Aela Darkwood's Arc

Chapter 6 of 13

Aela set the branch down on the open book. Its wet end had drawn the knot in soft green lines across the page. She stared at the shape. Six crossings. A rope inside her body. Then the branch flared. Pale veins under the bark lit up bright as lantern glass. The moss around it went white with the light. "Lyra." Aela pulled back. "The stick." Lyra opened her eyes. She reached without thinking. Her fingers closed on the wood. Light ran up her arm. The three cuts on her shoulder sealed. The gray under her eyes lifted. Her dead palm mark warmed, then darkened back to full ink. She sucked in one hard breath and sat up straight against the trunk. "It fixed you," Aela said. Lyra turned her hand over. The swirl on her palm pulsed once. "All of it. My mark too." She flexed her fingers. "I can read again." "Now. Tonight?" "Now." Lyra took the book. She held the branch over the copied knot. The green light lay on the page like water. She traced the crossings with one finger. "Hand knot. Six. Tied by someone who could hold you still. We need moonlight on your ribs and the branch on the page at the same time. Four nights is enough. Maybe three." Aela's breath came easier than it had in a week. "Then start." A branch cracked outside the ring of pines. Lyra's head snapped up. Her nostrils flared. "It's back." "The thing that cut you?" "Yes." Aela grabbed the book and the lens. She pushed them behind the nearest trunk. "You said three days weak. You just healed. Can you shift?" "Not yet. Mark's full but my body isn't." Lyra stood anyway. She picked up a stone. It came through the gap between two pines. Taller than a man on its hind legs. Brown and gray fur across a chest built like a barrel. Yellow eyes. Claws that curved down past its knees. Not a wolf. Not a bear. Something between. "Werewolf," Lyra said. Flat. "That's what cut me." It lifted its muzzle and drew in air. Its eyes fixed on Aela. Not Lyra. Aela. It knew her scent. Aela's stomach turned. The innkeeper. The window. The man who had paid to know where she slept. She had never seen his face. "Run," Lyra said. "Grove's ten trunks. Circle out the back gap. I'll hold it." "You can't fight it drained." "I can throw rocks." Lyra shoved her. "Go. Book first. Me second." Aela ran. She heard Lyra shout, then a snarl, then the wet crack of stone on bone. She did not look back. She kept the book under her arm and the branch in her fist, and the green light bled through her fingers as she went.