For several seconds, neither side moved.
Liam hovered in the middle of the enormous mountain passage, his newly awakened white wings stretched wide behind him. They were unlike anything the Gargoyles had ever seen. Their wings were grotesque things of corrupted flesh and hardened membrane, formed through centuries of darkness and mutation, while Liam's were completely different. They looked almost unreal, as though someone had taken pure light and given it form.
The feathers shimmered with a faint silver-white radiance.
The air around them seemed cleaner.
Even the darkness surrounding the mountains looked less oppressive wherever Liam's wings spread.
The twenty-eight Gargoyles stared at him.
Their expressions had changed.
Only moments ago they had been hunting him.
Now they were studying him.
Liam slowly looked over his shoulder at one of his wings.
He flexed it.
The feathers moved.
