming in the wind that terrified their foes. The stories also tell us that the animals could see the spirit warriors and understand them; the animals would do their bidding.