Aela Darkwood's Arc

Chapter 12 of 13

They left the grove at dawn and walked until the trees opened onto a stone-walled diner with lanterns still burning by the door. Aela pulled her sleeves down out of habit, then stopped. The crescent stone hung cool against her chest. Her tail brushed the back of her knees. For the first time in three years, she was choosing to walk into a room as herself. A woman inside pointed them to a corner booth without a second look at Aela's ears. Kalen ordered stew for all three. Lyra sat with her back to the wall, palm flat on the table, watching the door. The food came hot. Aela ate two bites and set her spoon down. "I can smell the salt on the bread from the kitchen. I can hear a kettle boiling two rooms away." She laughed, surprised. "I want to run. I want to see how fast I am now." "Not yet," Kalen said. A hard throb split behind her eyes. She pressed her thumbs to her temples and breathed through it. The stone at her throat cooled again and the pain dulled. "Your body doesn't know what to do with all of it," Lyra said. "You need to hunt before you run. Small first. A rabbit. Something you can track and finish. The senses settle once you use them for what they're for." "Hunt," Aela repeated. The word did not scare her. That was new. Kalen tore a piece of bread. "Tonight. We'll take you out past the ridge." Aela reached for her spoon again. She looked around the diner — the lanterns, the flowers in the window boxes, the woman wiping down the counter — and understood she was sitting still in a public room with her ears and her tail showing, and no one had asked her to leave. Her shoulders dropped an inch. She had a place at this table. She belonged in it. The bell above the door rang. Lyra's hand closed around her spoon. Her nostrils flared once. She went very still. A man stepped inside and shook rain from his coat. Middle-aged. Plain clothes. He scanned the room the way a hunter scans a treeline. "Aela," Lyra said, low. "Don't move." "What." "That scent. It's him. The one who's been on your trail since the inn." Her eyes did not leave the man. "And it's the same wolf that opened my shoulder in the grove." Kalen's hand went under the table to the knife at his belt. The man's gaze swept the booths. It stopped on Aela. He did not look surprised. He looked satisfied, like a debt was about to be paid. Aela's hand closed around the crescent stone. The place she had just claimed as hers had a door, and he was already inside it.