Aela Darkwood's Arc

Chapter 3 of 13

Aela came back at dusk with the book under her arm and a cloth bundle of leaves in her fist. Lyra was already locking the shop door. She looked up at the lantern hanging over the street, then at the roofs pressing in on both sides. No sky. Only warm orange light and smoke. "We can't do it here," Lyra said. "Lanterns wash out the moon. I need clean light or I read the curse wrong." She tucked a small knife into her belt. "Follow me. Stay close. Don't talk on the path." They walked out past the last houses and into the trees. Lyra moved fast, ducking branches, checking the ground. Aela's bones ached in the old way, half-step, half-limp. She kept the book tight against her ribs. Lyra stopped in a clearing ringed by dark pines. One gap in the canopy opened straight up. The moon hung there, almost full, five nights short. Silver light dropped through the gap and made a pale circle on the moss. Lyra pointed at the circle. "Stand in it. Open the book to the first note you wrote. Put the plants on the page." Aela stepped into the light. Her scars showed white on her forearms. She did not pull the sleeves down. Lyra knelt beside her and pressed her tattooed palm flat to the open page. The dark lines on her palm lifted off her skin and crawled across Aela's writing, tasting the ink. "Curse is bound to the moon," Lyra said. "Five days. If we don't cut it before full, it sets. You stay like this forever." "Can you cut it?" "Maybe. I need to read further." Her finger moved down the page. "There's a knot here. Old one. Someone tied it into you on purpose—" A twig cracked in the trees behind them. Lyra's hand snapped shut over the tattoo. She stood without sound. Her eyes went past Aela into the dark. "Get behind the pine," she whispered. "Take the book. Do not come out for anything." "Lyra—" "Now." Aela ducked behind the trunk. She heard cloth hit the moss. She heard bone shift, a wet grinding sound, and a short breath cut off. When she looked, a lean wolf stood where Lyra had been, blond at the shoulders, one eye scarred. The wolf's front paw was dark, as if dipped in ink. It bared its teeth at the woods and ran. The clearing went quiet. Aela pressed her back to the pine and held the book against her chest. Moonlight still lay on the moss where her feet had been. She had a spot now. She had five days. She had half a diagnosis and a knot someone had tied into her on purpose, and the person who could finish reading it was gone into the trees after whatever had followed them.