Aela Darkwood's Arc

Chapter 15 of 22

They pushed deeper into the woodlands until the trees closed overhead and the rain thinned to drips. Aela found a hollow between two fallen trunks and dropped her pack. Kalen crouched and drew the knife from his coat. The blade caught what little light there was. Red veins ran through the metal like something alive. Lyra sat against a trunk, palm open on her knee, watching it. "He tracks it," Aela said. "Not us. The witch made it. She feels where it is." "Then we get rid of it," Kalen said. "Bury it," Lyra said. "Won't work. She'll pull him to the spot." "Break it," Aela said. Kalen turned the knife in his hand. "It's her leash on him. Snap the leash, he loses the pull." Lyra shook her head once. "Blood in the metal. You break it wrong, it burns whoever holds it." "Then you tell me the right way," Aela said. Lyra pressed her thumb to her palm mark and closed her eyes. Her mouth moved without sound. After a long moment she opened her eyes. "Wolf blood made it. Wolf blood ends it. Fresh, from the one it already cut." Aela lifted her sleeve. The scar on her ribs was pink and clean. She pulled the knife from Kalen's hand and drew the tip across her forearm. New scar over old. Blood welled up. "Hold it flat," Lyra said. Aela laid the blade across her cut. The red veins in the metal drank the blood. They brightened, then dulled, then brightened again. The knife grew hot in her palm. "Say her name," Lyra said. "The one who cursed you. Out loud." "I don't know it." "Say what she did." "She tied me half." Aela's voice cracked. "She kept me from running." The metal shrieked. A hairline crack ran the length of the blade. The runes on the handle went black. The heat cut out like a snuffed match. Kalen took the knife back. He snapped it against a rock. The blade broke in two. No glow. No pull. Just dead metal in the leaves. Lyra exhaled. "He won't find us by it now." Aela wrapped her arm with a strip from her shirt. Her hand was shaking. She hadn't known it would take her name for it. She hadn't known she had one to give. "He'll still come," Kalen said. "He was paid." "But blind," Aela said. "Same as anyone else in these woods." Lyra was already looking past them, back the way they'd come. Her nose lifted. Her jaw set. "He's close," she said. "He felt it break." Aela stood. The rain had stopped. Somewhere behind them a branch snapped under a boot, then another, moving fast. The knife was gone. The hunter was not.